Chapter 6: Three Days Later

Bursts of radiance. Rough hands pull him from Rhaenyra’s sheets, although it takes long moments for him to remember they are Rhaenyra’s sheets around the pounding in his skull, to remember where he was, the night before. By that time he’s on the floor again, the stones blissfully cool against his sweaty cheek, but he is not allowed to rest there, and there is no Rhaenyra lowering herself to the floor with them, her own cheek against the chilly floor in the mauve dawn light—now it’s searing, it hurts his eyes, although he doesn’t vomit again when Westerling and Rhaenyra’s sworn sword, what’s his name, haul him to his feet—smiling at him, pushing his hair back and saying, this is nice, I see what you mean.

They take him to the throne room. Rhaenyra sits upon it, uncrowned, in a simple dress. There aren’t many people there. Otto, of course, and his daughter. Corlys and his son. A family affair, really, with Lyonel Strong and Lord Beesbury and the requisite Queensguard there to witness it.

“Your Grace, I received word of grave misconduct last night on the part of Prince Daemon,” Hightower booms out. Daemon, sprawled on his knees before the throne, only looks at Rhaenyra. Her gaze on his is glassy, impenetrable. “We have questions of your uncle that demand answers. And where should we find him but your bedchamber?”

“I told you he was in my bedchamber, Lord Hand,” Rhaenyra says calmly.

“I commend your judgment that far, Your Grace, even if I am sorely concerned by the fact he was there at all. The Queensguard on duty last night says no one was admitted to your chambers after you retired, so he must have accessed your rooms another way.”

“I know he did. With my permission, clearly, or else I would have screamed for said Queensguard. Who I understand is there to guard me, not to report who comes and goes from my chambers.”

“The existence of such a means of access to your bedchamber is a clear security risk, my queen,” Corlys says. “Not to mention, the queen’s chastity—”

Of course his son getting a future king of Velaryon blood on his niece was Corlys’ chief concern. Daemon is irritated. Truly, was he ever to receive his proper thanks? Hadn’t he been working toward that very thing last night, with Laenor’s cock in his mouth?

“We aren’t here about my chastity,” Rhaenyra snaps. “We’re here because you said there was a disturbance in the city last night.”

Prince Daemon, shortly after again being appointed Lord Commander of the City watch by his niece Queen Rhaenyra, took a detachment of his goldcloaks and shut down a fighting pit operated by a man named Arthur Flowers, owner of many such sordid enterprises in Flea Bottom and rumored to be a bastard of the then reigning Lord of Highgarden. In the process Ser Edwyn Fossoway, son and heir of the Lord of Cider Hall, was slain by the prince.

“This is grievous news indeed, Lord Commander. I explicitly ordered you to wait on the matter of these pits. I, your queen.”

A jewel-hard, furious glitter on the words. She can command him. She would command him. But not fully. Only so far. It was all he wished for, and it enraged him. He must hide the need from himself, through these periodic rages, and Viserys must hide his domination and its incompleteness both by sending Daemon away.

“The children,” he says. That’s all that he can get out before his aching throat closes up entirely.

“What will happen to them now? Where are they? Don’t answer that.” Round and round she spins the ring on her finger. “I will see to it.”

“The children are not the concern, Your Grace,” Otto says. “He has destroyed a lawful operation. He has killed the heir of a Tyrell bannerman. This cannot be allowed to stand.”

“Yes, it must be dealt with. But let us be done with this theater. Let us all adjourn to the small council to discuss it.”

“The crown cannot have a Commander of the City Watch who disobeys the direct order of the queen, who commits violence on a lord of the Reach in the streets of the capital.”

“Daemon will keep his post for now while we address this. He will only do routine patrols.”

“He did not obey before. Are we to rely upon the hope that he will do as he ought and obey his monarch now, too late? What reason does he have to heed your commands that he did not already have?”

“I do not command. I ask. Uncle, I ask you to take no further action.”

“I—”

“A queen does not ask. Again, Your Grace, I have concerns about your uncle’s effect on your judgment, on his influence over you.” Otto turns from man to man in the room as he says this, addressing it more to his audience than to her. “There is something else that occurred in the city last night. A personal indiscretion. Your uncle visited a pleasure house in the Street of Silk—”

An agitated twitch, but she goes on steadily: “And how is such an unremarkable occurrence deserving of our attention?”

“Bring the girl in!” Otto pitches his voice so it carries to the guard at the door.

Prince Daemon’s taste for silver-haired maidens was well-known. In the beginning of his niece’s reign, it was said he would pay girls of similar coloring to call him uncle, as she was married to another, and king, as her ascent seemed to see the end to any hope he might have held of sitting the Iron Throne like his brother and grandfather.

“Had her call him king,” Otto repeats unnecessarily in tones of horror after the girl falls silent, is ushered away at a nod of his head. “And kepus, which means—”

“I know what it fucking means, “ Rhaenyra says tightly.

That’s what he gets for being too humiliated to go to Mysaria’s brothel. Or maybe it was she that had orchestrated this somehow with her spies, as old vengeance for Dragonstone, new vengeance for last night. No, Rhaenyra had been shocked at the beginning of the girl’s recitation before schooling her features into blankness. Mysaria wouldn’t go to Otto with this.

“Of course his perversions and delusions would be his own, did they not reflect upon you. But you are the queen, Your Grace. The first Queen of the Seven Kingdoms. You are young. I am your loyal servant, as your father wishes me to be. I would be failing as your servant, and failing your father’s cherished memory, if I was not honest with you now, if I was not clear about how deeply distressed I was about the threat to your reign your uncle poses.”

“What threat would that be, exactly? I hardly see how the precise way he chooses to get his cock wet is evidence for your theory that he wishes me dead and to see himself in my place.”

“Such language,” Beesbury murmurs.

“This girl just told us all in some detail the exact manner in which my uncle fucked her, Lord Beesbury, what language would you have me use to refer to it? I agree it was crass to bring her here and make her recite all this as it is nothing more than a pathetic delusion, as you note, Lord Hand, to have a whore call him a king. He will never be one.”

“That is not my worry now. You are young, and many seek to influence you, guide you. This is the natural way of things—”

“Many, yes—as you yourself seek to influence and guide me.”

“I do not deny it. But the question is: who will guide you so your reign is long and prosperous, and whose guidance will lead you astray? It is understandable you turn toward your uncle. He is the family that is left to you. You have always been very…fond of him. But look at his behavior impartially, as a ruler must. He rashly commits violence that undermines your authority. His lusts open you up to foul gossip. He shadows your reign, your reputation. He clouds your judgment. How else to explain the foolishness of allowing him access to your chambers by secret means?”

“Foolishness?” Rhaenyra says in a voice still with rage.

“You are no fool, Your Grace. Hence my concern. You are a wise young queen, but youth means we can easily be led astray by bad counsel.”

“How I spend my evenings in the privacy of my chambers is of no concern to anyone here.”

“Where was your husband?”

Rhaenyra flushes. “He retired with me, as I am sure my Queensguard would gladly confirm for you. And he departed for his own rooms after doing his husbandly duty, as I am sure they can also attest. My uncle then came to see his niece. We fell asleep talking. I slept on the settee.”

The cunt continues his adept performance of making Rhaenyra feel like an idiot strumpet who will quickly see her reign up in flames if she continues on as she has, having been kindly assisted by Daemon’s own actions, by ignoring the question of how her uncle ended up in her bed and instead pressing where it will really hurt—on the sin of his they can agree on. “And what did you discuss? Did he tell you of his evening? Were you already aware he defied your orders and left him to sleep off the haze of drink he defied them in? Did you ask him nicely—”

“Enough. I am your queen, am I not? Not a little girl to be chastised.”

Otto sighs sadly.

“If you will not heed me in this, Your Grace, perhaps you will heed your father’s warnings. You disregarded them once, but I must hope that if I join my voice to his—if I speak as someone who knew our late king better than any, and so knew well how dearly he treasured you, how much he wished for you to rule after him…” Rhaenyra’s eyes are riveted on the piece of parchment Otto removed from an inner pocket. “Here is a letter your late father addressed to you, recommending—”

“How did you get that?” Rhaneyra whispers, face drained of color.

“—you not allow your uncle anywhere near your council. It also urges you to depend on my advice in the early years of your reign, so now, I advise you—”

“I know what it godsdamned says. How did you get your hands on it?”

At the same moment a delicious peal of laughter explodes from Daemon and he says. “Oh, what does it fucking say? Don’t be shy.”

His brother has said only his name, over and over. But it seems he had some last words for him after all.

Rhaenyra glances about wildly, her furious gaze lashing him for a moment before she descends from the throne. But once on level ground she whirls—towards Hightower’s daughter.

“You sneak,” she says. “You foul little fucking snoop.”

“Lady Strong is your firmest supporter. She was distressed by these late night visits from your uncle—”

“You set her to spy on me!”

“She came to me with this of her own accord, with the purest motives—”

“I want to hear her speak! Alicent, fucking look at me. I trusted you. I saved you. How could you?”

Alicent does not speak. She does not put up any defense. She stares down at the floor, skin nearly green as her gown. Her father puts her hand on her shoulder and she does not flinch, or startle. She goes dead under his hand, that’s the only word for it, and in that moment Daemon somehow knows that she has been saved from nothing.

Not saved, but maybe he wants to spare this girl he’s never given more than a few moments thought to. Maybe he’s just irate that the attention has shifted from him—this is the moment, he’s done it quicker even than he might have expected, and he has to split the fucking billing on failing Rhaenyra. Maybe it’s just because he needs to know exactly what was in the fucking letter. He staggers to his feet.

“Come on, Rhaenyra, what does it fucking say?” She turns to face him. The curl of distaste on her lip lances him, braces him, lights him up. She had tried to spare Daemon this. See how he repaid her. She does not speak, and he laughs again into her reproachful silence. “Alicent, surely you had to read all the correspondence to get the good bits for daddy, come on, give us the dirty details. What did Viserys have to fucking say?”

So not sparing her, then.

“Really, my prince, must you insist on these embarrassing displays—”

“Let us hear my brother’s sage wisdom for his daughter. Why should I be barred from court? A second Maegor, that was your prediction, wasn’t it? I can imagine some of the adjectives. Unpredictable, intemperate—”

“No, it seems clear you will not act as Maegor did,” Otto interrupts. “There are other less arduous ways for you to spread your poison. You can abuse your place at your niece’s side, the one you have had since her earliest days, you will have her in your power, whisper in her ear—”

“How?”

“What?”

“How will I have her in my power? Just say it. Which is it? Do you think I’m fucking her or whores who look like her? It can hardly be both.”

A moment of tense, nearly physical silence. Corlys’ lips pinch together. There go any of Rhaenyra’s little plans to marry Daemon off to the Sea Snake’s daughter. It has been a while since he’d put on such a display. It had been a while even the last time he was called before Viserys for a spanking. He’d started to grow up, wasn’t that what Aemma had said? Now Aemma is dead. Viserys is dead. And here he is. The Queensguard shift on their feet, hands at their swords. Here he is again, everyone waiting to see what he will do, head about to pound apart at the seams, the light piercing little holes in his skull, making a spectacle of himself. It didn’t matter how he’d grown up, how meekly he took it—calling Otto a cunt was restrained, really—his brother still looked at him like that, like they were all looking at him, filthy, foul—

“You dare speak about your queen this way?”

“I’m fucking her and she’ll do whatever I want, is that it? You fuck her and she’ll do anything you say. Neat trick. If I was fucking her, which it should be clear I’m not. I could have. Any time. I could have fucked her here, before my exile. She adored me.” Daemon’s voice cracks but no one stops him, content to give him all the rope he could desire to hang himself by. “I could have fucked her on Dragonstone even after she bitch-walked me—I know you didn’t enjoy it as much as you might have because she made you look as much an ineffectual fool as she did me. Still, I could have fucked her. I could have had her pleading on her pretty knees before this throne, begging my brother to rescind my banishment. But as you’ll recall I went to that rancid heap of rock and spent three hard years only dreaming of all the sweet Targaryen pussy I could have had. But I could only plot. I’d come back and I’d fuck her until she was ruined for all other men and my brother had no choice but to marry me to her and I’d really be a burr on the family hide you couldn’t dislodge. I could have come back and fucked her so good this last week the idea of exiling me wouldn’t even enter her head, but as I’m sure we’ll see—”

“Shut up, uncle.”

He shuts up. Rhaenyra had wound out the rope for a while, but even she found it wasn’t worth the sheer tedium after a point.

Her face is a queenly mask. “You will leave this keep. Both you and Lady Strong. But you still have duties to the realm. Prince Daemon is Commander of the City Watch, and if he should again disobey my orders, he will be relieved of his command. He is not to enter the Red Keep, so I am quite free of his whispers. As the Lady Strong apparently riffled through my private effects of her own volition, you can have no objection to her being removed from her position as my lady-in-waiting and banished from court. She will return to Harrenhal and take up residence at her future seat. Prince Daemon, you have an hour. Lady Strong, you depart in the morning.”

With that she stalks towards the doors, Ser Criston falling in behind her. She does not allow Otto to make any protests, and although Daemon is sure he will think of something, for now his face arranges itself into serene lines. He does indeed have no objection to the exile of his daughter. Daemon’s head spins, dizziness slamming back into him. Not banished. Confined to the city, not to pass the gates of the Red Keep. The tunnels, though…

I ask you, uncle. Anyway. That would be one follow up Otto would surely get to as soon as this victory faded and his next assault began.

Worry not, stricken little Lady Strong, he thinks as the girl stumbles from the room. Don’t feel too wretched, too relieved. He won’t do without such a dutiful daughter for long, I’m sure.

Ser Westerling at his elbow, to make sure he dresses and goes.

“Just like her father,” Otto says. “Showing you more mercy than you deserve.”

“What did it say?” The letter has been tucked away again. He wouldn’t let Daemon read it even if he asked. It was not for him.

“Not much. Only that he feared your desire for revenge would extend to his daughter.”

That made him laugh. “Who could desire revenge, when shown such mercies?”