Chapter Text
Rhaena was beginning to think that the number seven was a curse on her when, afore her turning in for the night a bare sennight as they were due to depart the Red Keep, a snowy owl hooted by the window like the clarions of war.
“The Evenstar of Tarth requested aid from the Night’s Watch moons past, chiefly in combating Myrmen pirates,” her daughter peaceably explicated the hasty scribble from the light of a flame dancing on the fingers of her free hand. “Given that the Wall is a distance away, I doubt the Evenstar expected a response from more than the south.”
“And then?” Rhaena hummed.
“As it turns out, the Conclave of Myr did issue a secret commission to a certain man of Saan, the current Penitent of Lys. Tobi found out.” A cock of Maeve’s head echoed the temerity of that last statement. “The Evenstar got his reinforcements – Lady Danny would be expected on his shores within the moon, so it is written.”
Rhaena snorted. “Letting Danny Flint out of Long Barrow would be treated as an oncoming war. Should I expect His Grace your uncle to break down the door with guards in tow for a word?”
“The black brothers are sworn to no war in the realms of men,” Maeve reasoned, her brow furrowed. “And the Winter Throne has no legal authority on Watch deployments, Mother.”
Rhaena sucked in a long breath, mulling over her daughter’s words before she frowned. “The Evenstar of Tarth is a subject of the Iron Throne – why is he looking north? To the Wall?”
“Given the last precedent Tobi set with Lys, I suppose Lord Tarth rolled the bones if the Myrmen would be afeared off his shores,” Maeve pondered. “Or… Mayhaps they are expecting a babe?”
Rhaena opened her mouth, before she pondered.
“…My cousin and first friend Larissa married a Tarth lordling, afore her daughter’s marriage to Greenstone… I do recall that the island is… rich in features – not resources,” Rhaena admitted slowly. “Evenfall Hall is a storied place, and its ruling family traces its line to the dawn of days – they would know how to pander to his whims. Blow out the light, dear, we can think together.”
The flame extinguished, leaving a false darkness and… not the scent of smoke, but more the burning scent that Rhaena associated with many a thunderstorm, especially the ones that would hit Dragonstone now and then in her youth astride Dreamfyre. It was not burning wood, after all.
Yet her daughter did not burn; instead, being as one with the flames in her blood.
Rhaena knew not how the higher mysteries worked. Her first exposure to the White Wolf had been terrifying enough; the second time… the White Wolf had stridden atop the waves of the Bite to arrest the ship, and tug it by the anchor-chain to Bitebay on his lonesome. As a young Targaryen princess she had heard the oldwives and Septas tell of dark things in Winter’s heart; as Queen of the Winterlands, she had seen some of those things – enough to wish for dragon-fire to burn the lot to ashes; enough to awake in cold sweat in the dark of night and scrabble in the sheets for the warmth of her husband’s strong and magical body.
Enough to reflect that mayhaps, the jape of the Conqueror taking only one look at the Lord Commander before turning Balerion around to battle Dorne at the other end of the continent in fruitless war for a decade, was more a mark of his wisdom.
“The Baratheons,” Maeve spoke in the dark. “They are… I doubt any wisdom from the Durrandons would have passed down to them, Mother. Would they see it as the Watch going beyond its remit?”
“What of Jaehaerys,” Rhaena was about as gloomy as the night. “Jaehaerys claimed the title Protector of the Realm – Lord Tarth should have sought out his liege lord or the overlord of the realm. As for Lord Baratheon… my half-brother may be a man grown, but his regent Ser Garon is well-established. Surely Storm’s End could have provided better, if not as well as the distant Watch... the Southron game of lords and thrones should mean naught to us dragons.”
“Tobi would disagree… since they cannot find him, they would find us,” Maeve concluded.
A beat, and then Rhaena started as from the dark, her daughter spoke:
“Mother, would it seem so very forward were I to invite Lord Boremund to share a wheelhouse on the morrow? Mayhaps we should waylay him after the morning prayers.”
Rhaena’s last memory of her half-brother Boremund Baratheon was when the latter was a babe – robust and healthy, red-faced with a fuzz of jet-black hair. Seeing Boremund again that day as he mounted the steps to the borrowed wheelhouse after young Jocelyn, Rhaena held back the tiny sneer that threatened when she beheld the ghost of the late Rogar Baratheon in the boy. Brawny and powerful of frame with a mane of thick black hair and the start of a beard, it was only how he quailed in the presence of her daughter Maeve that showed that old Rogar’s belligerence did not follow his son – or, he had more sense than to pick a fight with an Einheri in close quarters.
“It is so very long ago since I had beheld the two of you properly,” Rhaena warmly greeted her half-siblings. “Harrenhal was a sad affair for us all.”
“I understand that Princess Maeve worships the Old Gods, but we had not seen you at the terce… Your Grace Queen Rhaena,” Jocelyn’s lips pursed. “Rest assured, you missed nothing that Archsepton Warren would not repeat… not all of it polite. Are we not setting out to the Red Keep, Your Grace?”
“No doubt the Septon cursing the Snowy Sept in the meantime,” Rhaena dismissed, her eyes turning to Jocelyn. “I had seen our lady aunt Alys take Letty along to the service – no doubt they would light a candle for dear Uncle Aerion. It is a small matter for us to take along two more – and I was headed to the Dragonpit.”
“I had thought…” Lord Boremund’s lips slapped shut before he would speak further, a glance cast towards where Maeve perched opposite him, leaning back against the wheelhouse seat, with her right foot kicked up over her left leg. “…that my cousins would be much taken with Princess Maeve.”
“Aye, no doubt they wish for another round of the goose-game,” Maeve contemplated. “But they may play as many rounds as they wish at Dragonstone once we ferry the late Prince Aerion’s ashes there to lay to rest. My lord however, would be headed back to Storm’s End in a few days… and thereafter Tarth, no doubt.”
“…you have heard, princess,” the lord of the Stormlands sulked. “Lord Tarth fears that the pirates would overwhelm his forces, and I understand, truly, what with so many a privateer and slaver and Tarth being far out in Shipbreaker’s Bay… but Danny Flint? What would I tell my lords when they know that that… she has come south?”
“Once that Saan is dead, Lady Danny would be recalled to Long Barrow – until the next time,” Maeve noted. “No doubt, it helps if the Stormlanders would kill every ponce of Valyrian origin that crosses their path there.”
The Baratheon siblings stifled identical snorts, Jocelyn especially; lifting her hands, one went to cover her mouth, and the other to grab at the pendant around her throat.
Unlike most ladies who wore the seven-pointed star or some amulet of the Seven or even the sigil of their house, the copper disc was punctured in the middle with a square hole, and then a leather thong was strung through it to hang around her neck.
“I was not aware that Lady Jocelyn was born above the Neck,” Maeve’s comment drew Rhaena’s attention.
“Daughter mine, I was… I had requested Lord Hatake’s assistance then,” Rhaena admitted when Lady Jocelyn started to frown. “It was fortunate that I did – Maester Kyrie of Storm’s End had not the ability to save both mother and child. I… I thank the gods that I had, else your grandmother would not have lived through it.”
“…our mother lived to see Jocelyn’s sixth name-day, at least,” Boremund’s eyes were downcast.
Lady Jocelyn’s hand did not leave her amulet. “…I know that when the Shivers struck, my brother and I both took ill but recovered – and then… well, with Princess Daenerys, my father had offered its use. But once the amulet was taken from me I weakened, and would have expired had our mother not taken it back, and by then… now I keep it with me always, though it is not a symbol of the Faith.”
“It is not,” Maeve agreed. “It is a saining coin from Bitebay – each year at Ne’erday, mothers would bring their babes from all around the White Knife to the Godswood Park to receive the White Wolf’s blessing. Our late great-uncle Prince Aerion had one such coin, as do our cousin the Prince of Dragonstone. It is very much related to the worship of the Old Gods.”
“Small wonder then, that our late father let me keep it,” Lady Jocelyn agreed easily.
“Oh?” Rhaena asked.
“Our mother would tell us tales of the Golden Wedding, elder sister,” Lord Boremund murmured. “And Father… Father had said that in the wedding melee, the Lord Commander had done him an injury; thus he missed the Faith Militant’s invasion of the north.”
“…Lord Rogar said that?” Rhaena’s comment was arch. “I only saw that Tobi kicked Lord Rogar by the culet into the commons. Then again, Tobi kicked everyone out of the melee.”
“Aye, the Einheri – like our half-cousin here the Princess Maeve,” Lord Boremund nodded in Maeve’s direction, his eyes glazed in wonder. “I admit some curiosity of how King Walton Stark would stand measure. Especially were King Walton to wrangle a… recalcitrant vassal.”
Rhaena gave a slow blink, considering the question.
It was however Maeve who answered: “My lord of Baratheon. You speak of my kingly father, as though he is some sworn sword… to wrangle a friend of House Stark, the Lord Commander. Do you understand your words?”
“Peace, my princess,” Boremund raised both hands in a placating gesture. “I am distracted, sooth, and there is a wight to decamp in my Stormlands soon. I would rather that the Lord Commander focus his Watchmen on the Wall.”
“And to which I answer once again, my lord – once that Saan is dead, Lady Flint would be recalled to Long Barrow until the next time,” Maeve’s answer grated like the heavy layers of an iceberg on the march. “I suggest that you had best set the lords of the Stormlands to kill the Saan pirate before she makes landfall and another bloody page on history.”