Wife of the Wolf, Husband of the Sun.
Book 2
Chapter One-Hundred and Seventeen
He had seen their faces a thousand different times in a thousand different ways, from statues studded with pearls and lapis and gilded in gold to rough chalk drawings on a stone wall but their beauty had always shinned through whatever medium the imperfect hands of men had chosen to depict them with.
In this little sept in this little village, the Seven who were One were depicted as unpainted and unvarnished wooden figures who stood in a line in on a raised stone bench at the far wall of the holy building, the gifts of the Smith were in evidence however in the sheer detail with which the little figures were wrought, the Warrior held a sword and the Mother had a babe in arms and the Maiden a carved crown of wooden flowers around her head, the Crone a little lantern.
For a moment he looked closely at the Maiden, a small sad smile pulled at his lips when he saw Rhaella staring back at him. It always happened, sometimes he saw her in the face of the Mother, sometimes in the face of the Crone, and once even in the face of the Warrior, he had taken that as a sign that he was on the right path.
He would have given everything to be with her, his lands and his keep and his knighthood and his name. He would have burnt it all to the ground for Rhaella, but King Jaehaerys had his own plans and thus Rhaella was wed to the monster that she had already been cursed to call a brother.
He had used to dream that he had been the one to kill him, he would have done it if Rhaella had asked it of him but she never had. She had done her duty as a good and dutiful daughter should, and she would have been as beautiful as her mother he did not doubt that.
But he was an old and tired man, he should know better than to dwell on the shades of the past when there were battles in the here and now that needed to be fought. He said one last prayer to each of the gods, asking for strength and mercy and judgment and clarity of purpose before he rose to his feet and strode out of the sept to where his followers would be waiting for him.
A light rain was falling on the village, it was lighter than it had been for the past few weeks and Bonifer sent up a silent prayer in thanks to the Seven who were One for that, storms were common in autumn and they were almost always terrible so a drizzle was refreshing indeed.
A few men called out to him and he nodded in response as he began to walk through the village, they were new followers to the Warrior's sword, and while Bonifer wished to say that he trusted them as he would any man who had sworn a vow before the gods but he could not afford to be so trusting, not now. The Spider's creatures were everywhere, it was said.
Thankfully his own men, his holy hundred, had followed him here. They were scattered throughout the village as well, aiding to bind wounds or leading prayers. He had chosen them before this new calling had come to him and he knew that he could trust them more than anyone in this sinful world, and with them, at his back, they would champion the gods in a world that would try and forget them.
Ever since the crown had been placed on Eddard Stark's brow worship of false gods had sprouted up in the Riverlands like mushrooms after a hard rain, mainly close to the Neck, spreading down to the lands around Seagard and the Twins and Oldstones and even Fairmarket, high and low alike falling under the sway of the gods of the North. There were even whispers that Edmure Tully prayed more in the godswood of Riverrun than the Sept these days
He would not have it.
Thankfully he was not alone in his task, not just the men that followed him but others as well. Bonifer had heard that the King and his council thought that he was the leader of the Seven Swords. He understood why, they saw the men that flocked to his banner and he lead them.
But there were Seven Swords, and he had only been the one chosen to wield the Warrior's.
One sword for each face of god, and one hand to wield it.
He knew some of the other hands, at least a little bit. The Mother's sword was a septa and their role was to help to heal the warriors in their war, Bonnier could already see a dozen of them walking through the village, carrying mortars in their hands and pouches filled with healing herbs attached to their belts that encircled their waists. Most of them were septas as well, but some were simply old women and he knew that even counted a Maester among their number.
"To serve the Seven is to serve the realm," Maester Akon had said after they had finished evening prayers one night. "And I take my vows seriously indeed ser."
The Smith's sword was a wealthy merchant in Gulltown, some landed knight who had risen from nothing on the Fingers to become one of the richest men in the Vale, and his duty was to ensure that they had the coin and all the supplies and weapons that they would need in the wars to come. The Father's sword was Guncer Sunglass, lord of Sweetport Sound and he tried to find them more allies among the highborn.
Bonifer liked the man, he had been there for Rhaella when he could not be. He had championed her and her son in the matter of crowning a new king and had stayed by her side to the bitter end and how could Bonifer have nothing but respect for a man like that?
The only two swords he did not know were the Maiden's and the Crone's, those who followed the Maiden's sword had the duty of preaching to the people, to harden their hearts against any sort of corruption and tell them the truth when it came to the savagery of the Old Gods and the horrors that the Northmen had done in their names for thousands of years.
As for those who followed the sword of the Crone, well, Bonifer was not such a fool as to not understand that men and women of low cunning would be needed in the wars to come but that did not mean that he had to pretend to like that fact. Those of the Crone slipped into the camps of their enemies and brought them tales of what they were planning, who was truly devout, and who was simply speaking empty words when they praised the gods.
He did not like conflating the wisdom of the Crone with such low actions, but it was needed and there was no other face it could fit under and their words had served them well in the past, he could not deny that as their words had most likely saved them from death or rotting in a dungeon a thousand times over by this point.
And then, there was the sword of the Stranger.
The smallest of the orders, thank the gods for that, well, he could not say they weren't true to the god that they had chosen to champion. They were the knives in the darkness, those with no honor who would cut the throats of their enemies rather than meet them in open battle, who would not stare in their faces in the full light of day.
And Bonifer knew who lead them.
He finally reached his destination as he reached where the washerwomen were cleaning the linens, older women with hands cracked and red as they worked and her as well. She was not as old as the other women who she worked among, but she was not young either. Her clothes were well made but they were hardly finery, something the daughter of a well-off baker or a struggling spice merchant could afford more like.
"A word?" He asked as he approached her.
The woman looked up at him for half a heartbeat and then turned her attention back to her washing. "Got linens to wash m'lord." She stated.
"It won't take long." She looked up at him again before she nodded and rose, following him through the village until they came to the inn, the largest building in the village, and he took her to the room that they had agreed on beforehand where they would talk, the one that she had paid for before any of his men arrived.
As soon as they stepped inside and he shut the door the woman walked over to a basin that had been filled with water and began to clean her hands. He did not know her name, not her true one at least. Sometimes she called herself Daisy, sometimes it was Tansy, sometimes it was Clara, sometimes it was Narelle. "What is it that you would have of me, good ser?" She asked, her voice gentler than it had been among the washerwomen.
He wondered which was truly her, perhaps it was neither.
"Have you heard about what happened in the capital?" He asked as he took a seat on the bed as she washed her hands.
"Of course," she finished as she dried her hands on the towel and turned to face him, crossing her arms over her chest. "But I can assume what your next question is going to be good Ser and so allow me to answer it now, the girl who attacked the prince was one of mine. Well, she was. But she was a little too eager for my liking, I had intended to have another of mine deal with her, but it seems someone else reached her and used her to attack Prince Torrhen, though I could not say who as that family has enough enemies."
Bonifer frowned at her words, this was a world of dishonor and plots and it was not for a man like him but he had to try and navigate it as best as he could. "If you are telling it true," which he did doubt, "who else in the capital would wish to see the boy dead?"
"The rose? The Lion? A thousand other houses, great and small?" She shrugged. "None of them, perhaps and someone else we have not yet seen? Another of the swords who reached the girl before I could? I do not know, perhaps we never will. Here is what I find to be truly important however and that is that they may have gotten their wish, whoever they were. For my friends who are sworn to the crone tell me that the boy did die, and then rose again when a red witch used witchcraft on him."
Bonifer had heard much the same as well, though he had heard it as gossip from King's Landing that spread outward from the city, and in truth, he hadn't believed it, it simply sounded unreal. "I have heard, is it true?"
"It seems so," a dark look fell on the girl's face then. "If it is true then we have proof of the evil and corruption that rests atop Aegon's high hill, that the boy bedded down with a heretical priestess was bad enough but if he died and then was risen from the dead with some foul magic then he is a revenant, an abomination in the sight of the gods and it can not be tolerated, not for a single second."
"What do you intend to do?"
"The Seven-Pointed Star tells us that there is only one sure way to put one who is raised to their final judgment, and that is to slay the one who raised them." The girl drew a knife, a plain-looking thing but of good steel. "I have had a dozen septons and septas bless this blade, I intend to sink it into the red woman's heart and make an end to her. I assume you will continue on with your task?"
"Yes," His task had already been decided on and they were too close to turn back now, this was not just a war against men but a war against gods as well and it needed to be a war that they won. "Would it not be better to give the blade to one of your agents?"
"I have few in the capital and none within the Red Keep. The city seems blind to their corruption and loves the King and Queen well, it must be me." The girl put her knife away and walked towards the door. "I am going to go now in fact, the sooner that woman is dead the better off we all will be. Ser Bonifer, I think this is the last time we will see each other so I will say goodbye now, it was good to know, even if it was brief."
He wished that he could say the same, but he would not lie that he still found what she did too distasteful to say that he had ever enjoyed her presence. Still, if this was truly to be the last time that they saw one another he supposed that it behooved him to act graciously. "I pray that the Crone will light your way my lady and that the Father will judge you justly and the Mother will give you mercy."
He was shocked to see the tears in the girl's eyes, and the smile then was the truest that he had ever seen. "Thank you, Ser." And with that, she was gone.
The Septon of the village lead the prayers that night and blessed his men on their holy purpose and it warmed Bonifer's heart to see that there were still good and true men in the world. Once the prayers had been said Bonifer ordered his men to break into smaller groups and spread throughout the Riverlands, it was known now that a royal order had come from King's Landing and that men were being sent as well, to make them face Eddard Stark's justice.
When the men were divided up, Bonifer had only thirty of his original Holy Hundred with him but that was for the best as he had spread the rest of his men out among the groups so he could trust that there were good men who he could rely on to see their purpose carried out, even if he was not their person to oversee it.
There were a few days of hard riding in front of them then to reach their destination but it seemed that the gods were kind to them as the days were dry, though not warm as Bonifer had grown older he had learned to be thankful for each and every one of the blessings that the gods had chosen to send down to them, and being dry was a fine blessing indeed.
It was night when they came on the inn, it was a large and comfortable-looking building, with an iron-wrought direwolf hanging above the door to proclaim that King Eddard had once stayed a night here. Not the sort of thing that you would dare to proclaim in the Westerlands or even the Reach if you wanted to keep your inn from catching a flame but for all the man and his wife were hated in some corners they were loved in others.
They did not stay there, it was simply a landmark to tell them that they were close to their destination. They had dismounted from their horses and walked down to the docks where a hunched back old crone sat sleeping, her toothless mouth open with slobber drooling down her chin as she sat atop a rough wooden stool. She stank of wine and there were at least three skins around the feet of her stool.
Bonifer left her to her slumber and ordered that the woman's boats be placed onto the lake, there were four of them which were enough to carry all of them across the water but it was hardly a pleasant ride as they all had to cram themselves in.
He held his breath as they crossed the lake, it was a dark and moonless night and Bonifer would have been worried about how they would make their landing when they came onto the island but he did not need to worry so very much as it turned out as there were lights on the isle, twinkling through the thick trees that dominated the island.
The boats came to rest on the shore, alongside their brothers who had been launched earlier in the night, and Bonnifer and his men crept up and through the trees to the large clearing in the middle of the island.
It was a wedding, there was a group of twenty in the clearing all of them holding a candle in their hands, old men and plump women and maidens and callow boys all surrounding a comely man and a beautiful woman, the man had a smile that was as bright as the sun and the girl had a crown of flowers in her hair and her smile was as bright as her husband's.
When Bonifer and his men stepped into the clearing all the smiles died and the husband pushed his new wife behind him.
The oldest of the group, a stooped old man with a thick grey beard and wild hair dressed in a roughspun robe stepped forward, he had a thick weirwood staff in his hands. "Evening to you goodman, we are having a wedding at the moment but the blessings of the gods be on you and yours. We have little food to share but what little we do have is yours to share."
"I am Ser Bonifer of the House Hasty," He spoke with a frown, he did not like how the man was speaking to him like he was a common brigand. "You are committing the crime of heresy and the worshiping of false idols, this is not the North. You must cease this at once and repent and seek the mother's mercy, lest you be condemned to the seven hells."
"Good ser," It was the bride who spoke, her voice full of fear but she did not hesitate for even a second. "It's just a wedding, and there is no crime in worshiping the old gods. The King follows them."
"It is a crime of the soul girl," Bonifer answered her. "If you wish for this to be a true wedding then you must say your vows in a sept, now I will say again. Fall to your knees and repent your sins and leave this godless place at once, only then may you find a peace of the Mother's mercy."
"Ah, fuck your Mother!" A grizzled bear of a man spoke and threw a rock at one of his men, the good man cried out as the rock gouged into his skin and blood began to run down his forehead. "This ain't your place!"
What happened next was what was always going to happen in the end, there was screaming and pleading and begging for mercy but in the end, it was done. Bonifer stood, having only lost four of his men while entire the wedding party was either dead or dying or would be soon.
They took the man, clearly a priest of some sort, and hanged him from the highest branch of the demon tree and watched him dangle for a few moments until his choking stopped and the light behind his eyes had faded away.
And then it was time to do what they had come here to do.
The lack of rain was proof of the Seven's power, it wasn't just that they were dry for their ride but it also meant that all the trees were dry as kindling, with the thick canopy of leaves having shield from the worst of the rain from the weeks beforehand. Thus, when the first torch was lit and pressed close to the wood it caught quickly and began to spread.
The light of the fires saw them safely back across the black lake and when they came ashore there Bonifer pressed a golden coin in the hands of the crone, who was awake now and stared gawping at the great fire that was slowly starting to consume the trees. "For taking your boats while you were asleep good woman, may the Seven who are One watch over you in the trying times to come."
And as they climbed their horses once again and began to ride off as the Isle of Faces burned and thick black smoke rose into the night sky, Ser Bonifer Hasty began to pray.
End of Chapter One-Hundred and Seventeen.
So another chapter is done and another one that will show its importance as we get deeper into the story.
Bonifer is always such an interesting character to me and I wanted to show that he does have honor in his way, it's just that when it comes to his faith and others there's a massive blind spot. He's a bit of a hypocritic.
Anywho, next chapter we go back to King's Landing for our first Elia P.O.V.
Also, while not at all intentional I do find it kinda funny that this chapter does have seven in it.
With a ton of love and warmest regards,
DiscordantSymphony