THE STORM
“-. 274 AC .-“
Gods below, King’s Landing smelled like shit! Even after his prior visits, the stench was so overpowering that he nearly fell over as soon as they entered the harbour. Which would have been an embarrassing end to the glorious epic of his life, seeing as he was standing atop the Windproud’s highest spar at the time! Fortunately, he was able to climb down the rigging without suffering anything more serious than rope burn. Not that Cressen fussed over him any less, but that was par for the course with the good maester. Honestly, that man! And he didn’t have the decency to even pretend at having the same problem. Goes to show what sort of iron stomach tasting piss every morning gets you.
They arrived half-way through low tide while the bigger quays were already occupied, so the Windproud couldn’t dock outright, having to instead lay anchor out in the shallows. That was all to the good though! It let him send a few men ahead of their own boat to ready horses and scout out the situation, as it were. Which they did most gallantly!
If only he could say the same about the news, but he couldn’t! It wasn’t gallant! It wasn’t gallant at all!
One frantic dash to their new mounts and a positively
unheroic charge to the Red Keep later, Steffon Baratheon barged into the Great Hall just in time to hear the tail-ends of the
verdict.
“-the gall to present yourself now, after all is said and done, and claim no part! You, whose forebears all but dispossessed House Targaryen during the Dance of Dragons! You sit there professing innocence as if we should be unaware that Hightower has always played both sides whenever others sought to usurp the Seven Kingdoms and its way of life! The streets of Oldtown are red with the blood of those you silenced, and still you’d have me believe you and yours were wholly nonbelligerent! Even though your actions are the singular reason why none may make any account of the truth! And now you
dare mock the Gods as well, throwing my offer of Trial by Battle in my face! But then you would, wouldn’t you? You Hightowers never fight a battle you don’t stack, why would you start here? I wonder, is there even anyone left that would speak for you now?”
“Forsooth!” Steffon bellowed, pushing past the last gawkers into the open. “Who cares about speaking
for him, I’ve a mind to speak
at him a spell! You!”
Lord Leyton Hightower stared at him from where he was kneeling at the foot of the throne, two Kingsguard swords crossed at his neck.
“Yes, you! What’s wrong with you? Stop gawking, man! So what if everyone’s a pussy and won’t fight for you? Who cares if it’s a Kingsguard pulling the other sword? So what if you don’t think you’ll win, you should still try! Oh, it’s hopeless so there’s no point in trying, is that it? You want to preserve some last shred of glory instead of dying ignobly, is that it? Who cares if it steals your last shred of glory!? Glory is for the soldier! For the levy, the warrior, for the writer of songs! A paltry comfort for those who need it, barely any reward at all! The shiny liquor to numb the pain of atrocity! We’re high lords, we don’t get to indulge this fantasy! There’s just two things we get to rely on: duty and sense! Your duty to your people and your duty to the cause, whatever it is! Will you just sit there quietly, not doing your part? Your people did their duty, didn’t they? They sacrificed for the cause, and then were sacrificed when they strayed from it, isn’t that right? It’s your turn now! If your duty is to know when that sacrifice must come, then you’ve already failed once, haven’t you? Are you going to fail again? So much for sense! Sense isn’t just about seeing all paths to victory, it’s about sacrifice with clarity! Don’t fall so hard for one path that you ignore the others! Or will you reject the way forward because the things that drove you to this point happen to suck balls? Only a fool is ruled by pain or emotion! Only the weak try to cut themselves off these feelings instead of controlling them! Don’t numb yourself to survival or death, whether yours or anyone else’s, or you’re as good as dead! The dead do no good for anyone!”
The Great Hall of the Red Keep fairly shook as if beset by gale winds, as well it should! Then everyone everywhere looked at the Lord of Storm’s End and Paramount of the Stormlands as if they couldn’t even begin to comprehend his great wisdom, as usual. Even Tywin from up next to the throne. He even had the nerve to close his eyes as if in pain, the goldilocked shite! Never mind that he was only speaking common sense!
“…Lord Baratheon.”
“My king!” Steffon beamed. “Thank the gods these pressures are not imposing on you unduly, you almost look self-possessed! I wouldn’t look
half as kept if I were beset by so many rats, let alone if I’d suffered so many ‘losses’ in my family.” He took a pause after air quoting to inspect Aerys’ appearance properly. When he was done, he let his public smile be replaced by his other, warmer one. “I’m glad.”
Aerys seemed taken aback. By his warmth? Or maybe his honesty? Maybe he was just shocked to see him at all. He could never tell with him, Targaryens were always so dramatic!
“Steffon,” Aerys sighed, slumping back on the Iron Throne only to jerk in place with a hiss as he cut himself on some blade or other. Something ugly overtook his face. “
Lord Baratheon. You were not called to speak.”
“I wasn’t summoned to Court either, Your Grace, yet here I am.”
“Yes, as my own eyes inform me.” The king’s tone sounded beset by some dark something Steffon didn’t bother dwelling on. “And as my
ears just informed me that you interrupted the King’s Justice to indulge a rant in the middle of my hall. Of all the gall you’ve ever shown, this one overshadows them all. You’d better have a
very good explanation!”
“I beg forgiveness, your grace, even if I can’t promise not to do it again, this cannot be borne! Seeing a man strive for the lowest of the low is like watching people try for the middle ground, it’s just silly! Nobody ever knows how to be entirely good or entirely bad, how the hell are you supposed to know what balance even is? The only thing you should ever strive towards is your best! This is nobody’s best!”
For a moment the court seemed to be acting as a single being, unified in its disbelief at the balls it took to come out and say that with a straight face. Tywin in particular was looking down at him as if he doubted his sanity. Shows what they know! Long as you believe what you’re saying, there’s nothing easier than keeping a straight face! Now to see if Aerys took that as an attack on him, in which case he might need to-
“Treachery!” Came hollering from behind. “Treachery! Despoiler! Heresy!”
The High Septon barged into the throne room via the main entrance instead of a side door like Steffon had. His High Holiness looked windswept, dishevelled and frothing at the mouth, almost.
“Heresy! Blasphemy! Murder!”
“Oh ford Gods’ sake!” Aerys slammed a fist against his armrest. Steffon was relieved when he didn’t cut himself on anything. “What
now?”
Right then and there, in the midst of a lord’s trial in the Great Hall of the Red Keep in King’s Landing, the High Septon went on a long, shrieking rant about Oldtown, House Hightower,
septons being killed in the streets, and how Lord Leyton being a breath away from being burned alive could
only be part of some master plan to distract from this atrocity being inflicted on the Faith of the Seven.
Obviously.
Wait a second… “Septons are being killed in the streets!?”
The King’s Court almost erupted in a riot if not for Ser Guayne Gaunt of the Kingsguard grabbing the spear from one of the sentries and slamming it against the marble floor. Several times.
Loudly.
“You must answer this vile butchery immediately!” The High Septon screamed at the King, proving that his ability to read the room was as skewed as the crystal crown wobbling on his head. “When King Jaehaerys the Conciliator refused to repeal Maegor the Cruel’s decree that the Faith Militant be disbanded, he did so with the promise that House Targaryen take up defense of the Faith in its stead! Never has the Iron Throne failed in this charge so utterly! I
demand that-!”
“YOU DO NOT MAKE DEMANDS OF YOUR KING!”
Aerys Targaryen’s screech was like the scratchy bellow of a dragon having its wings torn out.
His High Holiness reared back as if struck and the crystal crown clattered to the floor. When it came to a halt at Steffon’s feet, it was cracked straight through.
When the chamber was once more settled, insofar as it could after such ‘excitement,’ King Aerys Targaryen the Second sat back down on the monstrosity of swords, rubbed his temple and glared down at the kneeling man.
“Well? What have you to say on all this, Lord Hightower?”
“My son moves even faster than I expected,” the man replied with all the fatalism of one secure in the knowledge that his end had arrived one way or another. “But I suppose I shouldn’t be surprised, given the strong emotion that youth and idealism tends to engender against
child-buggering shitstains.”
… What.
A black cloud gathered in Steffon’s stomach as the court erupted into uproar anew. He batted it away. Later. He’d deal with this new revelation later, when his current task was done.
The High Septon went to speak again, but Ser Gaunt had approached by then, sword hilt held in warning.
Lord Hightower continued with that same parody of composure. “Perhaps I was wrong to keep the knowledge from my heir for so long, but I still hoped my investigation of the Citadel’s rot might turn out sufficient information to deal with this
other matter more delicately. The Starry Sept couldn’t be in on such things, I told myself. The Mansions of the Pious could not be
entrenched with
child buggering shitstains, I told myself.” Four ladies of the more
delicate persuasion fainted in the background. “Unfortunately, in my disbelief I disregarded the truth until it was too late. Perhaps I
chose not to believe, lest other, darker suspicions prove true as well. After all, if the maesters and septons could work in lockstep to prey on the young in the Scribe’s Hearth, what
else might they be collaborating on?”
The High Septon’s apoplectic state suddenly shifted into something closer to horror.
“Whether or not my inaction emboldened the grey rats into committing to their insane agenda, I know not. But that it allowed them the
time to overstep so soundly is undeniable. And so here I am come to account for my inaction.
Only for my inaction.” Leyton Hightower looked up at the king with all the self-assurance of a man who’d just made it sound like his inaction was the only reason the grey rats had been exposed at all, and therefore he had done them all a favour. “If I am to get a last request, it is merely that my heir’s actions receive fair judgment. In the words spoken just now by the High Septon himself, the King is the Shield of the Faith. As my son is but striving to cut out the canker eating at the foundation of our people’s spiritual pillar, he is only carrying out Your Grace’s will and the will of the Seven.”
“You will not claim to be doing the Seven’s will!” The High Septon screamed. “You-you… you butcher! Do not make claims of virtue, when your own spawn does nothing but sit back and watch the sheep set themselves upon their own shepherds!”
“Wait, what?” Steffon asked when everyone else proved too much of a pussy to speak up. “I thought you said he was the one doing the purging?”
“There is nothing to purge!” The High Septon roared before Steffon had a chance to realise how his choice of words could be taken. His High Holiness then went on a second, even longer rant about heresy, butchery,
septons being lynched in the streets not by knights or guards but by
smallfolk, and how House Hightower had no right to claim any moral high standing in the whole mess. “You have no
right to claim to be doing the Seven’s will!” The High Septon’s spittle flew everywhere as he proved once and for all his determination to go down in history as House Hightower’s greatest asset. “Your son does nothing but play at trying to contain the madness! All the ravens are clear!”
There was a brief moment of stillness, then the revelation sunk and the Court went in an uproar again, because of course it did. This time, though, Steffon couldn’t fault them for it. It was one thing for a member of the nobility to seek retribution in blood against the Faith for whatever reason. Even for House Hightower and their ancestral ties with the Starry Sept, the common word for that was ‘folly.’ But for the
smallfolk to be the ones lynching their spiritual shepherds in the streets… well, that spoke of
vastly different things.
Steffon Baratheon watched Leyton Hightower for signs that his surprise at the sudden news was feigned. He couldn’t find any. Then he watched the High Septon, wondering how such an imprudent man even got the post. Maybe he should look into the septs and septries in his own demesne too, he thought with dismay, and how
their holy priests got appointed. If something so disgusting was happening in the heart of the Faith itself, how much worse would it be
outside the sight of the great beacon?
When Steffon looked up at the throne, it was to see Aerys one word away from calling for everybody’s heads and letting the Seven sort the mess out themselves.
“My king,” Steffon called before sense lost its grip on the eye of the storm entirely. He stepped forward and put a friendly hand on the High Septon’s shoulder. “Before we were interrupted, you asked me for an explanation.”
“You-“ His High Holiness choked off as Steffon’s grip on his shoulder turned tighter. Just a tad.
“…I did indeed,” Aerys ground out at length, his voice turned raspy and his fists tight on the sides of the Iron Throne. “Go ahead then. Tell me. Why are you here?”
“Because a dear friend is here and he needs me. Word reached me by wind and wave of plots most foul and grim done upon him and his by the most despicable, dastardly miscreants! I waited for word from him. I wrote him. Sent runners even. All to no avail! I know not if it was treachery or if he’s decided he only deserves my friendship when things are bright and well. Either way, I could not bear it! So here I am! I’ve brought stout men to stand guard against further insult and injury. I’ve brought my healer, a man loyal and true. And I’ve brought myself, because with all respect to Your Grace, fair-weather friendship can go fuck itself! If my King permits, I would attend to my friend as soon as can be.”
What followed was a very long
something like the quiet in Storm’s End’s Hall of Legacy, except without the pleasant chill of the underearth. The looks had nothing on the dignified seemings of the Durrandon statues and carvings there either. The court, the High Septon, Lord Hightower, even Tywin looked upon him with nothing but incredulity. To say the absolute least. The Others bugger them all very much.
“I…” And above them all, King Aerys of House Targaryen looked like he didn’t know if he should feel disbelieving or stricken. “… I-I’ll allow it.”
Steffon Baratheon made no mystery of his joy. If only Aerys could bear it!
He couldn’t. Instead, the king stood from his throne and looked anywhere but at him. “Lord Hightower’s trial will be deferred until these newest… developments can be taken into proper consideration. Court is adjourned.”
“All rise!” Thundered the voice of Lord Commander Harlan Grandison. “All rise for Aerys Targaryen, the Second of His Name, by the grace of the Old Gods and New Gods, King of the Andals, the Rhoynar and the First Men, Lord of the Seven Kingdoms and Protector of the Realm.”
“-. .-“
Court that day ended to the fatalistic bemusement of the condemned, the sputtering apoplexy of the holy, and a general state of bewilderment from all other ends.
A fine day’s work!
Now, first thing’s first: annoy Tywin!
“Tywin!” Steffon crowed on entering the solar of the Hand of the King. “Old friend! You old mouser!”
“Steffon. What are you doing.”
“I am hugging my friend!” Steffon bellowed in Tywin’s ear because the uptight arse always cringed so
beautifully. “Don’t think I missed those looks, you cantankerous shite!” He rubbed his cheek into the man’s goldilocks a few times just to tangle them in his beard. Then he snuck a kiss to the man’s crown before pulling away, because Tywin’s mama didn’t live long enough to do that job and, by all the Gods, he’d either fill that void or the look on goldilocks’ face will kill him. One way or the other, he always had his way!
Ah, friendship! The duty that never ends!
Tywin beat a most dignified retreat behind his massive mahogany desk.
What a sad day! You should never retreat in the face of true love!
“You are far too jolly after what all transpired.”
“And you’re still a fucking dandy.” Steffon needed only glance around the office to prove his point. Gods, his green livery clashed with Tywin’s décor something fierce. Even the gold stag embroidered on his tunic didn’t fit the rest of the gold and red. With how fancy everything was in the Red Keep, you could almost forget the city just outside was an utter cesspool of disease where more people died than were born because they only ate bread and cheese.
“I’d almost believe that was a deflection if I hadn’t just seen you exhibit the same lack of subtlety as ever. Your skill in double speak is even more atrocious than before.”
“I’m deferring judgment!” Steffon ignored the barb. Maesters being cunts? Hightower being Hightower? Child buggering septons that he’d murder with his bare hands wherever he found them? Bah! “I didn’t come here for any of that.”
“You should be ashamed of that display in the hall.”
“Never.”
There was silence between them, and not entirely of the comfortable kind. Not that silences involving Tywin Lannister could ever be comfortable, the man was as prickly as an eldmother’s tongue on a good day. This was pricklier than usual though. But wait, that was a good sign! If the man hadn’t grown new barbs after finding out his maester was a traitorous cunt that might or might not have done despicable things to his wife and children, now
that would be a problem!
Steffon inspected the other man. “You’ve been working yourself to distraction, haven’t you? That’s not right! You should let yourself grieve first! Otherwise you’ll just make shit decisions!”
“Do I look grief-stricken to you?”
“No, that’s my point!”
“My ability to make decisions is unimpaired, I assure you.”
“I’d take you at your word if you hadn’t told me yourself to never do that. Constantly. For the entirety of the Ninepenny war.”
Tywin said nothing, pulling a parchment to read instead.
“You’re determined to make this awkward, aren’t you?” Steffon did not hide his amusement. “You really think you can do me one better? Really?”
Tywin sighed in his chair and pinched his nosebridge. “Must you be so exhausting?”
“That you tire of me so quickly only shows how exhausting everything is in the rest of your life! That’s my point!”
“That’s not a point, it’s an opinion.” The other man affected his well-honed impression of a stone. “Are you done?”
“Of course not!”
“I thought as much. As per usual, you will not be satisfied until you’ve driven me to wonder why I even suffer you.”
“Oh please. If you didn’t have me, you’d have no joy in your life at all!”
Tywin’s return look could easily be described in words, but Steffon decided to be gracious and spare him the humbling. This once. “Don’t give me that look,” Steffon said instead. “You know you love me.”
“What I am is approaching the point where I wonder why I still haven’t had you assassinated.”
“Because you
love me.”
“Steffon…” Tywin Lannister sighed in that condescending way of Tywin Lannister when he was being condescending without wanting to admit to himself he was being condescending because he didn’t want to acknowledge he wasn’t allowed to be condescending to his peers lest he face the reality that there were such things as peers instead of everyone else in the world being mere sheep to be lorded over. The cunt.
Unfortunately for the prickly lion, he didn’t get to vent his misaimed condescension because that was when Ser Jonothor Darry of the Kingsguard arrived. Came with orders to lead Steffon to a private audience with the king at his pleasure.
That was always double speak for ‘right now’ so of course Steffon disregarded it entirely and bid Darry to wait while he sent his former castellan to fetch Maester Cressen. The proud Ser Harbert looked like he wanted to protest being made a dogsbody but held his tongue. As well he should! Ser Arsehole was still in the kennels for being such a shit to his boy. Honestly, that poor bird had barely healed! Of course a few weeks wouldn’t be enough to train it!
Gods, with uncles like this, who needs in-laws?
“So, my Lord Hand! Any advice?”
“… King Aerys is his father’s son,” Tywin reluctantly deigned to enlighten him. “And his father was his father’s son before him.”
“Why thank you, Lord Lannister, that tells me a whole lot of dog shit. Now pull the other one.”
“Don’t try to force his Grace to love you.”
“What!?” Steffon roared. “Don’t be ridiculous, I’d never do that!”
“You’ve been trying just that this whole time,” Tywin said, reaching for his wine goblet.
“Don’t be ridiculous. Love is like a fart. If you have to force it, it’s probably just crap anyway!”
Bugger didn’t spittake, the uptight arse. All these years and still not one success. Oh well, one day.
One day!
The walk to the King’s chambers was long and solemn.
Very long and solemn. They had to leave the Tower of the Hand, cross over to the far end of Maegor’s Holdfast, and navigate around and up several staircases and corridors before they reached their destination. Once there, the other Kingsguard on watch denied Cressen entry. Oh well, nothing to it then!
He put his hands on the maester’s small, bony shoulders and smiled. “Wait here. It’ll be alright.”
Cressen didn’t look reassured.
As usual, no one believed him when it counted. It was like people up to his most trusted were incapable of understanding the simple truth that that he’d never said a lie in his life.
Lord Steffon of the House Baratheon was ushered into the sight of Aerys Targaryen standing near a desk and staring at a candle flame in what he
knew weren’t his normal apartments. Both because he’d been in them before, and because the present ones had no windows.
There, finally, was the king. Tall, haggard, platinum-haired, and wearing the fakest look of scorn as if it could hide that he was more nervous than a cat in a room full of rocking chairs.
When the door closed with the solid thunk of freshly oiled hinges, Steffon struck.
He stormed towards the man, pulled his dagger –
“Wha-GUARDS!”
- went to his knees, laid the blade at the king’s feet and raised his folded hands just as the door slammed open.
Steffon kept his head bowed and waited.
“… Guard,” Aerys finally rasped, sounding shook. “… A chair for my guest.”
There was a brief pause, then the sound of armored feet and the closing of the door. Steffon stayed as he was until the man returned with the seat and left again.
Aerys took Steffon’s hands in his own. Slowly. Hesitatingly. “… Rise, my lord.”
Steffon stood and loomed over the king in the dimness. It seemed as though it was closer to midnight than midday, such was the sparseness of the light in that well-appointed, awful place. Neither of them remarked on the room being already furnished with a lounge and four different chairs.
Aerys had his eyes averted and made to back away, so Steffon took
his hands in his own instead, stopping him in his tracks. “Stark’s raven and then nothing. Hours going up and down Storm’s End asking questions of my son and my household. Days spent verifying my maester’s loyalty. Weeks of ravens flying between Storm’s End and every childless lord and widower that could serve as interim castellan, and who had a maester that could be spared in Cressen’s stead. And yet I’d have dropped it all instantly if you’d just called for me. Instead, I had to learn of things from hearsay. From rumors.
Sailors at the docks, Aerys, why didn’t you
call for me?”
“I needn’t explain myself to you!” The king hissed, pulling away. “You have no claim to the thoughts of your king. You are but the Crown’s
servant. Remember that!”
“As you say,” Steffon nodded. “I’ll spare you my mind and see to my friend’s wellbeing instead, if my king’s leave still stands?”
Aerys bit back several things he wanted to say, looked away with something that could have been either spite or shame, and backed away until he fell in the nearest, biggest chair.
Steffon stood in the near-darkness and waited.
“… It stands.”
“I’m glad.” Steffon walked forward and forewent any seating, going instead to one knee before the other man. He watched him for a while. Waited for the man to grow comfortable with him so close. Even with how tall Aerys was, Steffon still stood as tall as his chin and twice as broad. When Aerys didn’t look like he was about to bolt anymore, he reached into a belt pouch and began pulling out grooming tools one after another, setting them on the ground over his handkerchief. He was no fucking dandy, thank you very much, but that didn’t change the fact that looking as good as he did was hard work!
Steffon picked up the comb and began working on the end of Aerys’ long beard. “My friend seems to have suffered some small injuries to his person due to the nature of his work. I would bring in my healer to tend to him. Will my king allow it?”
The beard felt almost like silk. Figured that even the longest and thickest Targaryen beard would feel smoother than a woman’s hair.
“…Do you vouch for him?”
“With my life.”
“… Why?”
Steffon snorted. “Because dear old dad was too optimistic, that’s why!” Silky or not, that there beard was right tangled. “Turns out old Cressen was suspicious of certain Citadel rats since before he even made it out of there. Going to my father with his concerns was the first thing he did. Unfortunately, he didn’t really have any real evidence and my father dismissed his worries. Can’t even blame the old man, ancestors hold him, who would have ever believed the maesters were up to no good?”
“Who indeed?” Aerys asked bitterly.
Steffon continued grooming the king, knowing that forgetfulness was the last thing he should worry about when it came to Aerys Targaryen.
“If your maester proves treacherous, your head will roll right along his.”
“As you say.”
Cressen was ushered in. The old maester looked rather harassed and a tad less well kept than earlier, but he mastered himself quickly and went to inspect the king as fastidiously as always.
Steffon worked with Cressen to help the king bare himself down to the waist. Then he resumed combing the royal beard while Cressen poked, prodded and wiped at the royal arms and back with his cloths and tinctures.
“The old cuts have scabbed and I’ve cleaned the latest wounds, your Grace,” Cressen said when Steffon was just about done smoothing out the royal whiskers. “But I can see some signs of potential infection. I can apply boiled wine or Myrish Fire, but it works best on skin freshly washed.”
“We’ll have a bath drawn up,” Steffon said blithely. “That is, if my king approves?”
“… I’ll allow it.”
Steffon smiled gladly and squeezed the king’s hands in thanks, then stood, went to retrieve his knife, came back and began to inspect the royal nails. A murder weapon wasn’t what he’d usually use for this, but this time it might be warranted. Them dragons grew some right gnarly claws when they let themselves go.
He spent the time it took the servants to draw a bath cutting back the nails, cutting them even further with his small field shears, then polishing them with his nail file. Aerys was looking at him fairly strangely by the end. Steffon beamed. “Never leave home without it!”
“… You are ridiculous.”
“And handsome! I would like to get my friend cleaned up now, if my king allows?”
The look Aerys gave him… Steffon couldn’t see it well in the darkness, but his raw voice made it unnecessary regardless. “… I’ll allow it.”
He helped the king undress and get into the bath, then sat on a chair next to him to wash his hair while Cressen bathed him and fussed over the man’s arms and back, keeping a running tally of every nick and scrape and what he was doing to each. Steffon let the maester’s words wash over him as he cleaned the royal scalp, making sure to go slow and steady to give the good maester all the time he needed to carefully clean and treat all the cuts, new and old.
When he was done, Steffon helped the king out of the tub, led him to the lounge and held his hands while Cressen applied his treatments and bandages. Aerys closed his eyes and grit his teeth when the Myrish Fire had its turn, but said nothing. Only gripped Steffon’s hands tight while waiting for the pain to go away.
“I believe we are done,” Cressen said finally, wiping his hands with a cloth and beginning to pack his supplies back in the kit. Normally he’d have them spread in pockets all over his person, but Steffon had made him dress like a regular servant until things died down. Fortunately, winter meant the man was able to wear a scarf on the ride over, so that no one need see the chain around his neck. “I will need to check on the gauze and bandages every morning and evening for the next two or three days, but the chance of infection is as remote as it can be now.”
“I’ll decide that. Leave us.”
“Of course, Your Grace.” Cressen nodded to the king, then to Steffon and left.
Steffon helped Aerys dress in fresh clothing and went to work on combing the royal hair. He made a show of doing one last inspection of the royal beard and hands as well. He manfully refrained from criticising the king’s dainty fingers. No proper warrior’s hands, these. He bent the knee and took the king’s hands in his own again instead, watching his face in the deepening darkness. “When did you last rest? Truly rest?”
What could be seen of the king’s face in that gloom was like a sneer of disgust twisted upon itself. The light cast by the lone candle played sinisterly over it. His shadow on the wall looked like a beasts biting its own neck.
When the silence broke again, it was Aerys that did it, though he spoke so lowly that Steffon didn’t understand a word.
“I have no idea what you just said.”
“…I didn’t want you to see me like this.”
“Oh.” Oh. “Alright then.”
“Nothing is alright!” Aerys barked before gritting his teeth against whatever else was about to come out. “You asked me earlier why I didn’t call for you.” Even that whispered admission seemed to pain the man. “That’s why.”
“Begging Your Grace’s pardon, that’s a shit reason.”
The noise that churned its way out of Aerys’ throat was so bizarre that Steffon only belatedly recognized it as laughter.
“How easily you judge!” The king pushed his hands away, stood and retreated from him. “How easily you judge your king. But then why wouldn’t you? Why wouldn’t it come easily to you? You, who never failed when it counted?”
“Well, you got me there.” Steffon stood as well.
Aerys seemed taken aback by his easy answer.
“What?” The Storm Lord felt a tad peeved himself now. “Self-deprecation isn’t a virtue and self-awareness isn’t a sin.”
“Why are you here, Steffon?”
“Because you’re my friend and I love you.”
The twisted noise that scratched its way from the king’s throat was no laughter at all.
Not for the first time, Steffon Baratheon wondered at the backwards thinking of most of mankind. If you know you’re good, morally consistent and at least moderately intelligent, didn’t it naturally follow that you’re probably better suited to speak sense than most everyone else? Who the hell decided that the right answer couldn’t also be the easy one?
“What do you know of love?” Aerys rasped, biting at his fist. “What can you know of love? You, who never had to work for it. You, who finds it so easy to love everyone before you even meet.” Aerys covered his eyes with a hand. “You, who are so terribly easy to love.”
“Ah!” Steffon realized. “You’re jealous of me!”
The words rung lugubriously in the ensuing stillness of the air.
“… Am I?”
“I guess so,” Steffon shrugged, ambling closer. “I forgive you.”
Aerys’ breath hitched.
“I forgive you for disregarding my feelings too. Leaving me to wait and worry for so long, honestly!”
“AND WHO ARE YOU TO FORGIVE
ME!?” Aerys suddenly roared, turning and lashing out only to hit his hand on Steffon’s shoulder. The king grunted in pain and stumbled away but for Steffon’s firm hands catching him, but the gates to whatever inner hell this was were already open wide. “Who are you to forgive me? Do you even know what you’re saying? You think what I want is forgiveness!? You speak to me like I’m the one with sin!? How dare you!? What of the wrongs done upon
me!? My father is dead! My daughter, dead! My sons, dead! Murdered, every one of them! Murdered for no reason than envy! And you have the gall to come here, professing
forgiveness for some imagined slights of
mine! Think yourself exempt from punishment!? My own Grand Maester poisoned my children and I burned him! That bitch that last presumed to share my bed, I had her tortured! Tortured and killed like she deserved, her and all her wretched blood! I burned them! I burned them all! Don’t you
dare claim to be beyond reproach! You think you’re the first so deluded? You think Tywin didn’t claim the same? He came professing loyalty when he was already off trying his best to take advantage of all these crimes against me! I’ll-“
“Do you really fuck your kingsguard?”
The noise trying to squirm its way out of the king was like a hare being eaten alive.
“Because there’s this rumor that I just made up, see, that the real reason you keep them around is ‘cuz you like them bent over with their round, muscular arses up in the air so you can have your way with their strong, firm buttocks in all their hairy glory when your member goes and-“
King Aerys Targaryen burst into the harshest, loudest, most hysterical laughter to ever come out of the throat of a king. Then he lost all strength and collapsed where he stood, falling to his knees in Steffon’s arms who let himself fall too, gathering the king close as the laughter gave way to fat, ugly sobs that rose and fell and burst like pus from a wound, spilling out into the dark like poison without end.
The last candle burned low, then lower and then didn’t burn anymore at all.
The poison flowed and flowed for long after, spilling out into the world until the only madness left was of grief, tattered and hollow.
“-. .-“
Noon passed in darkness.
But when it was done, Steffon Baratheon led the king out of the dark into the day, where finally Aerys Targaryen, second of his name, laid down to truly rest for the first time since the white raven came, falling asleep with the light of the sun shining down upon him.
Steffon emerged from the royal apartments with a relieved heart, a sheet of paper in his hand, his head stuffed full with royal confessions sad and terrible, and a storm in his soul made of wind and fury. He looked at the two whitecloaks watching him with
almost wholly hidden amazement and held out the paper for them to read.
It is by my order and for the good of the Realm that the bearer of this has done what he has done. – Aerys, Lord of the Seven Kingdoms.
He inquired as to their schedules and rotations, then worked with them to assign men from his retinue in place of the Goldcloaks normally watching the royal quarters. It was an unfair slight to the watchmen, but Aerys had seemed to draw strength from the offer no matter how off-handed.
“If this is supposed to be a test,” Steffon had said when Aerys gave him the Great Warrant.
“I won’t treat it as one. I’ll do whatever I think is right, not waste my time trying to guess what you want me to do.”
Returning to the Tower of the Hand, he caught Tywin just as he was leaving his solar to retire. Steffon contained himself for only as long as it took to get some privacy before he gave him the what for he clearly needed. “Listen to me, Tywin, and listen well! From this point on you get
no more excuses! The king listened to me and heeded me, so you
will listen and heed me as well.” Steffon took a long, deep breath through his nose but did not relent his grip on Tywin’s shoulders. He leaned forward, looming over the scowling man with all his bulk behind him. “If you need to talk, talk to me. If you need a shoulder to cry on, cry on me. And if you can’t find it in you to suffer the presence of Joanna’s children,
any of Joanna’s children for
any reason, foster them with me. Do you understand?”
Tywin actually glared at him for that, but didn’t reply. Whether because he was too outraged at his presumption, or shocked that Aerys had actually come out and admitted that ‘Tywin looks at me like I fucked his wife and sired his children’ (never mind all the
timing issues involved), Steffon didn’t have the patience to care.
“Incidentally, Aerys was always going to reimburse you for that Citadel business.”
Steffon let go, turned around and left.
“I’m not mad, Steffon, but that’s no mercy! You speak of sense? Sense tells me I can’t even be sure my kin and children fell to poison instead of the gods’ cruelty. Sense would have me feel guilt over my grief! What should I believe, Steffon? Do you have any idea what madness Pycelle spouted in his ravings? There was no difference between his lies and his truths by the end!
His next stop was the dungeons.
“Do you know who he tried to bring down with him? Do you know how long this conspiracy has to have existed? Father, grandfather, Summerhall, the dragons, the Dance Itself! You think I’m the only one now wondering what really happened to them? And now this news of the Faith! There’s your madness! If I were mad, I’d burn Oldtown to the ground, Tywin’s head would be on a spike outside my window and this place would already be ash.” Aerys had barely been able to raise his voice by the end, when Steffon tucked him into bed.
“I’m not mad, Steffon.” His voice had been so weak. So frail.
“I’m not mad. Not yet.”
The Black Cells were precisely as black as the name implied. But the special prisoners were being fed well, Leyton Hightower had only been there for a few hours, and Gerold Hightower had long since accustomed himself to his new environment and was doing handstand push-ups when Steffon let them out. Leyton gladly accepted relocation to Maegor’s holdfast, if still afflicted with that odd bemusement that only the condemned mustered when they were resigned to whatever came next. Gerold Hightower didn’t accept reinstatement though, not from anyone less than the king. He refused to go back to the White Sword Tower and only complied with ‘sentry’ duty for his nephew when Steffon told him flat out he’d have him escorted out of the dungeon at sword point if he didn’t show sense. A good man, that Ser Gerold, stout and true!
Way too uptight though.
Not as self-possessed as he liked to act either, once the light hit his eyes again.
The Storm Lord dithered somewhat when that was done, torn between several directions. In the end, the decision was taken out of his hands when the Master of Laws Symond Staunton descended upon him with many anxious questions. That particular meeting ended with an acknowledgment of his changes to the guard roster, and Cressen’s all but assured instatement as Grand Maester at the next meeting of the Small Council. Which would be early the next day. To which he was invited.
The sun had set almost entirely by the time he was alone again. Deciding that Tywin had had his fill of him for one day, and that it was too late in the evening to take care of a certain last bit of business, he went to tell Cressen the ‘grand’ news, had a late dinner and bedded down for the night.
Alas, the new dawn came not with a Small Council meeting! It brought instead a sudden call by the King for Court to congregate post-haste!
It was quick business. One brief announcement by the king, then the court dispersed again in a furor of gossip that left Steffon in sore need of personal time with friends and family that weren’t Ser Arsehole. Unfortunately, both his friends were the most obstinate shites imaginable and his only family nearby was his cousin the King.
The King who’d just made him Hand of the King.
“Well.” Steffon said. “Shit.”
“Yes,” Tywin said. “Quite.”
Oh well! Such was life!
“How would you like to be Master of Coin?”
Tywin scoffed derisively.
Considering how little emotion the man mustered on his worst day, that more or less confirmed everything about the relationship between Aerys and him that Steffon had been deferring judgment on.
“Well, I had to make the offer.”
As he stood in the Hand’s Solar on the other side of the desk compared to the prior day, Steffon Baratheon watched Tywin Lannister gather his personal effects. He thought to the last words his father ever told him.
Endure nothing, Ormund Baratheon had said as he lay dying.
Endure nothing from anyone, save the Lord Hand and the King.
Ormund Baratheon had been Hand of the King too, in his day. Steffon wondered what
he endured from his King, fresh out of the tragedy at Summerhall. Possibly nothing near what Tywin had to have endured from theirs. What he no doubt thought Steffon was about to. Shows what he knows!
“So.” Steffon sat down on Tywin’s obscenely comfortable gilded chair. “Do you have any advice
now?”
“Do your job, expect no honors save having your competence trusted so highly that the king won’t shy away from being every bit as rude to you in public as you are to everyone, and leave your wife at home.”
“If I go without a good fuck for much longer, I’ll go nuttier than the both of you combined. Pull the other one.”
And for the love of Gods, Aerys, you don’t insult a woman’s breasts! Especially when she’s the wife of your childhood friend. Especially not in public! And Steffon still hadn’t gotten to the bottom of whether Aerys had cuckolded Tywin or not, honestly, that man! And what role did Joanna play in all this? There’s not speaking ill of the dead and then there’s thinking the dead were perfect saints. Both were complete dog shit!
Right! Moving on! “Well?”
Tywin paused and pinched his nosebridge, then gave him a long, considering look, walked over to the desk, leaned over to dig through the bottom right drawer and pulled out two tubes made of elder wood, from which he took out great scrolls, fancy as all get with golden ink decorating the edges. The man put them both before him with a sharp gaze of consideration, then went back to his business.
Steffon read them one after another. Then he read them both side by side. Then again. Then again. Then he bowed forward and rested his brow on his clasped hands.
Tywin was speaking now, about intrigue and politics and knowing when to set, when to curb, and never bend. Teaching him. Advising him just like he’d requested. He even sounded like he meant what he was saying. Of the rule of law to crush the braying of mob and ambition. Of how there was never an end to the paltry feuds and lowly ambitions of upstarts that needed putting in their place.
“This Citadel Town Charter is the greatest snarl I’ve seen since the so-called reforms of King Aegon,” said the proud lion. “But it’s only the first of many snarls you’ll be expected to unknot. By now you will have noticed the different wording. There’s a reason I’ve yet to deposit either scroll in the Archives. The wording may be blatant to coin-counters, but to an up-jumped trader like Darklyn?”
Steffon Baratheon listened grimly as Tywin Lannister explained his great trap.
If Darklyn somehow managed to get through Tywin’s iron grip on the Red Keep, the wording was by design ambiguous enough that he could dismiss it as a small misunderstanding if brought up to the King. After all, they all worked together on the document, the Hand, the Master of Laws and Lord Denys Darklyn himself, with final reading and sealing by himself the King. It would be madness to think the Hand would ever sabotage the effort in the eleventh hour. But the Hand gets the 'honor' of doing the drudge work, so who’s to say what could have happened during the final write-up? Mistakes could easily slip by the scribe’s hand while putting down the final charter on the fancy scroll. Who would dare accuse the Hand of sabotaging the Crown itself? More like it was a moment of inattention, a brief spell of exhaustion, the scribe failed to control his penchant for flowery courtly language and he, Tywin Lannister, will certainly hasten to write up an amended paper at once!
What grand a scheme. A spark of brilliance. A masterstroke, isn’t it just so?
“You never meant for him to stay quiet about it. You meant it as a warning.”
“Quite so.”
“This could beggar them.”
“Don’t be a fool, Steffon. Even without leave to install whatever system of governance he can dream up, which can render moot this whole issue in a hundred different ways, that was never the point.”
The point was to make him grovel and beg. “And if he doesn’t bring it up, it gives you, or whoever next becomes Hand or King, grounds to go after their entire House in the future regardless of how Darklyn interprets it.”
“If he is enough of a fool to do that, he deserves every consequence.”
Or maybe he just believes in Tywin Lannister’s reputation, down to the most dark and gruesome parts he bought for himself in the blood of drowned children.
“I admit I didn't expect the man to catch the issue from a single skim in the throne room,” Tywin admitted. “But he is no threat. One minor lord will make no difference to the number of lesser houses that will disdain you for your high office as a matter of course, so you needn’t worry there is any greater risk of poison in your wine beyond what the position of Hand brings along. As for armed recourse, that you can safely discount. What are you doing?”
I’m thinking I shouldn’t feel so inconvenienced for wanting to enjoy the King’s Peace.
Steffon finished writing his raven message – it always surprised people to learn his big hands could write such small letters instead of relying on a maester for it – then he put the pen away, rose and headed for the door. More precisely, the men standing guard right outside. “Harbert. Take this.” He gave Ser Arsehole the charter. The real one. Because for all his cuntish ways, he was loyal and brave. “To be delivered directly into the hands of Lord Denys Darklyn at the Dun Fort in Duskendale. You leave at noon. Now get me the Grand Maester.”
Steffon closed the door. There was a storm gathering at his breast, large and clamorous.
“… I should have known.”
Steffon went to the nearby sconce and held the fake charter over the candlelight.
“I should have known,” Tywin ground from behind as the gilded scroll caught fire. “As always when faced with a knot of any kind, your first and only instinct is to cut it and damn the consequences.”
And what of the consequences of tying the knot to begin with? “Are you sure you want to discuss knots with me, Tywin?” The storm frothed wildly. “I’m more of a sailor than you are.”
“Hardly.”
The storm tossed and foamed in the depths of his lungs, but now he knew what this other friend of his needed. “Then maybe you’ll indulge in a story. Why, I just remembered one! There’s this friend of mine, see. He’s a hard man. Been a hard man doing the hard decisions for a long time now. It’s given him quite the fearsome reputation at home! Unfortunately, he’s still just a man, this good friend of mine. Alas! He’s been digging his own family's hole diplomacy-wise, what with nobody daring to talk about him. Makes it awkward when wholesale slaughter’s his only go-to when touting his own horn, if you follow me. Terrible business! Between that and all the nepotism in the capital and whatnot, methinks he’s locked himself into this pattern where all this being the hard man making the hard decisions makes him miss it when the hard decision isn’t the right one. Robs you of other options, that, especially in the long run. The real irony, though? He was
this close to having all the snags in his foreign affairs done and solved. I mean sure, the Dornish are oathbreaking, guest-right-defiling cunts probably involved in the slave trade, but they were
this close.”
“I am not laughing, Steffon.”
The storm whined. “Of course you’re not. If it were up to you, I’d never laugh again either and then you’d have no joy in your life at all.”
He wasn’t joking, and by how quiet it got behind him, Tywin damn well knew it. But then, Steffon wasn’t joking before either.
“…Get to the point or we’re done.”
“Your wife just died.” Steffon deliberately looked everywhere but Tywin because he knew the man wouldn’t allow himself to feel anything if there was someone watching. “But instead of doing the human thing and
grieving, you pushed all your spite over her death onto your baby boy, and then your hate at your baby onto a different party entirely. The same way you pushed your hatred of your father onto the Reynes and Tarbecks, except this time it was people who had nothing to do with it. You shat all over the efforts and legacy of the beloved wife who'd arranged the windfall in the first place. Says a lot that you acted the exact same way in both cases, doesn't it? Except while Tytos Lannister was someone you looked down on and hated, Joanna was the one you most loved and respected.”
“You dare.”
“You are wracked with a perverted sentimentality. You’re as free with your contempt as your father was with his charity. Tytos Lannister spent his love and affection freely while you don’t give out any. You spend your spite and hate freely, while your father didn’t give out any. You’re the opposite sides of the same coin because you’re both insecure maids that
overcompensate.”
“Enough!”
Steffon flicked the ash off his fingertips and turned around. “You are your father’s son.”
Tywin Lannister snarled, literally snarled for the first time in Steffon Baratheon’s recollection. A gruesome darkness passed over his whole face in that moment. It could have been betrayal. It could have been hate.
Steffon Baratheon watched Tywin Lannister all but throw the last of his effects into a bag, sidled just barely to the side of the door as if to get out of the way, waited until Tywin made to get past him, then he struck.
The storm bubbled over and burst out into the world like a hot summer rain.
“Steffon!” Tywin ground his teeth. Literally ground his teeth. “What. Are. You. Doing.”
“I’m hugging my friend!” Steffon burst into tears all over the prickly arse who just couldn’t bear living if he didn’t make everyone and everything fall to pieces around him, the fucking arsehole! “You told me a lord isn’t a true lord unless he can be an arse when he needs to! But this isn’t you being an arse when you need to! This is you being an arse when you
don’t need to! I can’t follow you down this slope! I won’t! But you don’t have to do it! Don’t go!”
“Oh for Gods’ sakes-“
“No!”
“You-.”
“NAY!”
“Let me go.”
“I SHAN’T!”
“Let me
go, Baratheon.”
“You said my name! My other name! You’re upset! That’s good! You don’t let yourself go enough! So what if you’re not perfect? Everyone makes mistakes! Even if you don’t, you’re not the first person to make no mistakes and still lose! That’s not weakness! That’s life! Why the hell won’t you live it instead of-of-of this horseshit you dumb fuck!?”
“You’ve gone mad.”
“You’re the mad one, you skittering fuckweasel! Mad with grief, you and-”
“-don’t-“
“-Aerys too!” Steffon sobbed.
“I swear by all the Gods, if you don’t-!”
“You don’t believe in gods! Dramatic shitstains the both of you, a pox on shit parents everywhere, it’s like you’re both
determined to treat common sense and all of its arcane offshoots like, oh,
love and kindness as if they’re something unfathomable and impossible to understand, you
MORONS!” Steffon was yelling and shaking Tywin by the shoulders by the end. “What the hell is so hard to understand about being friends!?”
“Gods,” Tywin wheezed. “Why have you forsaken me?”
“Because you told them to take a hike, you decrepit omelette!”
“…Unhand me or I won’t be responsible for-“
“NO!” Steffon bawled, wrapping himself around the man even tighter. “You’ll have to kill me! Stab me with that knife why don’t you! Do me a favour, why don’t you!? Go on, do it! I dare you! What about me huh!? What about my feelings, huh? You can’t expect me to just stop loving someone! Go ahead, do it! Do it already! Why won’t you do it? You won’t do it! I knew you wouldn’t do it, you don’t just stop loving someone once you’ve started you-you… you emaciated cave goblin!”
“Of for Gods’ sakes…”
Tywin Lannister sighed gustily and settled to wait for Steffon Baratheon to finish blubbering out his hugs, tears and snot all over the man’s hair.
Once the steel pole up his arse finished giving way back to his normal one made of prickly rosewood, Steffon reluctantly disentangled himself from the smaller man, took out his handkerchief and blew his nose. Loudly.
Then he checked the door to see if Cressen had arrived at any point, which he had. “Here,” he held out the crumpled paper. “For the Dun Fort. Might need to transcribe it first.”
Cressen all but fled from the sight of them.
Which was fair.
Steffon blew his nose again, folded the handkerchief with the clean side out and gave Tywin a once over. The look on Tywin’s face as he rubbed him clean of all the tears and snot was like a dead-eyed zombie promising murder.
Oh well. “I’ll ride with you.”
The Lord of Casterly Rock stared at him like he was some foul beast from the Seven Hells. “…
Fine.”
Steffon beamed, hugged Tywin one last time, led him out past the suspiciously straight-faced guards, dragged him deep into Maegor’s Holdfast to have the former Hand take his proper leave of the king – they were both so civil! – and then rode with Tywin and his retinue out of Red Keep all the way to the docks.
“I meant what I said before.” Steffon clasped arms with the other man at the foot of the gangplank. “Talk to me. Write to me. Send your-“
“I know,” Tywin said harshly, though his heart wasn’t in it. “I know you meant it.”
“You damn well better! I never say anything I don’t mean!”
“It will be the death of you one day.”
“And I’ll die laughing!”
Tywin glared at him, as if it was somehow impossible that someone could both laugh and take things seriously at the same time. Then again, that
was Tywin’s main probl- “… I’m leaving part of my men here.”
Steffon blinked, astonished.
“At least until you bring more of yours, though you’ll have to dismiss them yourself if you want them gone.”
“You
do love me!”
“Goodbye, Steffon.”
“I love you too, Tywin. Be well!”
Steffon Baratheon stood on the berth and waved until the Sea Lion disappeared from view.
Then he returned to the Red Keep and went to the Maidenvault.
It had not escaped him that none of the King’s family were at court that day, or the day prior.
The music didn’t escape him either.
The night you return, we're having a feast
The candles will burn, you've conquered the East
Get home safe, as you can't be replaced,
The honors you've earned, you fought like a beast,
The harp strings and verses reached him before he got there. They were both graceful, beautiful and a right buggering to the soul. Didn’t use any oil to ease the kick either. Damn. Guess them sister wives don’t make for much better bedding than being a right royal arse did.
So let's toast in your name, raise your glass to the moon,
Shall we dine with the gods, here's a toast, here's a toast to you!
Painting the map with the blood on your hand,
Expanding the realm, and winning new lands,
Get home safe, cause you can't be replaced,
The night you return, we're having a feast.
The night you return, we're having a feast
The candles will burn the night you return…
He waited with Darry outside the door until the last words faded, but wasted no time upon going in.
“Your Grace!” Steffon bellowed, arms opened wide. “My Queen! Cousin! Your beautifulness! Give me a hug! And a kiss or two while you’re at it! You must!”
Queen Rhaella Targaryen blinked rapidly at the sudden storm that overtook her confinement, but stood gracefully in an ethereal whorl of platinum hair and red satin. She welcomed him into her arms, kissing him daintily on both cheeks. Well, once he lifted her high enough anyway. She laughed almost gaily. Good. That pretty face was made for smiling.
Then he turned to behold the fifteen year old harper who’d stopped strumming to watch them. The tall and beautiful Silver Prince with deep purple eyes and long elegant fingers. A memory emerged unbidden at the sight of him. Him and he sheer ridiculousness of the lofty burden of sublime tragedy Steffon could read
far too easily in the boy’s face. Of the earliest words that Steffon could remember from his mother, Rhaelle Targaryen of House Baratheon.
Never wrestle with pigs. You both get dirty and the pig likes it.
Such a shame he never obeyed her. He
never said no to a good spot of wrestling.
“Prince Rhaegar Targaryen,” Steffon ground out, walking to loom over the young man. “Your father tells me you’re a dandy with your nose in old books and head in the clouds. Seeing as he confessed in the same breath to being a right cunt, I’ll defer judgment.” The aghast look on that far too pretty mug was
delightful. “All the same though, we’ll be living together from now on. Better brace yourself, my prince, because when it comes to my boys and their potential friends, I have
very exacting standards.” Steffon smiled wolfishly. “Whether or not you end up calling me father by the time we’re done, you’ll damn well be treating me like one.”
Fuck the Maesters and their snobbish horsecrap. Screw the Seven and their child-buggering death cult. The Others take every last shit parent in the world. He’d do right by these dimwits and teach them how to live even if no one else will, if only to spite them all!