Chapter Text
Ninth Moon, 283 AC, Maidenpool
Eleanor Mooton
The first thing Eleanor notes when Maidenpool’s gates come into view, is that the shanty town isn’t as bad as she feared.
Perhaps King’s Landing gave Eleanor far too low expectations for the state of things as of late. Nothing, and she means fucking nothing, can compare to the state of Fleabottom.
She hasn’t a clue how she’ll fix that, but it will likely involve a lot of social programs and soap. Mostly the social programs. The soap is mostly for her stupid, highborn sensibilities.
As is, hastily constructed buildings of wood and even tents surround Maidenpool’s pink walls at Fool’s Gate. Eleanor takes them in with sharp eyes. Fire hazards. Barefoot children run and play by the busy road, and a few stalls have been set up before the entrance to the city. She thinks she sees a penned pig with a brood of piglets being watched over by a bored faced child.
“This is doable,” Eleanor says under her breath, more to herself than anyone else.
A census was taken a moon ago of those living in the shanty town, but more have likely come since, wary and lacking prospects in other lands. Eleanor knows for a fact the farms all along the trident were burnt, and many widows will have abandoned them.
“Lord William is spinning in his watery grave,” one of the guards, Ser Cleos, mutters, peering at the surrounding shacks with a frown. Ser Cleos would know, considering he was often tasked with following William into month long hunts.
“It’s a good thing, then, that I’m handling this and not my brother,” Eleanor replies distractedly, watching the people around them. Mostly women, and mostly children. It’s to be expected. The majority of the men of fighting age were drawn up into the levies of the crown or the rebellion.
She needs to get to her solar and soon. Eleanor has to familiarize herself with what’s changed since Marg’s last letter, and then she needs to start hearing petitioners. The people need to know she’s returned.
“Lady Mooton!” a washer woman, if her clothes are to be believed, cries by the gates, turning to look at the other woman she was walking with. “Lady Mooton has returned!”
Oh great. Now Eleanor needs to worry about crowd crush.
Word spreads quickly, and by the time they reach the walls. Well.
Eleanor does her best not to step on anyone with her horse once they get to the gates. A thick crowd of people is gathering and cheering at the sight of her, so she has to maintain an even trot to avoid trampling anyone.
“It’s good to be home,” Edmer says, horse close behind Eleanor’s in case the crowd grows rowdy. Dorin is ahead of her, along with a few men on foot clearing the path for the horses and wagon.
Eleanor’s eyes are on the keep crested at the hill leading up from the gates. The pink stone is washed bright in the sun.
“Do you think Marg will meet me at the castle gates?” Eleanor says, trying not to sound like a lovesick fool.
Edmer laughs at her, the ass. He smells like a horse anyways, so she doesn’t care for his opinion.
By the time they reach the keep, Eleanor has had a crown of flowers shoved into her hands that she’s dutifully placed on her head. It’s wildflowers, all plucked from the nearby forest she’s sure, but none are poisonous. Well wishes are shouted, along with one man shouting that bread has gotten too expensive and she’d best fix it.
Eleanor laughs at that. She shouldn’t, but she does.
Guards keep the crowd from following them past the gates of the castle, and Eleanor has to stop herself from jumping off her horse and running into the keep to find Marg. She swiftly dismounts, thrown daisies falling off of her as she hands her reins off to a familiar stableboy.
Then, the doors to the castle open, and there is Marg.
Eleanor grins, wide bright like she’s a child again, joy rushing over her mind like a flash flood.
Marg walks quickly, and Eleanor notes she’s wearing a higher waistline gown. She looks beautiful. The morning light is bright, and her cheeks are flushed from rushing through the castle. Eleanor traces the hook of her nose, the shine in her dark eyes curled with her smile. Looks at her lips and her little beauty mark on her chin.
Her hair is up in a bun, the sort she likes to do when she’s painting. As she gets closer and Eleanor walks towards her, she can see paint smeared on her long fingers.
“When did you get a crown?” Marg asks with good humor as they stop before each other. She reaches up and fiddles with the weaved flowers on Eleanor’s head.
“I was handed it by a very insistent girl on my way through the baker’s row. I didn’t have the heart to deny her,” Eleanor explains, reaching for Marg’s hands and taking them into her own. “You’re wearing a new dress.”
It’s a gold and white thing that suits her complexion—
Eleanor blinks. Stares at her friend’s stomach.
“I didn’t want to tell you over a letter,” Marg says, squeezing her fingers around Eleanor’s own. “In case I lost it or someone thought to use it against you.”
Eleanor is speechless for once in her entire life. She has no clue what to say.
Marg is pregnant. There’s a very noticeable baby bump over her stomach, fabric gracefully falling over it. Embroidered waves of gold line Marg’s hemline. They shine brightly enough that Eleanor is inclined to believe they really are gold.
Eleanor is gaping. She can’t stop gaping.
A baby. Marg is going to have a baby. Eleanor thinks she’s going to faint.
“What the fuck,” Eleanor says weakly, even though that’s probably not the appropriate response to becoming an aunt. Or, really, a co-parent. William is a bit too dead to parent the baby.
Eleanor looks up at Marg’s face and rushes forward, pulling her into a hug even if it’s unbecoming. Carefully trying not to jostle her or do anything that could hurt her. Her mind is rushing with a sort of animal fear, now, mixing with guilty glee. Women die in childbirth, Eleanor’s own mother died giving birth to her!
Marg—
Gods. If Marg wants it terminated they’ve had too many witnesses. It’ll have to look like a miscarriage. She’s too far along for that to be safe now, though.
If she’s carrying to term, fuck. She needs to make sure the whole room she delivers in is cleaner than a high septon’s copy of the seven pointed star. Thank the gods Eleanor lives in Maidenpool, where cleanliness is considered godliness.
“We need midwives,” Eleanor says rapidly as Marg’s hands rest firmly on Eleanor’s back. “We need— have you been well? Is there anything I need to do? Anything you need?”
“This is why I didn’t tell you over letter,” Marg says with a fond sigh. “I’m with child, not an invalid.”
Eleanor pulls away even if it physically hurts her, hands resting on Marg’s shoulders.
“Of course not! You’re more than that. I just— gods, Marg. William has done something good for us after all,” Eleanor says, even if it’s ever strange to think about her brother having sex with Marg. She was there on the wedding night, she knows there was a bedding.
“I hope it’s a girl,” Marg says with a delightfully sharp look in her eyes. “William was insistent about having a brood of little boys to take hunting.”
Eleanor chuffs a laugh, tracing the features of Marg’s face over and over again. How she missed her mind. “Even if it is a girl, I wouldn’t be surprised if she’s as obsessed with hunting.”
A baby. What was Eleanor supposed to do with a baby? She could fuck it up, make it evil and traumatized or something. At least Marg is here, Marg usually knows what to do in these sorts of situations. Eleanor is good for much different problems, even if she does her best.
Eleanor wishes she could kiss her, but. Alas. Lesbians aren’t allowed to be in love out in the open.
And! Marg probably doesn’t like her in such a way!
…even if they had kissed once, when they were fourteen and Jaime Lannister had been sworn to the kingsguard earlier in the day. Eleanor wills herself not to think of that hidden alcolove in Harrenhall. Surely that didn’t count.
Margery Mooton
If Marg put much stock in the gods, she would be thanking every one of them that Eleanor is back. Kneel before the Mother, the Maiden, and the Crone for hours till her knees are scraped and bruised. Till dripping wax from the offering candles ruins her dress and scalds her.
She’ll settle for being glad for Eleanor’s wits and her finally being able to detach herself from King’s Landing on her own merits.
Was it a boon that Eleanor gained the attentions of their new brutish Baratheon king? Certainly. A seat on the Small Council would only elevate house Mooton and Eleanor herself.
But Eleanor, sweet, beautiful, oblivious Eleanor, is being taken advantage of by fools with only plans and plots for more.
Marg watches the woman stomp through her solar like the seven devils are on her ass, peering down at her numbers and flipping through the notes Marg has left her. She’s always fetching when she’s worked up like this. A fire in her pretty eyes and a sternness in her smooth voice.
“I need these fucking people in the fields before I lose more silver feeding them in destitution,” Eleanor declares with some heat, eyes roving the sheet before her as if it has personally slighted her. She looks to one of her little scribes, the one introduced as Steffon Frey. Firstborn son of Walton Frey, who is thirdborn son of Stevron. Stevron being old Walder Frey’s heir, should he be lucky enough to outlive his nasty father.
A child so insignificant he’s been lucky to be snapped up by the Mootons. Marg can have empathy for that, as the firstborn daughter of an unlanded knight.
Her father has been badgering her about funds for platemail for one of her brothers. She’s ignored all of his ravens thus far. The man got rid of her before she was eight namedays old and he wants to talk about family ties? Preposterous.
“Steffon, I need you to do some calculations for me,” Eleanor orders, and the boy jumps to attention. Marg notes the reverence in his eye as he takes to her task. Adorable that he’s already so taken with Eleanor. “Percentages of how many women, men, and children we have. Then, percentages of their trades.”
“Yes, my lady,” Steffon says with a little crack in his voice, taking the papers she hands him with a seriousness in his boyish face that’s amusing.
Marg peers out the windows of the solar, watching the sunlight bleed in from behind Eleanor’s desk and thinks. She does much thinking. Not as much as Eleanor, for that is an excessive amount of thinking, but enough thinking to make a maestor look like an ignorant brute.
Marg reaches down and presses a hand to her stomach.
Eleanor won’t marry.
She knew this would be the case, after Jaime Lannister took the white cloak. By the Seven, she was glad for it, glad for an excuse to keep her by her side, but now…
All of house Mooton’s future lies on the babe growing in Marg’s belly. Boy or girl, it will be heir to a dying house. Marg could remarry, certainly, but any of her children wouldn’t have the right blood, no matter if Eleanor adopts Marg into her house formally. That would only complicate things, especially if the man she marries has grasping family members.
Eleanor mumbled something about finding bastards of William’s, but Marg has her doubts. No woman has come forward with a blonde haired babe. William favored visiting one brothel close to the docks, The Swarthy Maiden, but none of his favorites have children that look like him.
Marg frowns. They could lie and keep a child that looks enough like him in the wings, a spare in case Marg’s babe dies in the birthing bed, or, worse, dies young. Marg’s hand tightens around her stomach.
“What are you thinking, Marg?” Eleanor asks, breaking Marg’s musings.
“Succession. Are you sure you don’t want to marry?” Marg asks, looking at her friend and almost sighing when she sees the immediate look of disgruntled disgust overtake her pretty face. Yes, Eleanor will likely never marry, not unless the High Septon in King’s Landing makes it legal for two women to marry.
If only Eleanor had more flexible tastes like Marg. It would be more convenient. But, Marg loves Eleanor as she is, even if it damns their whole house to ruin. It’s a thing she and William agreed on before the fool fell off a horse and put them in this mess.
“Must I?” Eleanor asks, looking all of her age in that moment. Seven and ten and acting as though she’s being told to eat ugly looking greens. How Eleanor can seem so old and so young at once, Marg has no clue.
“As is, we have only an unborn babe as an heir to your holdings, Eleanor,” Marg says bluntly. “You have no first cousins to have take your name.”
Marg had already pursued that avenue, and was very unhappy to find they wouldn’t have some convenient relative to pass the whole house onto like one Jeyne Arryn a hundred years ago. The late Lord Willis Mooton was an only child, and Eleanor’s mother, a Peasbury, had only an unmarried sister and the current Lord Peasbury for a brother. A stormlander.
Marg is not handing off the wealth of these lands to a damned backwater stormlander, no matter how profitable the Peasbury farms are.
Eleanor pauses, peering at the two scribes standing in the room and the castle steward, Ronell. Measuring if they’re worth letting in on secrets she has no business speaking with witnesses, no doubt. Always so obvious in her calculation past the blank face. Mayhaps Marg is just so familiar with her that it’s easy to see what she may be thinking.
Eleanor looks back at Marg.
“Surely William had at least one bastard,” Eleanor says dryly.
“He didn’t. I checked,” Marg says with a similar tone.
“Why couldn’t he love whores like he loved riding around the woods?” Eleanor says mournfully, putting a hand to her forehead and massaging a headache. The other scribe, Yorrik Rivers, makes a noise in the back of his throat. Similar to a dying goose. He’s a distant cousin of the Tullys, with all the red hair and freckles but none of the loveliness of Lady Catelyn and Lady Lysa.
He’s still at an age where he’s ungainly and growing into his body. Perhaps he’ll become more handsome like the Blackfish if given time.
“Mayhaps we could worry about Maidenpool’s more pressing issues, m’ladies,” Steward Ronell says, looking up from his table full of numbers and details on the farms in the Mooton lands. He’s scrubbing a worried hand through his beard. “Lady Eleanor is still young yet, and the war is finally over. I would wager these damned refugees pose more of a threat than a succession crisis.”
Bold of him to say as much, but neither Eleanor nor Marg have ever had an interest in simpering underlings. Other Lords may relish in shoving lowborn noses into the dirt, but good counsel is good counsel. William was too weak willed to go against such ideas when he was alive, and Lord Willis—
Well. Nevermind. She still can’t think of her foster father, good-father now, overmuch, even three years after he’s gone. And the maester says melancholy is bad for the babe.
“You’re completely right, Ronell,” Eleanor says quickly, grasping at an excuse to avoid thinking about marriage with obvious desperation. “I’ll need to meet with the labor officers tomorrow. Tonight, I’ll see to the people’s concerns in the main hall. Can you organize it?”
“As m’lady wills,” Ronell says dutifully, even as that peculiar vein in his forehead starts bulging with stress. Marg will have him see the maester about that, it can’t be good for him to be taken by ill humors everytime Eleanor comes home.
Marg sits back and watches Eleanor work, glad to hear her voice again, no matter the circumstances. Marg will need to grill the new scribes on their loyalties. She doesn’t doubt Eleanor and Ser Dorin both have already pressed them, but it never hurts to be thorough. Especially when Marg is the one responsible for managing possible spies and sneaks.
The Tullys keep watch on them through Ser Oscar, though the old man is blunt in that that’s why he was sent to the Mootons some four decades ago. The Frey have a squire of one of the household knights. The neighboring Rykker have both a serving girl and a laundress.
Spies. Spies, Marg deals with, and Eleanor handles the rest. It’s neater that way. Eleanor finds the sneaking to be too impractical and tedious when she can use her blunt charisma to learn whatever she wants from others. Marg loves it about her, especially when she knows the woman is capable of acting with decorum and chooses not to.
Not everyone can be charmed into docility. Marg won’t let any fool take advantage of house Mooton, even if it means she must use some dishonorable means.
Honor is for knights. Marg is a woman. She rubs her belly, and hopes once again for a baby girl. Even if it’s an inconvenient want. They have already had one Lady take the lordship over Maidenpool. Why not another?
Eleanor Mooton
A thousand fucking refugees. A thousand.
It’s not the kind of numbers Eleanor is used to dealing with in King’s Landing, but still. Absurd!
She supposes she should be more exact. It’s nine-hundred-eighty-three. She figures it doesn’t matter if she rounds up, since they could have missed a dozen or so in the count.
Eleanor sits at the high backed chair of her father with solemn concern, nodding along with a disgruntled merchant and his worries.
“—and it’s unseemly to have them pittering around in front of the city, m’lady, no matter the piety in taking them in! I beg of you, cast these beggars from our lands before they invite more ruin.”
He has a lot of bluster for a man who makes all of his money by owning trade ships. She supposes that will give you a big head, being a merchant with growing prospects, especially when you’re used to being listened to.
“Master Seapin,” Eleanor interrupts before he can take up any more of her time. “I hear your concerns. However, it is the duty of a noble house to guard their subjects from harm and starvation. The people outside and within my walls will be seen to, provided you have patience.”
“My lady, you are good and merciful, the Maiden smiles on you,” Master Seapin says, gesturing with a thick hand. “but those wastrels are not the responsibility of your house, none would charge you with such! They are castoffs of other lesser lords lands—”
Eleanor scowls, and the man shuts his mouth with an audible clack. Any murmuring in the hall of waiting petitioners goes silent. One of Eleanor’s salmon banners flaps ominously by the door.
“Do you decide the responsibilities of my house?” Eleanor asks, sitting up in her chair and looking down at him with great judgment. “Speak carefully, Master Seapin. Are you the one who chooses what souls are and are not under the care of house Mooton?”
“No, of course not, my Lady,” Master Seapin says quickly, face reddening and bowing his head.
“I understand your fears, but those who camp outside Maidenpool’s walls are smallfolk of the Riverlands, and they have come to my lands to seek aid. I would be a poor Lady to turn them away, especially when my own farms have been burnt and lay empty,” Eleanor explains, still eyeing the man sharply for inconveniencing her.
“Yes, my Lady. I apologize for my words, I did not mean to speak above my station.” Master Seapin looks chastised, at least, but he is also a man forty years her elder, so it’s likely he resents having to listen to her at all.
Ugh. She hates the groveling, and hates herself more for inspiring it.
“It’s good of you to tell me your fears and how you feel, Master Seapin, I welcome it,” Eleanor says with a sigh, leaning back against her chair. “But I will not let the hungry and destitute die for my own inaction. It is not just piety. It is what is right. Have patience, and my results will speak for themselves. You are dismissed.”
“Thank you for your time, Lady Mooton.”
Archibald Seapin walks away from the dias with a slump to his shoulders and a frown on his wrinkling face. He’s not the only man with concerns like his own, but she’s sure her response will make all the others in line know this is not a thing she’ll be amicable to changing her mind on.
“State your name and your profession for the Lady,” Ser Oscar instructs the next in line, a young woman with a baby on her front.
“Arla, m’lady. I’m a whore at the Mermaid’s Fishden,” she says bluntly. Eleanor appreciates the honesty and knows that this next complaint will, at least, not be a waste of her time.
“Well met, Arla. What do you need of me?” Eleanor asks, smiling.
Eleanor could see why Arla was a prostitute, considering her buttery, long blonde hair and oval face. She looks like she’s stepped out of a pre-raphaelite painting. Even frowning as she is, she looks gorgeous.
“A man in your army, from the Daring Rangers, he has a daughter he won’t claim,” Arla says, reaching and petting the head of her black haired babe. Eleanor feels a headache coming on. A mercenary with little interest in his bastard. Great.
“Are the Daring Rangers still in port?” Eleanor asks. They had better be. She’s going to be having words with the captain.
“Aye. He’s being a great fu— a great lout and is saying the babe can’t be his. She has his hair and eyes! He has great pouches of silver he wastes on the betting house and he won’t spare a coin for his own kin,” Arla huffs.
Arla has blonde hair, and the baby is dark haired. Eleanor believes her that the child takes more after the father.
“I’ll have my men bring him to me and we’ll decide on the matter together later, Arla. Do you have enough money to care for the babe for another week?” Eleanor asks. Two of her scribes are writing down the details of each concern being brought to her, so she’ll be able to look back and find the details of this case.
Arla worries her pretty lip between her teeth. “Aye, I can keep her fed another week. My madame ain’t happy I had little Eva at all, but I’ve been staying with a friend.”
Eleanor pulls out her own coin pouch, pulls out two dragons. What’s the harm?
“Here’s coin to tide you over, should the man not be agreeable to seeing to his daughter. Ser Oscar, hand her the coins for me, please,” Eleanor says, dropping the coin into the man’s weathered hand and watching Arla go wide eyed at it when he holds it out to her.
“Oh— no m’lady! That’s too much!”
Eleanor suddenly wants to give her two more, just to spite the humility. She resists.
“You deserve security for both yourself and your child, Arla. This is the least I can provide,” Eleanor says with a wave of her hand. “One of my scribes is going to speak to you now to have the details of where you live so that I may summon you in a week's time. Be well.”
Eleanor does like listening to petitioners, even if some of them can be tedious.
Eleanor paces her solar and plots, desperate for the leave to go bother her blacksmith about her long left idle printing press project.
Right now, she has greater concerns.
The people outside the city need proper homes, and she needs to have carpenters put to that task as soon as possible. She can’t have people living in tents, it’s inhumane. They’ll catch a cold and die.
Eleanor is not going to be responsible for that. Oh no. They’re getting proper houses with proper fireplaces and they won’t share quarters with pigs! That’s final!
Well. Unless it’s a beloved pet pig who is house trained. But they’ll have to make a very good case for it.
Then, of course, there’s the farms to be considered. The Mooton lands weren’t so ravaged as other houses, but along the kingsroad many farms had been pillaged. It’s to be expected, considering two separate armies marched down them both headed for the Trident and leaving it.
Eleanor needs some of her wayward people back on those farms, which means the farms need to be repaired and the fields cleared. She’ll need carpenters to survey the farms along the kingsroad, hell, she needs to look at her tax statements to be sure about how many farms exist down that road.
Tax collectors, they would probably know. She’ll talk to Ronell about it, after she finds someone to be his assistant. The man seems like he’s going to go into cardiac arrest with stress and Eleanor is not training a new steward on top of this. Ronell has four daughters and a son, doesn’t he? Surely at least one is worth making an assistant!
“Ronell,” Eleanor says abruptly, looking over at where the man is reading through their numbers of grain stores. Eleanor hopes they have enough to tide them over until the next harvest, the Reach is spitefully overcharging every rebel on grain from what she’s heard. That includes the entire desperate Riverlands.
Eleanor will need to write Robert about that, or, better, write Jon Arryn about it.
“Yes, m’lady?” Ronell asks, looking up at her with a blink.
“You need assistants. I am working you into an early grave.”
Ronell gets a stricken face that almost sends Eleanor into a panic. “Am I not doing good service to m’lady? Have I made some mistake?”
“No, Ronell, I’m worried for your damn health!” Eleanor says with a huff, waving away his earnestness. “You’re a man with too many fingers in too many pies, you need to delegate. Gods know I need to take my own advice as well. Find four assistants to help you with your duties and run them by Marg, by week’s end, please .”
Ronell has been steward since before she was born. She can’t lose him because she overworked him. Her father would disapprove.
Ronell sighs, scratching a hand on his salt and pepper bearded chin. The panic seems to leave him all at once, leaving him slumping.
“Aye, m’lady. I am getting on in years, aren’t I? Just yesterday you were a wee babe trailing after your Lord father’s heels.”
Eleanor looks away, focusing instead on the map on the table of her holdings.
“I remember many comparisons to ducklings,” Eleanor replies, startling a small chuckle out of the steward.
“You were the most serious of ducklings, I assure you. And your Lord father the most doting of ducks.”
Now Eleanor laughs. For a moment the weight of endless tasks lifts from her shoulders.
At least she’s home and surrounded by family, friends, and allies. That’s more than she can say of King’s Landing.
“Let’s take a break, Ronell. Do you think the city will burn if we spend a candle turn drinking spiced wine?” Eleanor asks, smiling wide.
Ronell gives the papers before them one final dread laden look, then nods.
“The city will stand while we’re occupied, Lady Eleanor. I believe there’s a few bottles of a new vintage from the Reach in the cellar.”
So Eleanor day drinks, and her steward catches her up on the latest gossip within the keep. All in all? It’s a good homecoming.