XXIV: Of Holy Matters

It is said that since the Seven Stones have crossed the Narrow Sea, the people of the southern kingdoms have grown more pious. That is certain of the smallfolk, which came as pilgrims to King's Landing in their droves.

Thousands, then tens of thousands made the journey to see for themselves the holy relics. From the Fingers of the Vale and the many river valleys of the Riverlands, from the Westerlander mountains and the fields of the Reach, from the Rainwood of the Storm lords and the mouth of the White Knife in the North. From Dorne came few, and only those who had acquired some license of safe conduct from a Marcher lord or the other, and thus risked not their life in crossing the Red Mountains.

Processions, miles long, led by barefooted septons, advanced upon the multitude of the roads in the realm. Men and women, young and old, filled with holy fervour. They were ordinary people, desirous of closer company with their gods. They were septons and septas, seeking the slightest measure of divine guidance and revelation. They were wretched sinners, of untold and many crimes, seeking repentance – at the behest of the village septon, sent here to do their penance.

They carried with them staves - wooden sticks with iron toes. They wore long, coarse tunics and scrips - pouches of leather, strapped to their waist where they kept their food and coin. The villages and the septs, septries and motherhouses along the road offered roof over their heads, the fire of their hearts, water, and fresh bread, knowing that the gods would reward them sevenfold. Lords sent their men-at-arms to escort them along the way and keep them safe from robber bands, and the most pious built large guest halls for the purpose of providing hospitality to the pilgrims on their way to the capital.

Still, not all had good in their hearts, for many an innkeeper profited of a pilgrim's plight, offering them cheap wine, bad fish, putrid mean, filthy beds, and hard bread for the road. Yet their punishment would surely come, for many of the pilgrims cried to the heavens against those who had thus defrauded them.

Some had joy in their hearts and upon their face, eager to be so close to something so holy. Some had terror and trepidation, the penance of confession in a place as close to the gods they could be frightening their heart and wits, and their rest was plagued by night terrors most sinister, playing upon their guilt, and making them wake having imagined more sins that they had indeed committed.

The innocent prayed to the Crone to light and guide their way to King's Landing, and the guilty tearfully beseeched the Stranger each night to spare their lives another day, so that they may do their penance, and acquire thus the chance of lessening their damnation, of making it into the lesser of the Seven Heavens, or even in the lesser of the Seven Hells – for it was the fate of those who had failed to confess and atone for their sins until their dying to be cast into an ever-deepening pit, where sinners suffered extremes of cold and heat, of ice and fire, their cries drowning under the sinister laughter of demons. The first hell, where people were gnawed at by venomous worms, sounded far more pleasant than that, and the seventh hell - where sinners would boil in fire and brimstone for eternity in that oven infernal, was a fate that none desired.

There was a septon seeking guidance from above, for a lightning had struck the village sept, and rumours and whispers of the punishment of the Seven abounded. There was a party of village elders who had seen a red sky at night seven times each following another, and now sought the truth of that omen.

There were others, who sought a different kind of relief. Driven by new rumours of the king bringing back his cousins' sons from the precipice of death, and by elder ones, of the king's father visiting those stricken by diseases, they sough the touch of King Baelor's healing hands. Septons spoke of the seven oils of anointment at the king's crowing, and how such imbued the royal touch with healing power, by making the king himself holy. And so came the blind, the deaf, the infirm, soldiers seeking relief from the pain of old injuries, people suffering from a myriad diseases, but carrying in their hearts and souls the slightest of hopes.

There were even others, who had brought along their children, healthy as they could be, not to be healed of some illness, but in hope of a king's blessing, so that their child might grow up a worthy one.

A heavy rain stopping the advance of one day was thought to be the work of some malignant, demonic power, come straight from the seventh hell, to prevent this exercise in piety and damn their souls. It only emboldened them further.

The most holy of relics were though to hold such divine might as to bring the desired joy to the pious and succour to the penitent and the sinful. Carved by the sanctified hands of the Blessed Baelor, the King upon the Hill, and in them residing the presence of the Seven themselves, the Seven Stones were the hope of many.

Besides the septons and the smallfolk, came wealthy merchants, dragged on the pilgrim's path by some wife or daughter with exceeding piety. Lord and ladies came also, but who can say that they came by reason of a pious heart or not to prove themselves less faithful than their neighbours?

And they arrived, and set their sights upon the Seven Stones, and fell prostate in adoration at their sight, praying and crying and singing hyms of praise. Some made to approach the statues with handkerchiefs and aprons to take some divine grace to heal their sick. Some took the dust on the floors of the Dragonpit. Each according to their wealth made offerings of coin to the almshouses and sept of King's Landing, as tithes to the Gods, in gratitude or penance, or in hope of a blessing.

The pilgrims sought the slightest glimpse of the king and great crowds formed every time the king rode through the city, hands seeking the royal touch. Those whose ills were lessened or cured, praised his healing hands, and those who saw no relief saw themselves to sinful, or where shamed by their fellows for not showing enough penance for whatever misdeeds they commited in life. More than once, King Baelor had to unclasp his cloak and throw it to the crowds, for they made to tear at it, as if the clothes of a king held the same power as his hands.

Once the seven moons had passed, and the Seven Stones where returned to the Royal Sept and the King took his Holy Hundred and marched to Dorne for war, pilgrims came still. The highborn came to give coin to the king's new almshouses where septons and septas were in service to the poor and the sick, the old and the infirm, the widow and the orphan. Whetever they did so out of pious inclinations or seeking royal favour, only they know in their hearts.

The smallfolk kept coming for a different purpose. In ages past, the Poor Fellows from their lot had wandered the roads of the Seven Kingdoms, escorting pilgrims, carrying axes and cudgels. Now came artisans and craftmen, masons, stonecarvers and woodturners, blacksmiths and goldsmith, and people of many other professions, or those only of hardworking hands, that sought not the favour of the Warrior, but of the Smith. Wearing habits of course wool or hairshirts, they came and swore the service of their craft to the king, and called themselves the Confraternity of Holy Works, or the Smith's Apprentices.

For the king, once the seven moons had passed, had ordered the clearing of the ruins of the Dragonpit, intent upon building there a Great Sept, one whose like none had ever built or seen. He sought to make holy again the place that had been desecrated by Maegor, when he burned the Sept of Remembrance in dragonflame, and to build a suitable house for the Seven Stones.

The sept was to be built on the foundations of the Dragonpit, from the pale red stone that could be quarried close to the city, and clad in white marble from the isle of Tarth. It was to such a great and holy work that the the Faberards gave their service. The king housed and fed them at his own expense while they worked, and, loath to see their works go unrewarded, gave them wages from his own coffers. Though some would not accept it, King Baelor accepted no refusal, and as such, some gave the coin received to alms, and some kept them, but accepted only coin with Baelor's face, using them as amulets to ward of accidents or illness.