Chapter Text
Like other Dornish houses, House Vaith had sent many of its knights and men-at-arms to guard Dorne’s mountain passes, borders and ports during the Great Spring Sickness, to prevent the plague from spreading into Dorne. Dunk had been hired alongside other hedge knights to strengthen the diminished garrison at Vaith after the departure of those knights and men-at-arms.
“I see that you are not a Dornishman, ser. When did you enter Dorne?” Dunk was questioned, before he was taken into service at the castle.
“Quite some time before the mountain passes were closed, Lady Vaith. We had heard nothing about the illness before we crossed into Dorne.”
A hint of a smile passed across the lady’s face. “Lady Vaith is my great-aunt. She is the Lady of the Red Dunes. I am her heir Lady Cassella. Who is this boy you have with you, ser? Is he a relation of yours?”
“No, my lady. He … he is my squire.”
“He will be housed and fed alongside the other squires in the castle, but we will not pay him a wage the way we are paying you a wage for your service. Your squire is your own responsibility.”
“I understand, my lady.”
“Our captain of the guards will instruct you on your duties.”
____________________
The captain of the guards turned out to be Lady Cassella’s cousin. Varlan Vaith was a stern and solemn man when he was performing his duties, but voluble and friendly otherwise. He was very curious and interested in Dunk’s origin, and how Dunk and his squire ended up in Dorne.
“I am looking for Tanselle Too-Tall, who is not too tall for me,” did not seem like an appropriate answer to give to Ser Varlan’s question about how he and Egg ended up in Dorne, so Dunk merely made some noise about having served a Dornish merchant many years ago, back when he was still squiring for Ser Arlan.
“Are you truly not from the north, Ser Duncan?” questioned Ser Varlan further. “You must have some giant blood in you, as tall as you are.”
“I never knew my father and mother,” replied Dunk. “They could have been from anywhere. The north is as good a place as any, I suppose.”
The look on Dunk’s face must have alerted Ser Varlan about his reluctance to speak further on the matter. The captain of the guards gave a quick nod, and swiftly changed the subject. “My cousin is named after our great-aunt,” he remarked.
“Is that not confusing, ser, to have two Lady Cassellas in the same castle?” Egg piped up.
How many Daerons and Aegons are there in your own family, lad? thought Dunk, bemused at the question.
Ser Varlan took the question in his stride. “Our great-aunt has been called Lady Vaith since the day she became the Lady of the Red Dunes, upon her lord father’s death. When people speak of Lady Cassella now, they mean my cousin, not my great-aunt. Though, when my cousin was a child, some of our kinsmen and kinswomen suggested that she should be called Cassella the Small, or Cassella the Younger, to differentiate her from our great-aunt. She did not take too kindly to that suggestion. Even as a young girl, my cousin could be quite vehement in voicing her objection.”
“I would have objected too,” announced Egg, solemnly.
Ser Varlan chuckled. “Egg the Small does sound quite ridiculous.”
Though Aegon the Younger does not, thought Dunk.
____________________
One morning, as Dunk was busy polishing his sword in the training yard before the start of his patrolling duty, Lady Cassella passed him on her way to the great hall. She was accompanied by three ladies-in-waiting, a septa, and the maester of the castle. She nodded to him and smiled, before continuing on her way. Dunk was too stunned to return her smile, or to make any kind of response at all.
Egg teased him about this later, as he was cleaning Dunk’s boots in the latter’s cramped quarters. It was a small room Dunk had been given, but it gave him and Egg some measure of privacy to speak freely together, for Dunk did not have to share the room with other knights. Egg slept with the other squires in a large and airy hall, though he would often sneak into Dunk’s room at night so he could read his books under the candlelight.
“You should have smiled back, ser. Or at least nodded,” said Egg. “That was not gallant, what you did. You should always return a lady’s smile.”
Dunk sighed. “I meant to smile, I really did. But somehow my lips disobeyed my intention. It did not help that two of her ladies were giggling while they were staring at me.” That made Dunk even more nervous.
Egg seemed to be trying hard to suppress his own giggles. “Perhaps the ladies were wondering if your sword is as big as you are, ser.”
“My sword?” Dunk asked, perplexed. “But they saw my sword. I was polishing it when they passed me in the training yard. They already know how big it is.”
Egg stared at him with exasperation. “Not that sword, ser.”
It took Dunk a while to comprehend Egg’s meaning. Finally, almost belatedly, he understood.
Oh. The other sword. Dunk blushed red. “For a boy your age, you know too much for your own good, lad,” he scolded Egg, to hide his embarrassment.
“I’m very advanced for my age. I’ve been told many times before,” replied Egg, sounding quite proud of that fact.
“Too advanced,” Dunk shot back.
“Perhaps you like Lady Cassella, ser,” Egg teased. “That’s why you got so shy and tongue-tied, when she smiled at you.”
“Don’t be a fool. She’s a highborn lady. Who am I to like her?” And besides, he was in Dorne to look for Tanselle, not to –
“Lady Cassella is already betrothed, ser, to Lord Manwoody’s younger brother,” said Egg. “They mean to marry as soon as this plague is over. I heard it from the other squires.”
“Oh,” Dunk said. “I did not know that.” After a long pause, he added, “She doesn’t look like any Dornishwoman I know.”
“You’ve only known one Dornishwoman, ser,” Egg pointed out. “Not all Dornish people look alike,” Egg continued, his voice sounding like a rebuke.
That was true enough. “You’re right, of course,” replied Dunk, looking contrite.
Later on, after he had finished all his squiring duties, Egg said, “Some of the squires said that Lady Cassella is the spitting image of her great-aunt Lady Vaith when she was young. The same white-blond hair, the same green eyes.”
Dunk was skeptical. “How would those squires know what Lady Vaith looked like when she was young? I doubt their fathers were even born when Lady Vaith was young.”
Dunk had only seen Lady Vaith a few times, from afar, but it was clear that she was quite elderly. Her great-niece Lady Cassella was the one who usually held court, the one who received petitions and passed judgments, the one who listened to reports from the castle’s officers and councillors.
“Is she ill, do you think?” Dunk wondered.
“Who, ser?”
“Lady Vaith. Lady Cassella the Elder.”
Egg frowned. “Don’t let her catch you calling her that, ser. That’s not gallant, to call a woman old, or to make any remark about her age at all.”
“I’m not calling her old,” Dunk objected. “The Elder, as in she’s older than the other Lady Cassella. Older and more respected, more venerated.”
Egg did not look convinced. He replied to Dunk’s original question regarding Lady Vaith, “She’s not ill, as such.”
“As such? What does that mean, as such? Either she’s ill, or she’s not.”
“She’s not ill in her body, but she’s ill in her mind.”
“She’s mad, you mean?”
“Well, that’s what the other squires say. Is it really an illness, ser, if you’re not right in your mind?”
The squires’ hall seemed to be a hotbed for gossips and rumors, thought Dunk, though sometimes it was also a source of valuable information, no doubt.
“Madness is an illness too,” Dunk replied. “The sufferers could not help it, just like people could not help having a bad belly or getting the fever.”
Egg was not really listening. He seemed to have something else occupying his thoughts.
“Speak up, lad. What’s on your mind?”
Egg hesitated, before saying, “I know who she is, ser.”
“Well, of course you do. She’s Lady Vaith, the Lady of the Red Dunes.”
“I mean, I know who she was, a long time ago, before she became the Lady of the Red Dunes. She was one of King Aegon the Unworthy’s mistresses. At least, she was called his mistress in the history books I’ve read and the stories I’ve heard, but I think a different word would have been more accurate.”
That King Aegon’s house words should have been, ‘Wash Her and Bring Her to My Bed,’ Ser Arlan once remarked, as Dunk recalled.
“He chucked her after he grew tired of her, I suppose?” asked Dunk.
“It was worse than that, ser,” Egg said. “She was one of the hostages King Daeron – the first King Daeron, I mean, not my grandfather – took after the Submission of Sunspear. Aegon the Unworthy was just a prince then, Prince Aegon. He kept Lady Vaith – she was Lady Cassella then – as a hostage in his own bedchamber, not imprisoned with the other Dornish hostages. Later, when the Dornish people revolted and King Daeron was killed, the hostages were all supposed to be killed in return. Prince Aegon banished her from his bedchamber and returned her to be with the other hostages.”
“But she‘s alive now, so obviously she was not killed like the other hostages.”
“None of the hostages were killed, ser. King Baelor pardoned them all, and escorted them back to Dorne himself. But Prince Aegon did not know that King Baelor was going to do those things, when he returned Lady Cassella to be with the other hostages. He thought she was going to be killed, and he did it anyway. He did not even try to petition the king to spare her life, or to protect her in any way, after … after he had made use of her in his bedchamber. That was the kind of man my great-grandfather was.”
Dunk was appalled. “Were you named after this Aegon, after your great-grandfather?”
“No, ser!” exclaimed Egg. “My father hated his grandsire. I was named after the Conqueror, the first Aegon.”
“Was he the only Aegon who was not so terrible?”
“I’m not so bad myself, am I, ser?”
“I mean of the Aegons who were kings.”
“The second Aegon fed his sister to the dragon, so he was quite terrible himself. The third Aegon was a pitiful boy who was forced to watch his mother being eaten by a dragon, and he grew to be a sad and melancholy king. If I had to suffer what he suffered, no doubt I would turn out the same way too, ser. The fourth Aegon, well, that was my great-grandfather, and we both know what kind of man he was.”
“Maybe the fifth Aegon will be a better king,” said Dunk.
“Maybe my cousin Valarr will name his son Aegon, and he will be the fifth Aegon,” Egg replied.
____________________
The Prince of Dorne summoned the ruling lords and ladies of all the Dornish houses to Sunspear, to confer about additional measures and precautions that must be taken to prevent the spread of the Great Spring Sickness into Dorne. Lady Cassella made the journey to Sunspear on behalf of her great-aunt.
This Prince of Dorne was the son of Maron Martell and Daenerys Targaryen, related to Egg through both his paternal grandmother and his paternal grandfather. “It’s a good thing Lady Cassella did not command you to go with her to Sunspear, ser,” Egg said.
“Why would she take a hedge knight as one of her personal guards? And even if she had commanded me to accompany her to Sunspear, you would not be going with us.”
Egg looked hurt. “You would leave me here, ser? On my own?”
“Hardly on your own, lad. You seem to have made a great many friends among the squires. And you have charmed and impressed even Ser Varlan. If you were not already my squire, he would have taken you as his squire in a shot, he told me.”
Egg crossed his arms. “Perhaps you would prefer that, ser. Perhaps you would prefer to be rid of me altogether, the pesky boy who has been the bane of your existence since Ashford.”
Dunk crossed his own arms, mirroring Egg’s stance. “And perhaps you would prefer to serve a more gallant and courtly knight like Ser Varlan, a highborn knight, not someone like me,” he retorted.
Egg uncrossed his arms. He looked up to gaze earnestly at Dunk’s eyes. “There were plenty of highborn, gallant and courtly knights at Ashford, ser, but you were the only one who stood up to protect the weak and the innocent, like a true knight must.”
____________________
Lady Vaith finally came out of seclusion during her great-niece’s absence, to hear petitions and to hold court. She did not seem mad, Dunk thought. She looked sad, and mournful beyond measure, but she did not look mad to Dunk, at least not in the way that he was familiar with. She was old, of course, seventy at least, if not more, guessed Dunk. Her hair was completely white, with no trace of the blond left at all. Her eyes, though; they shone as brightly as Lady Cassella’s eyes.
And she seemed alert enough. She heard and seemed to fully understand what was being said by the petitioners, and she took time to confer with her councillors, but when she finally declared her judgment, she did not look as if she was merely parroting what her councillors had told her to say. Dunk did not know enough about the intricacies of land grants to assess the decision she had made, but Egg nodded and whispered, “That’s what my grandfather would have done as well.”
“Lady Vaith does not seem mad to me,” Dunk said to Egg later, in his room.
“She’s not mad all the time, the other squires say.”
“She’s only mad some of the time?”
Egg nodded. “When something distresses her and reminds her of something terrible from the past that she does not want to remember. And they say she is absolutely mad about one thing in particular.”
“What’s that?”
“She believes she’s my great-grandfather’s one true love, and one day, one day very soon, he would come for her, to take her back to King’s Landing, so they could be together again.”
Maybe it wasn’t madness, thought Dunk. Maybe it was true, maybe he did promise her he would come for her one day. Maybe he did whisper sweet words in her ear telling her she was the only woman he would ever love and promising her that they would be together again someday, just before he sent her away to die. Aegon the Unworthy did not seem like a man who would hesitate to tell those lies to a woman.
“She believed that, you mean, while Aegon the Unworthy was still alive?” Dunk asked.
“No, ser. She still believes it now.”