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Renly tastes winter on his tongue as he rereads the letter; strange how a few words on parchment can set his bones to ice and plant a host of phantom hunger pangs in his stomach.
“Are you upset?” Penrose, tentative, brow furrowed, mouth a thin line hemmed in by a red beard.
A fortnight from eating the dead, stores running empty while outside the walls of Storm’s End green and gold banners fluttered full in the wind.
“Why should I be upset?” Renly grins and casually tosses the letter on his writing desk. “Robert bears the Tyrells no ill will; why should I?” Robert hadn't been there, hadn't watched the people of Storm’s End dwindle and gray as the siege wore on. “And besides, the Tyrell boy is only one and ten; no need to have him pay for his father’s sins.” As though Lord Mace had ever paid for his sins.
A wary glance from Penrose, a raised eyebrow. “I suppose this is an easy way for King Robert to keep Lord Mace and the Reach in his good graces.”
Renly smiles the easy smile he has practiced in the mirror. “Then I suppose it’s settled.” As though he has any choice in the matter. As though he has ever had choices, as though he ever will. “Draft a letter to the Tyrells, sort out the details.”
“Of course, my lord.” Penrose is still watching him carefully, as though Renly is something small and fragile. As though he is still a little boy whose ribs show through his skin when he bathes. If Penrose opens his mouth to say something more, Renly doesn’t see it; he is already striding quickly from the room.
He heads for the kitchens and laughs with the serving girls as he steals lemon pastries from a cooling rack.
-
Renly wasn’t supposed to be in the dungeons, but everyone in the castle was too busy starving to keep track of him for very long. He had found a very long stick in the empty stables, and now he poked it through the bars of one of the cells. The man inside was a dirty little lump in dirty little rags, his back to Renly, and he didn’t move when Renly prodded him with the stick.
“Maester Cressen says we might have to eat you, you know,” Renly said conversationally. “I didn’t know people could be food, but Stannis says they can.” When the ragged little lump didn’t answer, Renly scooted over to the next cage. There was another ragged little lump there, but this one stared at Renly with blank blue eyes in a sunken face. Renly poked him in the stomach with his stick, but the man didn’t move.
“Stannis says you tried to escape, so you could fight for the Tyrells,” Renly continued. “You’re a traitor.” Poke poke poke. “I didn’t try to escape. And I’m only six. I told Stannis he should give me a sword but he says I can’t have one, I’m too young, but I’m not too young! Some of the serving girls have knives so if the Tyrells get through they can fight them, and they’re only girls.”
The prisoner didn’t answer and Renly threw his stick down in a fit. He was about to leave the dungeons in search of better company when he saw a shadow move at the corner of his eye. He turned, curious, and saw something small arch into a corner. He picked up his stick and held it out like a sword as he moved closer; when he saw the mother cat and her kittens, he dropped the stick again and knelt down in front of them.
Renly hadn’t seen a cat in a very long time. There had been dozens of them before the siege, catching rats and running wild, and Renly had loved to run after them. But they were gone now along with the dogs and the ponies and even the rats.
These cats didn’t run when Renly sat cross-legged before them. They were probably too weak, he thought. There were five kittens, all curled up around their mother; four were tawny like their mother, but the fifth was black as night, its eyes golden moons in the low light of the torches on the wall.
Renly reached out to touch the nearest kitten. It hissed and backed away, but the black kitten crept closer and sniffed tentatively at Renly’s knee. Renly smiled and tried to poke its nose, but the kitten jumped away at that and hurried back to its mother.
“Are you hungry?” Renly asked them. “I’m very hungry. But” -- he pointed over his shoulder at the prisoners in their cells -- “if you need to, you can eat them. I’m probably going to, eventually.” His stomach rumbled. He wondered if the men would still look like men when they were placed on the table, and whether he would be strong enough to cut them up. Sometimes he was so weak he didn’t even want to get out of bed.
Renly was not a patient child, but he sat still as a stone before the kittens for hours, telling them about his day, and about the siege, and about how he liked looking at all the banners surrounding Storm’s End, even though he knew the men carrying them were responsible for the way his stomach ached at night. The black kitten eventually came close enough to sit by his leg.
He had stopped talking by the time he heard Penrose calling his name, instead watching the kittens and the way they snuggled up to their mother for warmth. Sometimes Renly was allowed to climb into bed and sleep next to Penrose or Cressen, but Stannis always pushed him away and told him he was too old for such things.
“Renly? Renly, are you down here?”
Renly jumped up, then paused to collect himself, because moving too quickly made him dizzy now. He walked to Penrose as quickly as he could, because it was very hard to run. He grabbed Penrose’s hand and pulled him back towards the cats.
“Look what I found!” Renly exclaimed, pointing at his new friends. “They wouldn’t let me touch them, but they let me sit with them. Can I have one?”
Penrose’s face twisted in a grimace and Renly deflated.
Instead of answering Renly’s question, Penrose asked one of his own. “What are you doing down here, Renly?”
Renly looked down at his feet as he scuffed one boot on the hard-packed dirt floor. “I was talking to the prisoners,” he said. He left out the part about poking them with a stick and took the hand Penrose held out to him. “But they didn’t want to talk to me. Especially that one.” He glared at the man with the wide unblinking blue eyes. They reminded him of the painted stones the septas placed on the eyes of the dead at funerals. Renly had never liked those painted stones.
“You shouldn’t be down here,” Penrose chastised, but Penrose never really seemed mad, and so Renly never really felt bad when Penrose caught him doing something he wasn’t permitted to do. Stannis always seemed mad though, even when Renly did good things.
Penrose led Renly out of the dungeons and back up into the halls and chambers of Storm’s End. He helped Renly find a book in the cavernous, deserted library, a book full of illustrations of cats, and Renly happily passed the rest of the afternoon giving names to all the cats in the slim book he couldn’t really read.
The stew that night had chunks of meat in it, and it was the best meal Renly had eaten in weeks. He went to bed still holding his new book, pretending all the cats in it were real and curled up on his bed.
-
Renly went back down to the dungeons the next day, intending to give names to the cats he had found the morning before, but they were gone. His shoulders slumped when he saw the empty corner the cats had hidden in, and he wandered around the dungeons for a good while looking for them before sitting down on the floor in defeat.
One by one, he asked the prisoners if they had seen his cats, but they were as unresponsive as ever. Renly was very sure now that the man with the wide blue eyes was dead. So Renly cried, because he knew no one was listening; even if the other prisoners were still alive, it was clear that they didn’t care to listen to him, either.
It was cold down here, in this little space carved out of the earth beneath Storm’s End, and Renly hugged his knees to his chest and buried his face in the soft wool of his breeches. He wanted the cats back. He wanted Robert back. He wanted food back. He wanted everything back. He wasn’t a traitor, but he wanted to slip out of Storm’s End and run to the men under the green and gold roses and beg for food. He wondered if Stannis had just tried asking. He wondered if that was what the dirty lumps down here in the dungeons had truly been doing.
Renly started when he felt something brush up against his back. He spun around, and there was the little black kitten with gold-moon eyes, its back arched as it came around to rub against Renly again. Renly let out a soft little noise of delight. There had been a little black kitten in his book of cats, and Renly had named her Jenny, after Jenny of Oldstones in his favorite song.
“Are you Jenny?” Renly asked the cat, placing a hand on her back. She didn’t shy away from him as her brothers and sisters had done; instead, she leaned into his hand and let him stroke her back. “I thought you were gone,” Renly told her. “Did your mother leave you?” Sometimes mothers left. Sometimes brothers left. Sometimes you were the only one left behind.
Jenny didn’t answer, but she continued to weave around Renly, stopping every so often to let him scratch behind her ears. Renly thought she probably wanted food, but he had none to offer. He could feel her ribs under his fingers.
Before long, Renly began to fear that Penrose would find him down in the dungeons again. If he did, he would make Renly leave Jenny, and if Renly left her, she might run away like the others had done. So Renly picked her up, ignoring her weak attempts to squirm away, and carefully draped his cape over one shoulder to hide the arm he cradled her in.
On their way back to Renly’s room, Jenny made weak mewling noises, and Renly sang to cover them.
“ High in the hills where the kings that have gone, Jenny will dance with the ghosts!” He sang the lyrics he knew and hummed when he got to the ones he could never remember, and when he got back to his room, he locked the door before placing Jenny on the floor.
“I named you after that song,” Renly informed Jenny. He hopped onto his bed. Jenny stared at him as though she wanted to follow, but Renly thought she must be too weak, so he picked her up and sat her at his side. He showed her his book of cats, and told her all the names he had given them, and the stories behind those names.
Dinner that night was a thin gruel that nearly made Renly gag; Stannis spooned some out of his own bowl and into Renly’s when Renly had licked his bowl clean, and though Renly wanted to gulp it down, he waited until he was the only one left at the table, then stole away to his room with the dregs of the gruel. He watched Jenny lap it up; she didn’t seem to like it anymore than Renly had, but she ate it nonetheless, as Renly had.
Jenny curled up next to Renly that night, and he fell asleep with one hand on her belly, lulled by the happy tremors of her purr.
-
A week later, Renly woke to an empty bed. Jenny wasn’t at his side, though he knew she had fallen asleep there after Renly tucked himself in. Renly’s door was shut tight, but Jenny wasn’t in his room; he searched his armoire and the chest at the end of his bed and the chest beneath the window where he kept his toys, but Jenny had vanished.
It was two hours before Renly ran to Penrose, tears running down his cheeks. He knew he wasn’t supposed to have a cat, and he knew he might get in trouble for having hidden Jenny away, but he had to find her, because she was weak, and where would she get food if he didn’t steal it away for her?
Stannis and Penrose stood together in Penrose’s solar, but Renly was too distraught to worry about Stannis’s presence, or how Stannis might punish him.
“I can’t find her!” Renly burst out, and Penrose looked at him with worried eyes.
“Who are you looking for?” Penrose asked calmly, kneeling down so he was eye-level with Renly. “Who is it you’ve lost?”
“Jenny,” Renly choked out. He looked down at the floor. “I know you said I couldn’t have a cat, but when I went back down to the dungeons” -- They weren’t supposed to know about that part, either, but it was too late. -- “she was the only one left, her mother was gone, and I took her to my room and I gave her my food and today I can’t find her!” He was crying hard now, sobs wracking his body, and Penrose hugged him close.
“Oh, Renly,” Penrose said, as Renly hiccupped against his shoulder. “Oh, my little lord.”
“You should not have taken the cat to your room,” Stannis said. “You should not have been in the dungeons, and you should not have wasted your food on a pet. War is no time for pets.”
Renly cried harder. “I’ll take her back to the dungeons, I promise! I just want to find her!”
Penrose pulled away, placing his hands on Renly’s shoulders. “Look at me, Renly.”
His mouth trembling, Renly forced himself to meet Penrose’s eyes. Penrose looked sad.
“We know you had Jenny,” Penrose said softly. “And you’re not in any trouble.”
“Where is she?” Renly had never felt so small.
Penrose and Stannis exchanged a long glance, and Renly couldn’t tell what it meant. Clearly it meant something that Stannis didn’t like, because he gritted his teeth for a moment before giving Penrose a slight nod.
“She ran from your room this morning when Penrose went to look in on you.” Stannis said each of the words very slowly. “We …” He gave Penrose another look that puzzled Renly. “We knew we had no food for her here.” Stannis looked pained. “And so we released her from Storm’s End.”
Renly sniffled and frowned at Stannis. “Released her?”
“We took her to a crack in the gates,” Penrose said. He squeezed Renly’s shoulders. “It was easy for her to slip through. The Tyrells will feed her.”
Stannis gritted his teeth so hard that Renly was afraid they would splinter and fall from his mouth in jagged shards. They did that sometimes in Renly’s dreams. “The Tyrells will feed her,” Stannis repeated. “They have more than enough food for a cat.”
Renly thought of Jenny feasting on duck and chicken and beef, growing strong enough to jump into warm beds that weren’t his. It made him feel happy and a bit sick at the same time. She would be a safe cat, a safe and happy cat, but he would not be the one to make her so. And Stannis wouldn’t lie. He had never lied. If Stannis said the Tyrells would feed her, the Tyrells would feed her.
Wiping the tears from his eyes on his shirtsleeves, Renly took a deep, shuddering breath. “I’ll miss her,” he said.
“I know you will,” Penrose said softly. He stood and took Renly’s hand. “Let’s go back to your room. I can read you that book of yours, with the cats, and you can tell me about Jenny.”
The stew that night had chunks of meat in it, and it was the best meal Renly had eaten since he found the cats. He went to bed and thought of the stories Penrose had read to him that afternoon, pretending all the cats in them were real and curled up on his bed.
-
Renly’s smile lies for him when his words are not quite enough, at it is frozen on his face now as men in green and gold pay him their respects in the great hall of Storm’s End. I’ve let them through the walls , is all Renly can think. They have gotten through the walls.
And then Renly’s new squire is pushed to the front of the Tyrell retinue, this child Renly is supposed to train to knighthood, though Renly was a child not two years past, though Renly is not a knight. But what should Renly’s comfort matter where the realm is concerned? Starve to keep them out, Renly; now feast and let them in.
Loras Tyrell is young and small and lean, his brown curls long as a maiden’s, and he looks as though a strong wind might break him. But he holds his head high and stands with his shoulders squared, and he looks at Renly with a raised eyebrow and gold-moon eyes, his expression strangely
feline.