DAENERYS VI
"The waters of the Red Fork at Riverrun lay as blank as a mirror before Lord Hoster's funeral. Tully banners flapped demurely in blue, silver and red in the wind as a hundred noble guests stood gathered before the ceremony.
Dany had wanted to cry for him again, for her grandfather, but the tears would not come anymore. They had, though, at first. When he had first died, and how horribly it had all happened, and then once again when she thought about it... And then again, in her bedchamber the night after.
She would miss her old trout grandfather, more than she had thought she would. She understood that now. Why had she been so foolish as to want away from him? He had only wanted to help her, to find her a good match at Riverrun or close to it, someone who wasn't close to... her brother Viserys, over at Dragonstone, half a world away. It was such an absurd notion when one thought of it. Of course she would stay here, with Edmure, and now with Marq.
This was her home, after all. She might not love it, and it may not have been the home her ancestors wished for her, the home that Viserys and Maldaena had wished for her, but here she was. She could not live comfortably anywhere else, other than Pinkmaiden, of course. She was sure of that now, in her heart, and full of regret for her previous anger, for her fury and her desire to go away.
With her stay at Pinkmaiden, she had missed the precious last few weeks of Lord Hoster's life, which was now about to be set on fire on his funeral pyre in front of them all. She sobbed softly, as Septa Merielle held her, and Edmure gave a little tug on her hand.
Septon Chayle was praying and holding a speech over Lord Hoster's life and many good deeds, standing on the wooden platform by the river, with the funeral raft of Lord Hoster's body laying anchored beside.
The Lord of Riverrun was dressed up in his finest shimmering silver doublet, with his great magnificent cloak of red, white and blue, the colours of House Tully, drawn up across one of his shoulders, his sword layn straight down alongside his torso, and his bow and arrow equally tucked in underneath his arm. Over all of it, but still beneath the sword, was a large Tully banner endraping and enveloping the body of the Lord Paramount of the Riverlands, he who had reigned as such for the past thirty years or more, Dany reflected.
Edmure looked up to her with tears in his eyes, though he tried his best to hold them back in the presence of all the men gathered around who were his own subjects now. He needed to appear strong, to take over his father's role. He was even sadder than her, though. Of course he would be, she thought. It was his father. Her heart went out to her foster brother more than anything else.
Poor Edmure. If there is anything I can do for him, to help him in all of this, I will.
The Tully words were Family, Duty, Honour. For the moment, Dany felt more in touch with those words than any of her brother Viserys's. 'Fire and Blood'. She did no longer wish for any secret fires, the ones that burned hot inside of her red day dreams, nor for any blood to be spillt... She only wanted peace, for herself and for those she loved. She hoped that Edmure would find his peace.
There had been something more to happen from Lord Hoster's death, however. Something which none of them had expected, to be sure. The Blackfish, his old and equally stubborn and quarrelsome younger brother, had returned all the way from his service to Lady Lysa Arryn at court at King's Landing, and later more recently the Eyrie.
Dany had no memory of meeting him before, not even when she had been little. His large, craggy and weathered face, with those large bushy eyebrows, seemed an old and stubborn one indeed, just like his brother, but also a kind one, when he came in bearing his heavy leather boots and the light blue cloak around his broad shoulders to give Edmure a consolatory hug.
She tried looking for the family resemblance between her brother and their uncle, and soon found it, though it was hard to imagine Edmure ever growing as old as the Blackfish, in truth. He still seemed no older than perhaps twenty years of age to her, the same age as Viserys, though he was closer to thirty now.
...
"The Blackfish is coming here! He has come back from his service to Lady Lysa at the Eyrie", Saera Paege had been telling her just in the prior days before his coming to the castle.
Dany had had many questions inside of her, but had only asked a few of them. She still did not entirely trust Saera after her having been the staunchest friend of Rohanne's earlier.
"He has grown tired of her", Saera gossiped. "They say she has gone mad with grief after the death of old Lord Jon".
"The Hand?" Melandra had asked.
"Yes!", Saera had confirmed. "He was very old, but they have their young son together."
"Sweetrobin", Dany remembered.
"Yes, Sweetrobin!" Saera had said again. "Though he is sickly as well. And they say he has white eyes, with no pupils at all. And he can barely walk from his own effort for he is so weak."
Dany felt sick from the description, but also intrigued at the story.
"I only ever heard the story that he has dark hair...", she had said carefully.
"Oh, yes!" Saera exclaimed. "And everyone knows that Lord Arryn had flaxen hair in his youth. Flaxen. Can you believe it? Brown, and his father was flaxen!"
"But surely Lysa has the same colour hair as Edmure", Dany had tried. "Maybe Robin takes after her."
"No no no, she has auburn hair. Yes. Red. Just like Edmure. But this boy has dark brown!" She had laughed. "Rohanne told me once. She..." She had gone quiet, after that. "Well... At any rate..."
Dany had only listened to the stories as pertained to the Blackfish himself, but she also began to wonder about Lysa. Edmure would still speak fondly, or at least in a neutral manner about her, she had found, but no more than that. Perhaps it really was true what they were saying.
"They think that Lord Arryn was poisoned!" Saera had said next.
"Who does?" Melandra had interjected.
"Everyone! Have you not heard of it before?"
"I just heard that he died of a sudden fever", Dany said, still none the wiser.
"A fever, when he had already lived through all of this hot summer in his old age?" Saera clearly did not believe it. "It is much hotter in King's Landing, as well. No. No, I cannot believe that", she declared. "I am sure that someone has poisoned him."
"And now someone has killed Lord Hoster...", Melandra had said.
That had put a damp cloth over Saera's excited smiles.
"Yes", she had admitted, without saying much further about it. "Perhaps someone has."
...
The next day they had all been waiting and getting ready for the arrival of Ser Brynden. He was to come on the third or fourth day before the funeral, and so he did. It was mid-day when he arrived, bearing with him a small party of four or five outriders, with the flags of House Tully and Arryn on them.
"This will be the last time I use these bloody eagle banners", he had joked to Edmure after embracing him for the first time. "It is up to her what happens now."
"I know", Edmure had replied, in a tone of deep familiarity. "Thankyou, uncle." He'd nodded.
The Blackfish grunted something out of his mouth as a reply, and gave his nephew a little friendly push on his back, before greeting the others of the keep.
"This must be the little lady of the keep, of course. How are you, Daenerys?"
"I am well. Thankyou, uncle.", she said, in her best and most polite way.
"Well, you certainly found yourself a pearl for a swine!", he laughed towards Marq as he brought him in for a rough tumbling embrace as well.
Marq was about to bristle from the jape, from the insult of it towards him, Dany was sure, but instead he simply laughed it off and returned the hug. Even the hot-headed Ser Marq Piper had to respect the legendary figure that was old Ser Brynden.
"Ahh, it is a sad day that I should not have returned here to my home before this... All of this... business...", the old knight said, chisening his leathery brow and looking up towards the parapets.
"A bit cloudy today, still, is it?"
"I'm sure that the rains will subside in time for the funeral", Edmure said.
"If you say so."
…
And, as luck would have it, they had. There was barely a grey cloud in the sky on the day of the event[ ] itself, though Dany counted perhaps four or five regular white ones close down to the lush green and yellowing tree tops of the horizon.
Septon Chayle stood on the edge of the wooden platform of the river's east side, reciting an old favourite prayer of Lord Hoster's, and reading out loud from the Seven-Pointed Star while some men and women wept silently, and some many others looked on in a stony sense of duty and alware.
The girls who had seen his death, or found him, Vicky and Cranna, were not even present for the funeral. They had cried and screamed far too much to perform their duties of late, never mention to witness the funeral itself. Trissy was, though. She was tough, just like her mother. She looked at Daenerys from the large group of the servants' crowd from afar, where they stood on the grass some few forty or fifty feet inland, the castle on its moat rising up as a silhouette behind them.
If Lord Hoster's raft held true, he would continue upriver, going north, and then east, all the way towards the confluence of the Trident further east, where Dany's brother Rhaegar had once died from the hammer of the Storm Stag, Robert Baratheon. Viserys told the story every time they met.
There, or perhaps a good time before that, if the hay and wood was bothered by the wind, it would tip over into the river and he would join his ancestors in the watery halls of the rivermen and their old gods and kings of old.
But first of all, the small ship that his body floated on would be set afire, per tradition. She already saw the coger of arrows by the side of the small wooden altar where Septon Chayle stood.
On the raft beside Lord Hoster Tully's body had been placed various gifts and tokens from his life, including his old shield, the huge oak-and-iron shield which he had worn while fighting in the War of the Ninepenny Kings in his youth.
Beside it on the raft lay his old hunting horn, the relatively small piece of black polished material the one that he had used for finding aurochs once in his youth according to the stories. She knew that there were still wild aurochs roaming free in the Riverlands, in several places north of Riverrun at least. Usually they would have a single whole aurochs sent to them, to have and eat at especially large feasts, perhaps once a year, such as they had when King Eddard came to visit.
There was also a few of his best doublets and finest silk cloaks, as well as the bones of his old hunting dog which had been saved inside of a rosewood box to use for this particular moment. That had given Dany an idea. She had no particular rich or fine gifts to give to her lord grandfather, at least none so fine as her betrothed, or Edmure, or Lord Jonos Bracken or any of the other guests had to give him. Granted, she was so young, and only a lady at that, so her gift would naturally come from Ser Marq, her betrothed, but still... She knew that Queen Catelyn and Lady Lysa could not be here to give their gifts – the gifts from his true daughers – to him. And so she saw it as a particular duty for her to at least try and give her dear old trout grandfather something of great value, to thank him for having taken care of her during all these years.
But what would she bring him? The thought had occupied her mind for the past nine or ten days or more, as soon as they had heard that the Blackfish was on his way from the Vale. She could have given him some jewelry, of course, and she had done so, choosing one of her Tully rings and a beautiful silver necklace as well, one that she was and had been fond of, especially in her youth. And then she took one of her little ornate pottery fishes from her chamber, but after a small while she saw how many of the other lords and ladies had already taken dozens of things decorated with trouts, and so thought it unnecessary, preferring to instead keep it as a reminder of him.
Then, for half a mad while, she had wanted to take a book, but only a fool would ever burn books. They were simply not meant for it, but instead meant to keep. She would respect the knowledge inside of it, and the maester or acolyte who had helped to write it at some distant point in the past.
Besides, what would Lord Hoster need a book for in the lands of the rivermen's watery halls beyond the grave? The papers would most like crinkle up in the water, even if it truly was transported through the fire somehow and came there, and Lord Hoster would most like prefer to do battle and japes with the old river kings and heroes, if he indeed gaiend his strenght and ability of body back on the other side, not sit and read just as he had done in life. She had a hard time seeing it, but knew that Edmure thought as much. He had seen his father before his illness had befallen him, in his youth, when he had been a strong and powerful man, with a powerful body, a warrior lord's body, to match his angry temper and voice.
Finally, she had realized what she must do, if she were to truly honour the man who had raised her, and the only grandfather she would be like to know. A red and round silhouette appeared itself inside of her mind. The red thing that she had dreamt about, time again and again, despite herself, or in line with her own dreams and desires of it... The egg.
She had believed it to be missing for many years, ever since she was perhaps seven or eight, after that one fantastical memory of that time when they had gone out into Riverrun's muddy godswood and the forests to the castle's northern side, and everyone had brought their toys and spades and things to make mudcakes and a mud-castle, which they had pretended was King's Landing, with Dany's red dragon egg sitting in it like that of Caraxes, the Blood-wyrm, all the way up until Maester Vyman had caught them and immediately become horrified that Dany was taking her precious egg – a gift from Ser Willem Darry and her brother, all the way from Dragonstone – outside into the mud to play with. But Rohanne brought her wooden horse, she'd said, to no avail.
He, Maester Vyman, along with old Septa Albauria and a few servants, had taken care of the egg, taken it inside to wipe it off and then to study that it had not become hurt by the rough handling of it – it had not been rough, and Dany herself could tell more and better than anyone that the egg was happy to be outside with her instead of sitting in its little felt cradle for year after year – but somehow the egg had vanished after that.
They had all taken baths after they got inside on that day's afternoon, and then, after having forgotten about it for some small time, Daenerys had asked him the very next day, where the egg was now. He had not brought it back to her chamber. Maester Vyman had replied something very vague about one of the servants having it placed it somewhere, and that he would look, but hour and hour went by, and still there was no sign of the egg.
Daenerys had cried about the egg, felt as sad as she had ever done, but she did not think it her own fault. Instead she had felt betrayed by Vyman. Betrayed as she had not been since she moved away from her brother. And now it had been the egg, the one and most precious thing that had tied her back to Dragonstone.
The next day after that, she had asked again, which was perhaps the last or second to last time that she had done so, but Maester Vyman had only shaken his head in solemnity and regretfully informed her that the egg must have disappeared somewhere in the castle, but that it would most likely turn up some time or other.
Years had gone by, eternity after longing eternity, as she still held the memory of the egg inside her, hoping and praying that one day, some day far into the future, she would possibly find it again. Moons came and went, she had became one, and two, and three years older, and then even more, but still it had not been found.
Then, only last year, it had somehow made its way back to her again, just as mysteriously as it had vanished, by the wreckless hand of some servant or other who must have swept it away, when cleaning, and had now returned it back. Elsewise, Daenerys could not explain how it had come back, assuming that Maester Vyman spoke the truth about not having had it hidden away all of these years, then, of course. She had asked Trea and Servetta, and Septa Merielle, but none of them knew how it had gotten back to her chamber. Septa Merielle claimed it had always been there, for several years, as far as she remembered. That had made Dany so angry that she'd wished for the egg to hatch in a storm of fire right then and there, to show the old crone how stupid and muddy in her mind she truly was. It had not been there all along, it had been missing. Edmure at least had reacted when she had spoken about it to him, briefly out on the way to the green of the courtyard one day.
"Oh, have you found it again? How lucky!" He'd smiled, and looked down upon her, blue eyes and light auburn hair signalling only the most light-hearted virtues of that which the world had to offer.
"I did", she had said, more somberly, more carefully, before adding, "it must have become gone by some servants, I think". Edmure had thought on that.
"Hm. It seems doubtful, if they haven't told you, or any of your chambermaids. Surely they would remember having stown away a dragon's egg? Have you asked Maester Vyman about it?"
"I have", she had lied to her foster brother.
And then they had kept going, the matter buried in their receding steps towards the forests outside Riverrun's walls. Edmure had gone to practice his jousting, and Dany had went to her ladies. By the late afternoon, the egg was still there, on its rightful place, in the little cradle in her bedchamber, and the commotion around its sudden and unexpected return was muted down, as if it always had been.
She did not trust to ask him about it, asking Maester Vyman, to make him know that she was onto him, if it was truly he who had held onto it for all of those years. No. That would have been foolish. Even when she had first lost it, she had known as much, after a little while of thinking on it. She had recently learnt about the existence of spies back then, and had severely considered the possibility of the maester to be one, if at all possible.
Perhaps he had studied the egg to all of its endful shapes, writing them down in one of his many mysterious books, and was now finished with it. Perhaps he had tried to hatch it himself, but had failed to do so. Or perhaps he had somehow put something foul in it, that was dangerous...
But she had simply let the matter go, content to know in her heart that whatever the reason, the egg was back to her now, some short time, perhaps a moon, after her tenth name day. As her brother Viserys had many times said, dragons knew their riders, their kin. They were blood of the dragon, she and him, and all of their ancestors before them, and no matter what Vyman might have done with the egg, she was certain that it would still call to her, answer and belong only to her, now that it was back, only serve to her, and not hurt her. This much, at least... She was sure.
…
Knowing all of this, it had been strangely easy, although of course hard to say goodbye to her sweet old friend, her child of sorts, as she placed the large round, red scaled egg onto the raft of Lord Hoster's corpse and prayed for it to help him in the afterlife, to protect him and guard over him.
Most of all, though, what it was for her, was to signal a gift to her grandfather, a token of her love for him, who had despite it all, and whatever the troubles between them, been her protector all of these years.
Edmure had looked on her with great eyes, and some many of the other lords as well, as she went forward in her little red-and-blue and silver Tully dress and placed the valuable treasure on the raft.
"Dany, are you sure that you should do this? That egg is yours, yours alone, and very valuable besides."
"I have nothing better to give him", she had explained. "I will have no other grandfather while I live. I wish to honour him."
Edmure had taken her into his arms then, holding her for a moment, stroking her silver hair, and whispering something, some words of comfort perhaps, that she had barely heard from beneath her head and his dark brown coat which muffled half of his words, his jaw pressed 'gainst her forehead.
"You are good to do so, Dany. I know that he will be grateful for it. He loved you like a father."
"Thankyou", she had said, as she gave one last final tap to the red dragon egg, and they both walked up and away from the raft, for Septon Chayle to begin his final prayers before the fire was to be lit.
Chayle spoke somberly, ceremoniously, as always, in his high, thin, wavery voice, as a hundred different lordlings and ladies from all across the Riverlands stood watching, hearing his words, and hoping that the oncoming risk of rain drizzle would not drown them out.
"In the Light of the Seven, we, your loyal servants, all pray to you.
Father, give Lord Hoster the justice that he will be judged fairly for his deeds in this life, good as bad, as well as in the beyond.
Mother, give Lord Hoster nourishment, warm him with your love and watch over him, hold him in your arms so that he feels the safety of his old home even in the strange land where he is soon about to travel.
Warrior, give him strength, so that he may fight as fiercely and honourably as he did in life, and to stand steadfast in the presence of great warriors and kings, to fight by their side, and hold his sword up with his own arms once more.
Crone, grant him the wisdom to see, and to know how to journey in the world beyond.
Stranger, welcome him into your embrace, but let him not linger in the underworld of the seven hells, but rather give him your allowance for passage, up once again into the sacred and eternal river of the old gods of the waters, so that in their midst he may live, and stay, and rest with his own kin.
Old gods of the river, we send Lord Hoster to you, a riverman of mud and blood, born and breathed, risen and raised. Take him into your watery embrace, and let him forever rest now, in your embrace."
As Septon Chayle finished up the words, at least the words for the first part of the ceremony, Dany looked to her brother, who would soon be lighting up the raft.
But before that, they all pushed out the funeral pyre raft into the river. Ser Brynden, Tytos Blackwood, Jonos Bracken, Jason Mallister, Marq Piper, Karyl Vance and Ser Desmond had the honours of escorting their liege lord out into his final destination, as they put their hands onto each one of the corners of the great raft, sliding it out gently across the reeds and waters of the bank.
Dany watched as her grandfather's face slowly began to slide out on the quiet of the calm river, his closed eyes covered by the faith-stones of the Seven. His face was old, and wrinkly, as it had been only mere days earlier, in life, and she recognized him still, as if he was about to make a grumble and shout one final order of milk of the poppy to Maester Vyman.
Alas, he did not. Lord Hoster simply lay there, still as stone, as he slowly, slowly sailed away from the river bank on the current of his own river, the Red Fork. His bannerman all watched him in revered silence, as they held their hands upon their hearts, keeping a silent guard to watch.
After that, as he came out further into the river, the funeral pyre was to be lit from afar. The honour had gone to Edmure, as his firstborn son and heir.
Dany knew that her foster brother was feeling nervous, and prayed silently for him to make the strike true, as the gatherers of the funeral shifted their eyes solemnly onto him, and he took his steps heavily, laden with grief but determined, onto the wooden floor of the platform.
...
Edmure took up his first arrow from the [coger, putting it into the little steel cage and lighting it afire. The rounded tip went aflame, a large orange flame that fladdered in the air around it, as he took it up, nocked it onto the bowstring, and strung it back.
He held the bow and arrow up, only for a short while, looking out towards the river, and then released his grasp. The arrow went flying up and forth, but only a little while, before landing with a plunging sound to the side of the raft in the water.
PLOUSSCH!
Edmure looked down at the arrow's course. It had landed some four or five feet away to the left of Lord Hoster's raft. His aim had not been good.
Edmure gave a little clearing of his throat, as he pulled up another arrow from the coger, trying to be stronger in his back and arms this time. He had to hold it for longer, and aim more to the right.
Lord Hoster's raft was still close by, only perhaps fifteen feet away in the calm stream of the Red Fork, slowly gliding away like a peaceful gathering of old logs, as he made to draw a second time.
He held the bow stronger this time, with a hardness to his back, as he chisened at the sun which shone into his eyes slightly, and tried his best to angle the arrow further to the right as well.
Edmure held, and held, making sure his aim was further right, holding as long as he dared, while Lord Hoster slowly slowly trailed along the current, inch by inch, and his son did his best to uphold the strength in his back and arms, while also closing his eyes to the rays of the sun. He seemed to have gotten a good grip of it, at last.
The arrow went off.
Dany watched it fly, watched it whizzing past her and the others, flying high up over the river in an arched, curved [ ] in the grey-blue of the air, before it came down to land, further right this time, indeed, but now instead too far right, only a single two or three feet away, but still again plumsing into the water and missing the raft.
PA-LOUMSSCH!
The sound was louder this time. It sounded somehow mocking this time around, Dany thought.
Edmure stood still for a moment, not believing that he had truly missed, as Dany watched him think, dumbfounded.
Some of the lords around began to clear their throats as well, slightly uncomfortable, as Septon Chayle looked to Edmure, said a silent prayer to himself and tapped in a revering manner on the little crystal necklace around his neck.
Dany could see the Blackfish coming up to the side of his nephew, offering to shoot in his stead.
"Let me, my lord", Ser Brynden said.
"I can do it", Edmure insisted, taking a final third time of it.
He lighted up the arrow, jerked the bow up, took a deep breath, drew back the arrow.
For a long moment he seemed to hesitate while the fire crept up the shaft, crackling.
Finally, he released.
The arrow flashed up and up, and finally curved down again, falling, falling... and hissing past the billowing sail of the raft. A narrow miss, no more than a handspan, and yet a miss.
"The Others take it!" Her foster brother swore, and she thought she could hear tears in his voice.
The raft was almost out of range now, drifting in and out among the river mists. Wordless, Edmure thrust the bow at his uncle.
"Swiftly", Ser Brynden said. He nocked an arrow, held it steady for the fire, drew and released before Dany was certain that the fire had caught... But as the shot rose, she saw the flames trailing through the air, a pale orange pennon.
The boat had vanished in the mists. Falling, the flaming arrow was swallowed up as well... but only for a heartbeat.
Then, as suddenly as hope, they all saw the red bloom flower, rising in a red roar from the river.
The sails on the funeral raft had taken fire, and the mists of the Red Fork shone orange and pink and red with the flame. Dany felt relief washing over herself, as she prayed her thanks to the Warrior that Ser Brynden's shot had been true.
As they watched the silhouette of the funeral pyre from afar, Dany thought for a short mad moment that she could hear something crack inside the fire. There were many such sounds, of course, of wood and strips of parchment and all of the gifts being taken by the fire, but this one was different. It sounded like the cracking open of crispbread, or the beating of a leather horse whip.
Before she had time to think more on it, though, she was dragged into the embrace of the crowd, as Edmure's lords and knights all came forth to huddle around them, to give praise for the ceremony, and condolences, and to swear him fealty. They came to her as well, as Lord Hoster's ward, and the foster sister to the new Lord of Riverrun. And how strange would that be to get used to? Dany thought quietly to herself.
…
They stayed on after for another while, speaking further with Edmure's proudest and foremost bannermen. There was Lord Jason Mallister, looking regal in his purple and silver eagle doublet, as well as his sons, almost equally handsome, Marq and Edmure's friend Karyl Vance, the magnificent black raven-feather cape and weirwood tree of Tytos Blackwood, and the red horse of Jonos Bracken, the former having brought his tall and gangly son named after Lord Hoster, old lady Shaella Whent, her hair worn long and grey beneath a black sorrow veil, wearing the black bat of Harrenhal, and many more, as well as old Stevron Frey, who had ridden in place of his father, old Lord Walder, who was said to be too ill in his body to travel.
Dany could understand it, in truth; Old Walder Frey was nearing ninety years of age, and had not visited Riverrun in close to twenty, from what Dany understood. But still, it could also be seen as a minor insult that he did not come even to his liege lords' funeral, as Lord Hoster and the Freys had never seen eye to eye. Nonetheless, his eldest son was courteous enough to make up for it, and Edmure thanked Ser Stevron deeply, in heartfelt words, for that he had come at least.
...
They slowly began to walk back towards the castle. Edmure went first, alongside his uncle the Blackfish and Maester Vyman, as well as Marq's little brother Lewys, his squire, and then Marq and Dany, as well as old Ser Desmond and Ser Robyn, Utherydes Wayn, Septa Merielle, Rhialta, Saera, and then all of the others.
Just as they were passing by the brush of the forest to the northeast, however, they were stopped by the sudden appearance of a tiny white figure poking through the tall grass, bushes and reeds along the forest's edge.
At first Dany did not know what to believe she was looking at. Was it a tiny white snow bear, like those of the frozen North? Or a ghost? If it was not, she thought, it was surely the closest thing to a ghost that any living person could be.
It was a tiny white dwarf woman, as pale in her skin as anyone Dany had ever seen, paler than she was herself, paler than Viserys or Maldaena, she was certain, paler than old Lord Hoster had been a day before his death, and wrinkled, with her skin as gnarled as the wood of an old weirwood tree. She had a scruffy mane of long, brittle white hair, two ire-red eyes, and was clad in tattered old clothes of weary grey and brown and beige rushes,
After stopping up an thinking a short while, Marq seemed to recognize the woman, though.
"Seven save us... It's The Ghost of High Heart", he let out in a shocked whisper, as he leaned down to shield Dany.
"Do you know her?" Little Rhialta asked.
"I have never seen her before, but there is talk of her all around the Riverlands. She is an old woods witch who has dwelt here since the time of the Mad King, since the time of old King Aegon even, or even long before that perhaps. … Have you heard of her before, Daenerys?"
"I believe maybe I have", Dany murmured uncertainly.
Yes, of course she had heard of her, she remembered now. Rohanne had told stories about her, Edmure had talked about her on occasion. She was one of the many legends, old and new, that were said to haunt the forests of the Riverlands.
They tried their best to not look head on at the woman, and instead keep on walking, but it was to no use. She stopped them, and came forth, just like any other spectator of the funeral had done.
...
"Greetings, my lord Tully!" The old white-haired woman called out, her voice as dry and cracked as she herself looked, sounding just like the shape of a withered old weirwood tree if it could talk, but her tone was gleeful and respectful all the same. She was clearly glad to have spotted them all.
"Greetings, grandmother", Edmure said as a reply, trying his best to be courteous and kind to his people, even in his deep state of grief. He is too kind for this world, Dany thought to herself. He has protected me all my youth, and now hence forth I must protect him.
She knew that he had called the old crone grandmother as a sign of respect for an esteemed elder, but when Dany thought about, she realized that it might as well have been close to being his own grandmother, from his mother's side.
Edmure's mother Lady Minisa Whent had died in childbed when she was giving birth to him, and the haunted black bat of Harrenhal was her sigil. Ser Oswell Whent had been her brother Rhaegar's Kingsguard, but he had been died, slayn in combat with King Eddard and his brothers in arms towards the end of the war. When Lord Hoster's wife Lady Minisa also died, it was seen as all but confirmation that their line was cursed, or so she had heard from Trea and the other servants, more than once before. Some of the daughters had married into the Freys, and now only Ser Oswell's sister, and Lady Minisa's aunt Shaella, remained, a ghost of her former self, dwelling in the massive black stone keep with her ghosts. Dany looked at the features of the old woman. If anyone were to have living kin who looked like this, she thought, it would have been the Whents of Harrenhal.
"Seven Blessings to old Lord Hoster! He was a good lord, who cared about all of his people. May his spirit rest forever in these streams, those of his noble forefathers", she declared, as she made her way closer up to the group.
"And Seven Blessings to you", Edmure replied gratefully. "I know he would have been glad to hear such high words spoken of him."
"Am I in time for the funeral?" She asked, as she rearranged her walking stick and scratched some of the dirt off her bare soals of her feet.
They were red from nettles, Dany saw, and black from soil and blueish red from blueberries. She must have been walking all the way from her home in High Heart to be here, Dany realized. The little rise of a hill was some considerable lenghth of miles up to the northeast, through thick dense forest and woodland. She truly had to be a witch, and one in true reach with the old gods of the forest, if she had weathered the walk all that way on her bare feet, and with her small frame of body, without being pounced on by a pack of wolves, or taken by bandits, or bitten in her heel by one of the dozens and hundreds of adders that lined the murk and duff of the forest floor, especially now in late and warm summer.
"I regret to say that you are too late indeed", Marq told her. "We put Lord Hoster on his funeral pyre an hour ago. He rests safely with his kin, the old river kings and lords of House Tully now."
"Aye, that be true enough", the old woman muttered, disappointed that she was too late to see the funeral with her own eyes.
...
"And who is that over there, then?" she said all of a sudden, pointing a bony finger out at Dany.
Oh, please no, Dany thought. She was certain that the woman meant no harm, but she found that she had a hard time looking at her nonetheless. Her own eyes were violet, and her brother Viserys's were lilac, but the bright red tone of the albino woman's eyes was something else entirely, something that burned with a strange power, some sorcery or else perhaps... Though Dany had never believed in such things more than anyone else did, of course. Still, she could not shake the feeling that something was wrong with the woman, that she truly was some kind of a witch.
"This is my bride-to-be", Ser Marq said proudly, "and the ward of old Lord Hoster. Daenerys Targaryen, princess of Dragonstone."
The woods witch raised her eyebrow at that, as she fell quiet.
"Is that so...? Aye, I thought she had the markings of her kin. That silver hair, those violet eyes... A true Targaryen, indeed. Might I have a look at her?"
"A look at her?" Marq was indignified beyond belief. "She is not some cattle to be gawked at by the likes of you! Now be gone! You have said your farewell to your lord! Listen to your new one, if you are as old and wise as that tattered hair of yours suggests."
"Marq!" Edmure shot out at his friend. "We must not be discourteous on the day of my father's funeral", he said, doing his best to conceal his grief, even now. "Come, if you would, and speak with her. It's all right, Dany, isnt' it?"
She wanted to tell him no, to beg of Edmure to let them all go back to the castle, but he was playing the lord now, she knew. He had to be polite and strong in the face of all of his people, all of his subjects, both those from the household guards, and the freeriders accompanying them, and even to old dwarf women wandering around the forests to the north.
"I...- I-... Dany tried, but could not get forth with the words.
"Don't worry", Edmure said. "She won't hurt you, Dany. She just wants to say hello to you."
Dany looked up to Marq, who held his tongue with a grim look on his face, seeming as if he was ready to strike out at the old witch with his blade at any moment. But he would not, she knew, if Edmure had told him not to.
She took a deep breath, trying to steel herself, and then walked forth in the tall dew-dripping grass to curtsy ever so slightly at the old woman, who was shorter even than she herself was.
"My lady Targaryen...", the woods witch mumbled, as she took Daenerys's young, pink hand into her old, withered and bony white one.
"Might I look at you, and tell your future, child? I did the same for your kin once, many years past now. Perhaps it be so that I am the very reason you live today."
"The reason that I live?" Dany did not understand. "What do you mean?"
Dany felt truly scared now. But the old witch beckoned her closer to listen, as she began to told the strange tale.
"Many years ago, I came to foretell the future to King Jaehaerys, the second of His Name. I saw then what I still see now, that there was a prophesied one to come from the joining of his line. Through that of his son, Aerys, and his daughter, Rhaella, there would come one who would save all of the realm from a terror which has yet to show its face."
"A terror?" Ser Marq said, wrinkling up his face in even further distrust. "I don't like this one stinking bit. Let us go back to the castle, Edmure."
He tried to take Dany's hand, but the witch snarled and hissed up at him, making him shift in his stand and jump back, startled.
"Seven Hells...!" He swore, as he took a couple of steps back, letting the woman have her way with Dany for the brief moment.
"A terror... " She repeated, once again. "What terror to come is this?" Dany asked, but before she had a chance to hear the answer, the witch asked her a question of herself.
"You are the fruit. The fruit that I foretold that day. You are the coupling of their union, are you not?"
"King Aerys and Queen Rhaella were my Mother and Father", she confirmed.
"Hmmmm... Oh, yes, I see it now", she said, as she read the tiny lines in Dany's hand.
…
"Yes. Yes, it is obvious. You are the one."
"The one?" Dany did not understand. "Which one?"
"The chosen one, born betwixt ice and fire. The one who will save us all from the coming darkness, my child."
She smelled her hand once again, delighting in the sensation before turning her head up to look at her with equally terrified yet tearful red eyes, as if she was staring up at a ghost. And Dany felt precisely as if she were staring down and into the eyes of one as well. The Ghost of High Heart...
She remembered the stories about the old woods witch now. But she had believed those to be ancient, tales from another time. And yet this old and wrinkly woman was still standing before her, though admittedly she looked older than any person Dany had ever laid her eyes on before. Viserys had once told her that they had had an old great uncle who had served as maester high up in the North, up at the Wall, but even he would not be so old as this if he were alive today, she thought. She must be over a hundred, at the least.
"Yes", the ancient, white-haired old dwarf woman repeated. "You are the one, finally. I am sure of it. I told Prince Aerys and Princess Rhaella of it, that the saviour would come from their line, and the king, Jaehaerys the second, listened to my advice, though the young couple were not glad to do so.
But I see now that the ancient wisdom in that prophecy was true. And here is the fruit of their union. Daenerys Stormborn, daughter of Aerys and Rhaella, daughter of fire, daughter of death, mother to new life, the bringer of light, you are the princess that was promised... You are the fate of the world."
Dany flinched away, in a sudden terror, as she saw the radiant red glimt in the old witch woman's eyes, who seemed otherwise so dead, as if she were blind from her condition. She saw me, she saw into another world, Dany realized, and therein she saw me.
She tried backing away from the old woman, but the crone held a firm, unyielding grasp of her hand with her own, strangely harsh, spindled, cold and wrinkled one. Her nails were almost as long as those of the claws of a wild beast, she reflected. As long as the nails of her Father's had been once... She shuddered at the thought, as the words they had called him crept into her mind. King Scab. The King who cut himself. His Scratching Highness... The Clawed King.
Marq stepped forward, at last, wrenching Dany free of the grip of the woods witch, and placing himself firmly between them.
"Not anymore. There goes the line", he said. "That is my lady betrothed you are speaking to."
"Oh, you may wish it to be so, sweet knight of pipers, but she shall be the bride of the whole world. Her greatest mount will be fire, not the bedside of your castle, her bride veil shall be the smoke of fire and the beat of leathery wings, and her sweet and supple bounty is not for you alone to share. She is a gift to the entire world, sweet knight, and you will have to learn to share her with all the rest of those who want her.
From near and far away they will come, when they hear word of her, and what she has done. Dragons, red and black, brothers and sisters and strangers alike... Spiders and skulls, gold and silver, witches and warlords, peace and war, ice and fire. All will they come to claim her, for her sake or for that of themselves and theirs."
"That is enough!" Marq unsheathed his sword, as he wrenched her away from the old witch, laying his tip of his sword right above that of her shoulders.
The old witch began to chuckle, a dry, hoarse and terrible sound, as barren and crackling as the crackles of old dry autumn leaves or the crunching of bones.
"You think I fear it?" She said. "No. I fear nothing no more, now that I have seen that the hope for the world rests within her. I am finally content to die, knowing that my work here on the earth is done.
But you, my sweet knight, will have to follow with her now, if I cannot. If you take my life, you will have to answer for her in my stead. That will be more than a husband's duty to his wife, more than a father's duty to his daughter. You will have to help her, to lead her, and to keep her light safe from the winds of winter and autumn when they come. You must save her, so that she can save all of us."
Marq stood staring at her, for yet another brief moments, as he took in her frightening words, before he slashed his sword down towards the small, short stature of the frail woman.
SWOOOSH!
His sword stopped just short of cleaving her shoulder in half, though, as instead it merely grazed her, making a single long and thin cut across her upper arm, before clanking down on a great stone beside the both of them.
CLAAAAAAANNNNNGG!
The witch regarded her wound, just as a young babe might regard their own hands, when they found out they had some. She was not particularly upset by the motion.
"Blood... " she chuckled, her hoarse old voice gaining strength. "That is what you hoped for to see. Alas, I do not have much of it left now, my sweet knight. And neither will the lot of you have, if you do not heed my words. The enemy is coming, the ancient enemy, from high up north, and only she can save you from it. Seek me out, later on, if you wish, and if I am still here, then. If you are wise enough to see... If not, I shall not trouble you no more. The burden is no longer mine to bear. My work here is done."
And with those simple words, the white-haired little old woman made a turn, clasping her damaged arm with disdainful disinterest, as she started walking back into the grey-green thickets of brush. Wormwoods and wormbunks, blueberry rice and ferns soon covered her from top to toe, as Dany saw the last of her tattered old clothes on her crooked back disappear behind the hem of an old linden tree.
...
"Well... That was mighty strange, my good ser", his little brother Lewys said to Marq, - or perhaps it was meant to Edmure, for whom he was his squire.
Her betrothed waited a while before responding, to make certain that the witch was truly gone from their sight, and would not reappear again, to try and stab him herself with some concealed weapon. Finally, he relented, and put his trusted sword, down, back into its scabbard by his thigh.
"Yes... Well... An old cunt of a witch's words", he sneered to his brother, dismissively, reluctantly, still angry. "Who would believe any of it? Come along, Dany."
They walked back towards the castle, under great silence, as all perhaps secretly contemplated the messages that the old crone had given them. And there had been a lot of them, Dany thought.
Dragons, red and black... The dragon egg was red, her egg, but which dragon was black? Did her brother have a black egg at Dragonstone? Well, yes, she was certain that he did, but it was not one of particular importance to him. Rather, his own egg was a light green and silver one, and the witch had said nothing about green...
And Spiders and skulls... 'The spider' was what they had called her father's old spy master, the eunuch Varys. Skulls could mean death... But it was also the sigil of Ser Richard Lonmouth, her brother Rhaegar's old squire.
And a spear with golden skulls was the sigil of the Golden Company in Essos. The ones who had tried to kidnap her...
'When they hear word of her, and what she has done', the witch had said.
'What I have done'? Dany thought. What have I done? What does she mean?
…
The rest of the ride back to the castle was made in a smoggy silence, as the light drizzle of the rain came upon them again.
Later in the evening, they all sat gathered with Edmure's bannermen for a large but quiet dinner in Lord Hoster's honour, as Edmure made toasts to his father's memory and stories were told about his youthful exploits and adventures. Stories of how he had fought, of how he and Lady Minisa had been wed, and of their children... Much of it, Dany had never heard of it before. Like how they had first met underneath a cherry tree in / at Fairmarket. Tellings of springs when the river had flooded over, and of bountiful summers of old, and harsh winters of famine. The story of how their old ward, Petyr Baelish, had come to foster at Riverrun after his father saved Lord Hoster's life at the Stepstones. Those stories, and then more ones after that...
Dany took more than a good swallowing of wine, refilling her cup to try and calm her nerves, as she saw that Marq did the same thing in droves.
Edmure, meanwhile, tried his best to remain sober and courteous, as he listened and gave praise to all the lords who told the stories about Lord Hoster that they recalled, even managing to laugh loudly at times and smile. Perhaps he knew that his tears would come even more if he had drinked. And soon indeed they did, as he excused himself for the privy and went out to his chamber after two hours, with at least another two or three left before the night would be considered done. Dany was certain that it was his grief over his father, and not the spilling of his drink that made him forego the table in place of a short, quiet moment alone.
…
That night, Dany once again dreamt her dreams of dragonfire. She had not dreamt them in several moons. They had come back to her, suddenly, now that she had placed her egg on top of Lord Hoster's raft.
She saw the red dragon yet again, but this time it one roared once, as it held back to stand almost on two legs, leaning against the wall to the head chimney tower of the castle. Its great wings stretched out behind it, groaning in ire, as Dany heard a loud fateful cracking, the great castle walls breaking from within as the beast moved around, and then all was covered up by a cloud of black smoke.
Then, there was the river. Lord Hoster was lying on his raft again while commoners and high lords alike were running back and forth, screaming, arguing and shouting in terrified tones to each other, no doubt scared of the waking dragon from the castle, Dany thought.
Someone blamed her brother for having unleashed the beast. Some blamed the Golden Company for having rattled the beast to wake when they'd come to the castle with their chains and grappling hooks. Some few blamed her. Most of them, though, blamed the now dead lord of Riverrun.
They were debating Lord Hoster's legacy, with one man doubting that he ever went to fight in the war of the Ninepenny kings, and another one asking how he could have treated his daughters so heinously.
"He always had his sword by his side! Everyone knows it", one man put in. "Even when he was out hunting for aurochs in the woods!"
"He didn't hunt them!" The other man said. "He never did! They were brought to him by others, by his people. He is no fighter at all! No soldier, no warrior! He is a fraud!"
"The aurochs aren't even left in these woods. Far further to the North, they would be", yet another man said, some lord of something purple. Dany thought it might be Mallister, but the shape of the sigil was wrong.
She tried to look closer, straining her eyes in the haze of people and commotion and loudly accusing voices. Was it a purple fish perhaps? A purple bat? She was not certain. It was all too blurry.
Was she dreaming? She thought that she was, but it still mattered. Her grandfather's legacy still mattered, even if she was not awake, she could still make a difference for it here, she felt.
"No", Dany tried saying. "The aurochs are real. We have one to feast on every year. They are hunted in the northeastern woods, and taken here. Not at Riverrun, but further up north. We had one such slaughtered at the King's feast when he came."
But noone would listen. They were all too tall, far too far above her, to notice what she said.
"There was no such thing, child", Septa Merielle said from behind her then. "You have been having your strange dreams again. The aurochs are all dead."
"No", Dany said. "Septa, no. You had a taste of it yourself on the feast. You said it was tender. It was a huge bite of roast aurochs, laying on your plate. Don't you remember? Don't you recall?"
"The aurochs are all dead", the man from earlier said again, in a gruff tone of voice. "And the dragons too."
And then she was falling. Falling through the darkness, through a valley of smoke and death, where high towers crumbled all around her, as she fell and fell down to a hole on the ground, from whence cairns could be seen for the victims of the death that had plagued them.
She saw her father and mother, kneeling down on a strand by the side of a small river, and a great castle burning behind them. Summerhall, she knew it to be, then. The place where her older brother Rhaegar had been born. Viserys had told her of it before.
Her mother's belly was large, pregnant with child, as she cried out, and her father held her in despair, as a hundred souls screamed in agony and burned up in the flaming ruin of the castle far behind them.
"It had to be you..." The woods witch's voice was saying, from the thick snore of bushes close to her parents, watching it all from a couple of feet away. "You are Daenerys Stormborn, the final child of their line, and you will be the one to fulfill the ancient prophecy."
"What prophecy? I don't understand", she said, although she had no voice, no body, only the sight inside her of her parents, lying and clamouring on the beach of the strand, her older brother Rhaegar just about to be born in front of her eyes.
"From their line shall come the prince that was promised", the woods witch said, "and he shall reshape the world, and save it from darkness."
"My brother Rhaegar... But he is dead", she said. "How will we save the world from darkness?"
"He spread his line..." She said. "You are the one. See to it that you can do what he could not."
She saw into Lord Hoster's funeral pyre now. She saw her red egg, snuggled on the blanket of Lord Hoster's enormous red and blue cloak, nestled between firewood and kindling thrigs, as the flames went up all around.
She almost thought that she felt it within herself as well, the rumbling of something, the pain of a bloody something growing inside of her... She felt slick with wet blood between her legs.
And she was sweating, as well. She was more than certain of it, though she could not see it. She did not need to look on herself to know precisely what she looked like. Her hair would be beading with it, her legs twisting and turning in despair, as the heat rose up all around her. I must wake. I must.
And yet... It is not done yet. I must stay on to see it done., she realized.
Her heart was pumping ever faster, as she tried her best to look down upon herself, to see whether she had bled, but there was only the red and yellow flames of the funeral pyre in front of her. The flames danced, alive with light and heat, burning, ever hotter, warmer, hotter and warmer.
...
Then the fire roared, and the red egg cracked."
"
