Work Text:
Were it not for the singing, Larys wouldn’t have known there was another soul in the godswood that morning. He followed the sound as fast as his leg would allow, and hoped it would continue long enough for him to find the source.
There was a chill in the air, and the fallen leaves scattered across the godswood whispered of summer’s death throes. Not that Larys minded. Harwin, now ten-and-one, considered himself too grown for the games they’d played to entertain themselves in summers past. Now he spent his time riding around the castle grounds, or training in the yard with the master at arms, leaving Larys to watch. Or to wander alone as he did that morning, at his own pace and in his own world.
He smiled as he crunched over yet another pile of fallen leaves while chasing the voice. The closer he drew to the centre of the wood, the more they took on a reddish hue. Leaves from the heart tree mingled with those of oak and ash. By the time he reached the clearing in which the great weirwood stretched out its branches, the ground was carpeted in crimson.
At the base of the tree stood Alys Rivers, singing in a language Larys didn’t recognise. Her long, black hair was worn loose, like a shroud, and she held a bowl in her arms. He stopped to watch for a moment, and felt no need to announce himself. He never did. She always knew when he was there. True to form she paused her singing, but didn’t turn her head as she spoke to him.
“Young Larys,” she said. She always called him that. “Is it polite to stand and stare while the small folk are hard at work?”
“It doesn’t look like you’re hard at work to me, Miss Alys. It looks like you’re singing,” he replied.
She turned, placed the bowl at her feet and her hands on her hips. “Aye I am, but there can be just as much purpose to a song as there is to tending the horses. Now come, sit.”
She gestured to a spot near the base of the weirwood, Larys propped his cane against the tree and sat himself down with little argument. He knew many of his father’s men were scared of Alys, but he never understood why. She never spoke to him with pity, or with averted eyes and hushed tones as others did. And she always had the most interesting stories.
“It sounded like you were singing nonsense,” he said as he crossed his legs beneath him and gathered a pile of fallen leaves in his lap.
“Oh did it now? Listen properly this time. Sometimes you don’t need to understand the words to feel their meaning.”
She picked her bowl back from the ground. From where he sat he could see that she placed it beneath the face of the heart tree, holding it in place with one hand and stroking the bark with the other. Judging by the melody, she continued her song from where she’d left off.
It was a mournful dirge, and as her haunting tones rang out once more, Larys found himself feeling a strange sort of grief.
It was as if he sank into the forest floor, his limbs joining with the roots that spread out from the weirwood. Deep into soil, deep into the past. Long before the name Strong had ever been uttered within the castle walls, and long before any castle had ever stood on this ground. So many had trod these woods before him, their feet tamping flat the earth above his head, unaware he was there at all.
When her song stopped he found himself back in the present, leaning against the trunk of the tree with his leaf pile still upon his lap.
“You felt it, didn’t you?”
When he turned to her he saw what looked to be red tears streaming from the eyes of the weirwood’s face. Thick and syrupy, Alys gathered the liquid in her bowl and was careful to not let a drop escape.
“Sap,” she explained. “Now, did you feel it or didn’t you?”
He nodded, but said nothing.
“Aye I thought as much. You’ve the blood of the first men in you. And, with it, the gift.” She scooped the last of the sap into the bowl and covered it with a piece of waxed cotton. “There’s probably more Strongs before you who had it too, but they never stopped to listen. Now, come.” She gestured for him to follow.
“What’s the gift?” he asked, as he used his cane to push himself to standing and brushed off his legs.
“I told you of the children, didn’t I?” she asked as they set off, once more crunching over the fallen leaves. “How some had power over dreams and could enter the minds and bodies of beasts?”
He nodded again. “And how they made a pact with the first men on the Isle of Faces.”
“Good, so you do listen,” she said, stopping to pull a handful of blackberries from a nearby bush. She passed a few to Larys, and stuffed the rest into her mouth. “Well there are some of us who have inherited the ability to do what they could do. Not many, mind. But some.”
Larys held the blackberries in his free hand, and ate them slowly. One by one. They were ripe and softened by the late summer sunshine. He had to be careful not to let any burst in his hand.
“You said us. Some of us,” he repeated.
“Aye, so I did.” She stopped walking and let out a sharp whistle. A great barn owl swooped down from above the tree canopy and landed upon her outstretched arm. Her eyes glazed over and rolled back into her head. The owl took flight, ahead of where they walked and just out of sight. It reappeared a few moments later with a laden blackberry sprig, which it dropped onto the waxed cotton cover of the bowl, and then settled back upon Alys’ arm. Her eyes returned to normal, and the owl flew skyward once more.
“There’s another bush about thirty paces ahead, just out of sight.”
Neither spoke as they approached the spot she’d indicated, and Larys scowled when she was proven correct.
“That’s just a trick,” he said.
Alys smiled and reached for yet more blackberries. She didn’t eat these, but placed them on the waxed cotton next to those the owl had dropped. Her fingers were now stained wine red, and she wiped her free hand on the embroidered apron she wore.
“Maybe it is. Perhaps everything in this world is a trick, and all that matters is how well you can sell it.”
“I don’t know what that means.”
Alys laughed and ruffled his hair, her hand was sticky with blackberry and it caught in his curls. “No, and I don’t expect you to either. Not until you’re older.”
“Is that why people respect you, even though you’re a bastard?” he asked as they approached the godswood wall. “Because you can trick them?”
She propped the gate open to allow Larys to pass first. “Now that wasn’t a polite thing to say, was it?”
He shrugged. “It’s true though.”
With a small, disapproving noise she latched the gate shut behind them. “People like us must make their way in the world using whatever methods they can. Respect, fear. It’s all the same.”
“What do you mean, like us? I’m not a bastard.”
“No, but I’ve heard the way they talk about you in the castle. The names they use.” Larys Clubfoot. She didn’t need to say it for Larys to understand what she meant. “Your brother is the lucky one. And he has the safety of his inheritance to fall on without even needing it. Second sons must make their own way in the world, and your task will be all the more difficult.”
Larys wanted to argue, to tell Alys that she was wrong. But he knew that she wasn’t.
“You must be smart,” she continued, giving him a reassuring squeeze on the shoulder. “And you must make full use of any gifts you’ve been granted. But first, go on, make the most of the sun before it hides itself away again.”
**
The yard was filled with those enjoying the last dregs of summer. Harwin practiced swinging his sword with a group of boys: sons of his father’s men who cheered and jostled each other. Larys sat with the ladies on a platform that overlooked the yard. They cooed and offered him cakes to mask their pity. He accepted, and then sank back into his seat to watch. Soon enough they’d forget he was there and they would talk of anything and everything that came to mind. Normally it was petty gossip, but occasionally he learnt things he probably shouldn’t. And when he did he filed it away just in case he should need it later.
He also used the time to try practicing his lip reading. They sat too far from the boys and men in the yard to overhear them, but close enough to still see clearly. He could catch enough now to understand the gist of their conversations. Like the ladies, it was mostly useless. Idle banter and the occasional vulgarity from the men, and bravado and games from the boys. Occasionally, however, he caught something useful.
That afternoon was one of the less fruitful. His great uncle had commandeered part of the yard for the maids and servants to help with grain store inventory and preparation ahead of the coming winter, and much of the conversation centred around that. The ladies were on their best behaviour while the Septa made a rare appearance, and so they spoke of nothing more troublesome than the weather.
Larys’ mind wandered back to the godswood, and the trick Alys had shown him with the barn owl. He wanted to ask her how she’d done it, but she never joined them in the yard. She’d be somewhere inside by now, hidden away in the bowels of the castle with her strange bowl full of red sap and her small pile of blackberries.
The ladies sometimes whispered of her in hushed, disapproving tones. They said she was a woods witch, his bastard sister or his bastard aunt depending on who spoke of it, or even an ancient. That she’d lived within the castle walls since the days of Harren the Black. He thought it all nonsense. She looked no older than his mother, and his mother had definitely not been around at the time of Harren the Black. And he’d noticed they never dared say it to her face.
Still, even with no Alys to ask, he could still try to imitate what she’d done. Instead of a barn owl he focussed on the rat that had settled itself toward the edge of the platform. He’d observed the castle rats before. They were smart, and chose their moments carefully. This one watched a small pile of cake crumbs that lay upon the wooden boards, but it wouldn’t move until the area was deserted. No one else seemed to know it was there, safely inconspicuous in the half shadows.
He thought back to what Alys had done earlier. Her glazed over expression, how still she’d become. He rolled his eyes back while looking at the rat, but it seemed to do nothing. Then he tried staring at the rat, so intensely that he feared he’d give himself a headache should he try any harder. Still nothing. And then he imagined leaving his body and entering the rat.
This time he felt his mind slip from himself, and into a tiny, furry body. He could see himself, eyes glazed over, leaning back on the bench. And he could see the ladies, all oblivious to what had just happened. He dared not move - the rat had positioned itself in a safe spot, if he left it he risked discovery. Instead he squeezed his eyes together tightly, and when he opened them he was back on his own body. The rat stared back at him, cocked its head slightly to the side, then slunk back further into the shadows.
**
An early frost had settled over the Riverlands the following morning. It coated the ground and stuck fast to the tree branches of the godswood. The fallen leaves now appeared more like sugared petals, and shattered beneath Larys’ feet and cane as he once more trudged through the wood. He found Alys at the heart tree again, sat at its base with her eyes closed.
“Back again, young Larys?” she asked, without opening her eyes.
“I’ve been thinking about what you said,” he replied. “About the gift. I tried your trick. I became a rat.”
“A rat, you say?” Her tone was one of mild interest, and not half as impressed as Larys had hoped. “It’s a practical creature to choose. They can travel about wherever they want, within reason, and most people don’t even notice them at all.”
He shrugged. “It was there. Anyway I was hoping you could teach me more.”
“Hm? Well then, come sit.” She shuffled to the side slightly and Larys sat down beside her. Though he took care to spread his woollen cloak out below him, he could still feel the cold of the ground beneath.
“Father says a frost that falls quickly means a winter that will be over just as fast,” he said, rubbing his hands together from inside his gloves.
“Does he now? And he’s right, you know. It’s the long, drawn out autumns that you need to worry about. When the nights grow slowly darker, and the land turns grey long before the snows come. They say the long night came in on a slow tide, and one day it will again. The sun will dip below the horizon, and will refuse to return until the Great Other is defeated.” She always spoke in a faraway voice when she started with her stories, like they came to her from somewhere else and she was only repeating them.
Larys closed his eyes to listen, and once more he felt as though his limbs were sinking into the roots of the weirwood.
The frost turned to ice turned to snow. Great, thick drifts that piled high against the walls of Harrenhal and blanketed Harrenton beyond. He saw it through the eyes of the heart tree.
Then the eyes closed, just for a moment, and opened again into another wood. A broad, bearded man paced back and forth in snow that came to his knees. If he felt the cold he didn’t show it. His face was set hard in determination and he muttered something below his breath, just quietly enough that Larys couldn’t catch it. If he concentrated he might be able to the read his lips, but as he tried to focus his vision blurred and swirled.
He saw a dragon. A great, gold dragon that wound its tail around one made of stone, squeezing until it crumbled beneath the pressure. And a wolf. A wolf that bared its fangs and howled at him, larger than any wolf he’d seen, larger than any direwolf from Alys’ stories.
No. No, he realised it was not the wolf. It was him. He was small. So small. Once more looking at the world from the eyes of a rat. He edged away until he found a hollow in the wall, scurried backward and snapped back into himself.
Something obscured the woods from view when he opened his eyes. A biscuit, held out before his face by Alys.
“Looks like whatever you just saw took it out of you. Eat, before you faint,” she said in a firm voice. “It’s hard work, this.”
He did as she said, thoughts still on the visions he’d just seen. The biscuit was highly spiced, and filled with dried fruits. As he ate he felt a warmth returning to his body that he hadn’t realised he’d lost.
“I won’t ask,” she said. “What you see beneath the tree is between you and the gods, but I will say not to worry. It’s rarely literal. And if you can make sense of it, you can make use of it.”
**
Several years later
His father’s summons to King’s Landing hadn’t come entirely as a surprise. All those who’d been at the Great Council had seen the impression Lord Strong had left on Viserys. And now he was king. It was little wonder when the raven arrived, or when King Viserys requested he take the role of Master of Laws. What had come as a surprise, however, was Lord Strong’s decision to take both his sons and both his daughters with him. Some said it was to spare them the curse of Harrenhal, should they be left behind. Some said he simply didn’t want to be parted from his children after losing his wives. Whatever the reason, Harwin, Larys and their sisters packed their trunks and prepared themselves to leave the Riverlands.
There were very few goodbyes Larys needed to make before their departure, but he made sure to stop by Alys’ quarters, deep in the castle, before he left.
“You’re lurking,” Alys said, not turning from whatever concoction she mixed in her bowl. She’d stopped referring to him as young Larys, but her greetings occasionally came to an abrupt stop. As if she had to remind herself he was now nearly a man grown.
“I came to offer my goodbyes, and to thank you.”
“I’ve no need of your thanks. What I’ve need of is dried rosemary.” She gestured somewhere behind her.
He fetched the small caddy where she kept her dried plants, unlatched it, and passed her a sprig. He’d come to know well this dark room full of herbs and dried spices, and great fat books that he swore ought to be in the castle library.
He’d miss it. More than that, he’d miss Alys. Her frank advice and her strange ways. Of course he couldn’t say as much. She’d scoff and dismiss his earnestness, rare as it now was. Instead he contented himself to help her one last time.
He fetched dried plant matter, bottles of unrecognisable liquids and ground herbs as she called for them, then waited as the mixture bubbled over the fire. When it thickened enough that her spoon stood straight, she removed it from the heat and placed it onto a pail of water. When it cooled she decanted it into a jar, which she then passed to Larys.
“If the old ways hold little sway here, they hold even less there. There is still a weirwood in the Red Keep, but should you find any difficulty in communing with it, this should help.”
He held it to the light. Its contents were viscous and wine red, with strange streaks running through it that almost appeared like veins, or roots. He didn’t need to ask to know it held sap from their godswood’s heart tree. He nodded his thanks and tucked it under the crook of his arm.
“I confess, I do fear I will be even more out of step in the Red Keep than I am here.”
“Aye, you probably will,” she said, without a trace of sympathy. “But that doesn’t need to be a bad thing.”
“Yes, yes.” He waved his free hand in a dismissive motion. “Take advantage of times when I am underestimated. Which, of course, I will. I would just rather not feel like a novelty again.”
“Novelty fades quickly there,” she said, turning her back to him to begin tidying the mess that lay across her workbench. “Plenty of second sons have made a name for themselves at court. King Viserys will be looking to fill seats in his small council with men of his own choosing.”
Larys forced a smile. “An ambitious goal, to be sure.“
“Do not say ambitious to mean unlikely.” Her tone was admonishing. One final lesson before he left.
“Oh, and it is to be as easy as that is it? I arrive at court and somehow happen to impress King Viserys?”
She turned to face him and crossed her arms over her chest. Her expression was one he recognised well from his youth, from whenever he complained that her teachings in the godswood were impossible or that he couldn’t do something. When she’d raise her brows and nod as if in agreement. Yes, young Larys, she’d say. Yes, for most it would be impossible feat. And that why you must do it. And he’d huff, and roll his eyes, and try again. She didn’t need to say that now, he understood well enough.
When she spoke again her voice was light and conversational. “They have a rat problem in the Red Keep, you know. I’ve heard tales of two rats for every man.”
“That many? Hundreds, perhaps thousands of eyes and ears in the walls,” he replied, catching her implication. “Privy to every secret in the castle.”
“Quite a boon to someone who knows how to make use of it, wouldn’t you say?”