Chapter 52: Interrogation

Nose wrinkling in disgust, Reiko ignored the bright red berries - so appealing to the eye - and instead ducked under a low branch to reach the small bush of blackberries. Far less aesthetically pleasing but one that wouldn't poison the intestines and leave one rotting from the inside.

Instead they tasted wonderful. Reiko popped the first one she picked into her mouth, moaning at the taste before the rest went into the leather pouch hanging round her neck.

She'd found this particular grove of berry bushes growing at the edge of a set of cliffs to the south of the cabin weeks ago, and they were a gift that kept on giving. These particular berries were native to Westeros and she loved them. Her father loved them, as did Baelon as she had learned…

A wistful sigh passed her lips. "Baelon." The name sang delightfully melodious, an atrocity that no Targaryen from the Spring Prince to he had been named that.

The Prince had come into their lives on a whim from the gods - his arrival traumatic and dangerous, but to them of all people…

No, not a whim, providence. To someone that had trained with the Red Priests, to a transplant from a foreign land that could bring his wisdom to the Prince. Baelon, aside from when he needed his wounds and breathing checked, spent all the last few days with her father. Learning, training, preparing for the anticipated arrival of those that were coming for him. Reiko… hated it. Wishing she could spend more time with him.

Gods, did it make her evil for saying a blessing that he wasn't strong enough to travel out of the woods on foot? Just so he could stay?

Reiko envied Princess Daenerys and Lady Sansa, to be betrothed and have the love of this good boy. I hope by Mother Rhoyne that you'll be good to him. Baelon deserved it.

The woods were a living, breathing creature. To any dwelling within a town or village or castle, they could seem as simply a dark and foreboding thing, but life here with her father had dispelled Reiko's misconceptions from her childhood. Gliding around the trees and brush, watching the deer and boar go about their daily lives. The squirrels jumping in the trees. The birds calling to their lady loves with the song of romance. It was freeing. Something that brought her the most lovely of moments when - as now - her mind was rather jumbled or stressful.

So when the birds stopped chirping it made her tense. They never stopped, even when it wasn't mating season. There was always a crow cawing or a robin cooing - for silence that had to mean there was something wrong.

Something… aberrant. Wolves or wild cats were ubiquitous, so it couldn't be a predator.

Or could it be? A predator. The greatest of predators.

Crouching behind a bush, she closed her eyes. Seeming a scared child, but Reiko was anything but. A lesson her blind father had taught her. To use all her senses, not relaying on her sight alone as most men did. Letting the others focus, the smell of fear in the air… the noises of the forest. Or rather what was aberrant about it?

The birds weren't alone. Animal sounds seemed to lessen significantly, replaced by something far different. Breaking branches. Not the muted snap of rotting twigs but a thwack of a long knife cutting through a thick branch.

Distinctly man-made.

"Spread out!"

Far off, but still distinctive. One that made her tense and break out in sweat. Hunters sometimes came here, but hunters that spoke Bastard Valyrian?

Reiko slowly rose and opened her eyes. Her father knew how to localize sound and trained her to do so as well, so her vision focused in the direction of the call. Down in the valley, ragged cliffs and thick brambles protecting her location at the moment. Her drab brown tunic and trousers helped, melding in with the foliage all around her.

They were along the valley floor, spread out along the game trail. Five to eight of them perhaps. Twenty feet apart at the closest, but they hacked and shoved away the bushes and branches in their way. Ungainly - hunters they might be but not of any wild prey.

But the game trail would lead to the stream, and the stream's banks to the cabin.

Why would game hunters come this deep?

No, they hunted someone. They hunted Baelon.

Reiko needed not see more.

She was one who knew the courtly mannerisms of Dornish and Yi Tish highborns, but life in the woods made her rugged and strong. Reiko leapt over the rocks nimbly, dodged the bushes and brambles with skills honed over the years. Her slender form and petite build was built for this, lungs measured with endurance. Her legs hurt as she pushed herself, but the way home was ingrained in her.

Mayhaps it was an hour. Mayhaps less, but the sun had barely moved in the sky when she arrived at the cabin. "They're here!" she shouted, catching the attention of Baelon and her father - the two men in the middle of training themselves. The Prince holding a staff, eyes closed as he gently acted out the movements she had mastered years before.

No one needed elaborate on who 'they' were. Baelon paled, dropping the staff as he touched the still unhealed wounds on his body. Reliving his turmoil.

Her father on the other hand. "Come." He motioned to the two of them, his calm bark snapping Baelon out of it and bringing her a sense of security. Easing her own racing heart. Before Reiko and Baelon could even enter the cabin her father was back, tossing him a sword and her a bow. Her trusty bow, combined with quiver. "How many?"

Reiko knew he spoke to her. "Five… mayhaps eight, going up the game trail towards here from the south. I don't doubt there are others going in other directions."

"The goat tracks through the western hills… the east is too rocky, protected by the cliffs." He paused, thinking. "They have the numbers, but we know this land."

"A fair fight, then."

Fearful till now, Baelon's lips curved upward at her confidence. "Aye… mayhaps a fair fight, then." But there was still the twitch in his hand, one she shared as she weaved her fingers into his. Baelon squeezed, and Reiko squeezed back.

By Mother Rhoyne, it gave her as much comfort as her father's presence.

Tapping her fingers over the desk in her chambers - Aegon's chambers - their chambers, Nymella Toland stared at the trees outside the window. A beautiful Dornish night, chilly but simply that, not cold as the winters north of the gulf were. Not a cloud in the sky, revealing a stunning moon and twinkling stars.

Perfect for a night making love on the balcony or in the gardens.

Yet nothing could happen. Aegon wasn't there.

And the entirety of the Dornish court was close to detonating wide open with what Valena had overheard.

"It can't be," Nymella murmured to herself. "Mayhaps she misheard?" Did she believe that?

No.

Mayhaps Hoteh acted on his own… being paid by Greyjoy or the Baratheons. Alas, Hoteh was utterly loyal to his master. And that meant… I knew Doran was salty over the King taking Lyanna Stark as his Queen - we all were at the time - but to kill the Crown Prince? If Hoteh was involved, then Doran had to be the mastermind.

Queen Elia's brother.

Aegon's uncle. A secret to tear the Kingdom apart. They needed proof, but also needed to act quickly or else death would claim her and her family, betrothed to Aegon or not. Poison can look like many illnesses…

When the door opened, she sprang up. Hand on a knife hidden beneath her sleeve… "It is I, Princess."

Her heart eased. "Neela, thank the gods." She raced over and hugged her closest friend - a childhood friend from among the servants at Ghost Hill, one she promoted with land and a position as Lady in Waiting upon her father's death. "One cannot be too careful." Ser Brienne was outside and would spare her any worries from troublemakers, but Doran Martell's people weren't enemies, at least not to most eyes. Egg's wolf guards the children. "Did you?"

A nod. "A scarf over my head and no one suspected me as anything but a cleaning wench." She pulled a sheaf of paper out of the bodice of her dress. "From the servant's quarters."

Nymella read it quickly.

Use that cock and arse to tease out Baelon's movements from Prince Aegon.

"I can't make out the handwriting… He was an idiot not to destroy this."

"The gods smiled on us, though."

"A smile would've been discovering this before Baelon left." It would destroy Egg to find out his lover was sent to him to seduce out information to harm his brother… but this mattered not. Only Maron was implicated, not Hoteh. She would need to… "Neela," Nymella insisted, taking her friend's hands in hers. "I have one more task for you."

"Name it, Princess."

A title that only emphasized just how serious her position was, now. The betrothed and future wife to a Prince of the Blood, a dragonrider. The future mother of dragonriders. Nymella broke from her lady in waiting, racing towards her desk. "A message for Maester Toman in Ghost Hill." Dipping her quill in ink, she scrawled something out in the language of the old Rhoynish - few would know other than those of high enough breeding in the Dornish court, so if discovered by a guard or servant most would suspect it a clandestine love letter or something. "Send it by raven, only you yourself are the one to both tie the letter to the bird and release it for Ghost Hill."

Maester,

Have Alon, Chass, and Malcolm ride here with the remainder of my ladies on the double to get here by evening tomorrow.

Marshall my household guard and have it here by the day after to wait a tenth day's ride away from the Water Gardens. Ask no questions and see it happen with all haste.

Sealing it with both the single tail-devouring dragon of House Toland and the Three-Headed Dragon of her betrothed's house, Nymella handed the dispatch to Neela. "Can I count on you to do this?"

Neela curtsied. "I will die before I fail you, Princess."

As Neela headed out, Nymella cleared her throat. "Send Ser Brienne in here, please."

It took barely a moment before the tall Kingsguard entered - as imposing as a man with her powerful build and tall stature, only the still softness of her facial features betraying her as the woman she was. "My Lady," she stated.

"Close the door." Brienne complied, and the two were alone… As alone as one could be in a place such as this. Nymella would have to choose her words carefully. "Brienne, can I count on your loyalty?"

She blinked, but was otherwise unfazed. "I do not understand the question, my Lady."

Sighing, she paced to the window and then back to her desk. "The gods, in their infinite wisdom, have placed into my lap information…" She stepped closer to Brienne, her voice dropping to a whisper. "Information concerning Prince Baelon."

Brienne's eyes widened. "You mean you know where…?"

Silenced with the shake of a head. "No, but I have an inkling as to who set it up."

"We must…" She placed her hand on her sword.

"Stay your hand, we have little evidence beyond a simple hunch - at least against none but a servant." And therein rested everything. Nymella knew not whom she could count on. There were so few with Aegon gone, and all but one were at Ghost Hill. Well… mayhaps two. "Ser Brienne." Nymella considered herself as a taller woman than most, but she was dwarfed by the immense female Kingsguard. Even still, her hard stare seemed to affect Brienne. "Who is your loyalty to?"

"To the King," she replied.

Nymella's brow rose. "And?"

Brienne paused for a moment, her brow crinkling into deep lines of thought. "To the Royal Family," she finally said, the knight casting her lot clear as day. "Long may they reign."

Her face softened - it didn't lose its firmness, but did relax. "Good, remember that." In that moment Nymella knew she was a royal now.

Time to act as a Targaryen should.

"Contact, gully."

Squinting, Jon followed Reiko's soft voice. It took a split second but he spotted the flash of movement. Of a slightly different shade of brown against the backdrop of the ferns and bushes that covered up the small streambed winding down the hill. "Not trackers, are they."

"Not for the forest, anyway." Whispers, enough to not be heard with the background noise of the large valley. "Not yet?"

Jon shook his head. "Not yet."

From the outcrops of moss-covered rocks and fallen trees it was painfully obvious that these men seemed out of place. Raiders who could ride for days and skirmish well were useless in hunting and tracking in these environments, especially against those who knew the land.

Baelon knew he'd have been completely outmatched if tracking Reiko here, but his training did give him an edge over these men. Not this time… not this time, cunts… "Contact, forked tree." Sure enough there were two, pretty open and in front of the main group humping it along the gully. "Forward scouts."

"Bad forward scouts," Reiko snorted, murmuring something in Nihongo - the Yi Tish warrior tongue. Baelon had learned to distinguish them. "Bows."

Grabbing his composite bow, Jon nocked an arrow from the quiver behind his shoulder. "I get left." He closed one eye, letting his breathing calm. There was a twinge in his chest, but he willed himself to ignore it. Not now… not now…

A hornblow announced from the rear of the column, distracting the scouts. Not paying it any mind, Baelon took advantage of the distraction to stand out of cover, loosing the arrow. With a thwack the bow released… and the arrow slammed into the man's neck.

Reiko was a split second after, hitting her mark in the heart. They both darted back behind cover, but his muscles shifted the wrong way, aggravating his wound. Jon groaned in spite of himself - in spite of the hand he clapped over his mouth.

It was enough. "Up there!"

"Shit." He slung off his quiver. "Arrows are yours. I got the javelin." He was always better with those in his training - Sansa would be better than him with a bow the more she practiced, while his sword-fighting translated to more throwing power with the darts. He peered up, only for an arrow to clunk against the rock. "Rushing! Rushing up the gully!"

"Got it!" Reiko darted up and loosed an arrow. The shriek of a man proved it hit home, though not enough to kill - they could do that later, first they needed to fell them. Jon was next and already they were scrambling towards their position, only thirty feet away. He hurled his javelin, the spear with plenty more stopping power. Punching clean through one's upper chest in a fountain of blood. More arrows followed, but they were getting closer…

Hidden within a thick grove of ferns, his green tunic concealing him, Hoon Ti seemed to know the right moment to strike even without his sight. One moment even Baelon couldn't tell where he was, and the next the sightless warrior erupted into view. His curved sword hacked through a man's neck as if Valyrian steel, the cleanest of wounds showering another man with blood. Jon quickly felled another with a javelin while Hoon got to work, anticipating attacks and parrying. Using their surprised and clumsy reactions against them.

It wasn't a fair fight, and before long it was over, the two youths collapsing in their den as the heat of battle wore off.

Reaching out to push himself up, as his elbow bent Jon winced - gritting his teeth. "Baelon!" he heard Reiko scream, only at that moment noticing that something warm and sticky was running down his arm. His comrade reached him, grasping his arm. "Gods, they got you."

He followed her hand and saw the wound. "They just grazed me… fuck, it hurts."

"Bind it and let's go." Where had Hoon come from? The blind warrior was as stealthy as he was intense. "They use the horns to communicate…" Gods, the hornblow… "Horsemen will be on us before we know it." Reiko muttered under her breath but ripped off the hem of her tunic. Tying it tightly around Jon's arm.

He grimaced in pain but endured it. Might not be the only wound he'd take this day… Jon cupped his abdomen. Gods be good.

Was this hard for her? Keeping a facade of a woman oblivious to what was going on around her? An airhead only interested in the finer things in life? For someone that ran a keep on her own and wished for respect… no, sometimes it had to be done as a woman in the higher ranks of highborn society. As someone who wished to destroy any that threatened her soon to be husband, yes.

Aegon wasn't directly at threat, but his brother was. Aegon loved his brother, a closer bond Nymella hadn't seen in her life all too often. A threat to the latter was a threat to the former, and thus her.

The urge to cut and burn was thus hard to suppress but here she was. A stupid smile on her face as she approached the one she knew was responsible. "Maron!"

A broom in hand, the servant whom had gained carnal knowledge of her betrothed - and her by observation - looked up at her. There was a tiny flash of jealousy in his eyes, but it disappeared into an almost overly deferential facade. "My Lady." He bowed. "May I be of service to you?"

She giggled and frittered about in her dress - less modest than her normal wear though it would've been practically prudish in Princess Arianne's wardrobe. Maron was a mere servant, he seemed to lower his walls at her behavior. Sometimes it was easy. "I have a favor to ask of you."

"I am at your command, my Lady."

"It is in line with… what you had done for us previously."

That drew his attention, any guarding disappearing and replaced by something eager. "Oh?" He licked his lips. "I thought his Grace had flown with the fleet?"

"He has, but I was informed that he will be returning tonight. I wished to have a surprise waiting for him…" Nymella giggled. "Two surprises actually." She placed her finger on the corner of her mouth, completing the image of a lusty Dornish highborn.

Mayhaps Maron knew her and her reputation, but the prospect of a night with the Prince clearly overrode any hesitation. "Do you wish me to wait in his chambers?" She nodded, and he was on board. The boy since Baelon's disappearance - one he helped cause - had been used by Aegon twice to vent frustrations, and it was obvious a third time was greatly desired.

Reaching her chambers found the sun had already set beneath the western hills, and the servant girls left several candles lit for them. "Sit on the bed while I get ready." Nymella watched him comply before she simply dropped her dress to pool around her dainty feet - leaving her bare to the world. Maron's eyes flickered to her and then just as quickly averted his gaze. She decided to tease him. "Have you a lovely girl that's caught your eye?"

He shook his head. "No, my Lady." Still looking away.

"A boy, then?"

"No… I simply hope to serve His Grace."

"Aegon can make that happen." She picked up a sheer robe. It covered her shoulders to her knees but one could see everything. "If you please him well tonight, that is." Maron's interest was back, almost desperate. "As such, he and I have been… experimenting with restraint."

"I've heard your… nights together."

"Indeed." Nymella found that disturbing, that Maron heard rather than someone hearing in general. "I was tied up for most of those, and Aegon expressed he'd like to see you the same. Unless you're uncomfortable…"

Maron shook his head vehemently. "No, I serve his Grace in any way." The boy's cock rose, making Nymella smile. Maron was quiet and very eager as Nym's hands tied each limb to the bed one after the other in leather restraints, just tight enough to bind him strongly. Almost too easy…

"I think his Grace would like it if you wore this." A silk scarf.

"My eyes?"

"Oh, yes. He loves it when I wear it."

"Then I have no objection." It went over his eyes, the only bit of clothing left on the boy. Such a shame. He is beautiful to watch with my Egg. There were more pretty boys out there though, loyal ones.

There was a knock at the door, Nymella's body tensing with what was about to happen. She let out a steady breath, calming herself. Forcing the emotion out of her, to be cold and ruthless as she needed to be as a Targaryen Princess. It's time. "Seems the Prince is here," Nymella purred, her tone never reaching her eyes.

The blindfolded Maron never noticed as his cock rose in anticipation. "The glory of the gods themselves." He licked his lips, lust clearly rising at the thought of Aegon.

In that the two of them shared - the only thing they shared. Quickly and quietly donning a thick robe to cover her sheer gown, Nymella opened the door. Ser Brienne was there, face stony. The other three. 'Alon,' she mouthed. 'Chass, Malcolm.' Three of her household swords, strong but lean, perfect for what was to happen. Discreet and… dependable.

Dependable for anything. Even if they had to ride in a single night from Ghost Hill.

While her three swords crept in, Brienne didn't bother to hide her steps. Serving as the stand in for Egg, the blindfolded Maron not telling the difference. "Surprise, my love," Nymella mewled, her words seductive and passionate. "Someone to whet my dragon's appetites while I… perform for you."

"My Prince." Blindfolded and with hands tied, all Maron could do was thrust up with his cock. A sight that caused two of her men to grimace - Alon glanced at the hard member with a little appreciation but his hate of traitors overrode it. "I am here, at your mercy… however would you have your way with your helpless love slave?"

The men were in place, while Brienne stood by the door with a hand on her sword in case things went awry. Nymella didn't expect it would. "Now." Alon immediately scrambled onto the bed behind Maron, grabbing the servant's head and ripping off the blindfold. While his two companions brandished a hammer and knife each, Alon removed a device from his belt - it was a thick strap of leather connected to a large patch of wood on one side and a winch on the other. He looped it on Maron's head with the patch covering his eye. Tightening the winch, any further and it would cause excruciating pain as the head was squeezed and the eye compressed. Quite the nifty piece of torture engineering. "Alright, let us begin to find the truth," Nymella announced.

Whatever lust and passion he'd expressed were gone, melted into fear and quite a lot of confusion. "What… what is this?!" he sputtered. Nymella detected a tone of anger.

The rage welled inside of her. "What business have you with Areo Hoteh?"

"I know not…" Nymella slapped him. "You bitch!"

Suddenly, Malcolm crashed his hammer into Maron's arm, making the servant scream - at least try to as Chass shoved a gag in his mouth. Nymella drew back, crossing her arms. "Why does Hoteh want Prince Baelon dead?"

Tears in his eye, Maron cried out. "I don't know…" A single nod from Nymella found Alon tightening the cord. It compressed the eye, and Maron screamed again into the gag. "I don't know Hoteh! He doesn't want anything from me!"

Another nod, and another muffled scream. "I know you're lying, insect." Alon twisted the winch further, the wood cutting into his skin. "Are you going to cooperate or must we continue this dance?"

Maron said nothing, clearly paralyzed by fear.

Unfortunate for him. "Very well then." She nodded to Chass, who drew out a knife. "Better look away, Ser Brienne. This will get ugly."

Brienne was steadfast. "Do what you have to, my Lady."

Alright then. "Chass, do it."

The knife drifted to Maron's cock. "No! No wait!" It did not stop.