Chapter Text
Raina drained her cup and put it down on the serving boy's tray. "Thank you," she muttered.
"My lady, are you alright?" the boy asked. "You seem… unwell."
She waved away his concern with a smile as she saw Cerelle approaching. "I'm quite fine. This is wonderful,” she said with a broad smile. “Run on now."
In truth, she was not fine, and she felt sick enough to vomit. Too much wine, too much walking and running about, too much sun, and a horrible combination of nerves and exhaustion had set her stomach to churning up a storm inside her.
It had all seemed so simple back in King's Landing. She would come to the Rock, be her usual charming and endearing self, wrap all the lords and ladies around her fingers, and then secure herself a betrothal to the young lord and future Warden of the West.
She had not expected everything to go according to plan, but she had not expected to find herself so overwhelmed either. She'd expected Aemond to be the source of any trouble, if anything, but he was making it all look so easy.
The minute they'd been through the castle gates, he'd transformed himself from sulking harasser to well-mannered prince. Where she had stared and been at a loss for words, he'd been articulate and formal. Where she had lamented showing up empty-handed without a gift to add to the pile of children’s toys, he’d deftly presented one of his daggers causing much oohing and aahing from Jason and his gathered cronies. He'd laughed, actually laughed, at Jason's not-at-all-funny inquiries as to whether Vhagar was coming back for lunch.
Aside from his height and his hair, he’d blended in perfectly with the other lords. Jason was as excited as a puppy to have a prince at his son’s celebrations. ‘A prince of the realm and the prince of my house. Two princes.’ Daeron, she was told, didn’t count on account of him being a squire.
Lord Ormund was a more composed man, but still, he was far from the person she’d conjured up in her head. She’d imagined someone stern and menacing. A younger, stronger, more muscled, more commanding version of Otto. Instead, she found a man with tired eyes and a sleepy disposition. In their short introduction, he’d yawned three times. It was only on meeting the man’s decidedly too-young wife that she’d understood how a man could seem so drained before noon, and the smile on her face had only gotten more strained when she’d met Ormund’s son Lyonel, and it was only Aemond’s light squeeze of her wrist that prompted her to add, ‘So pleased to meet you! This is all so lovely. Everyone’s so… lovely.’
Lord Borros had been the only overtly rude one. He’d immediately dubbed her Daemon’s Velaryon girl with a remark on how he never knew Velaryons to fly west, as if she and her family were some breed of eastern bird, but then he’d also called her tremendously beautiful and regretted that he had no sons on hand, so she didn’t mind him too bad.
She had tried to mingle. She had tried to work her way into their little circles and discussions, but she’d found it so impossible to keep up with everyone’s name, face, and colors that by the time Johanna had found her in the hall and asked if she’d fancy a game of horns, she’d been relieved to accept the offer.
In her defense, when she’d heard ‘a game of horns,’ she’d been thinking of the card game she’d learned on Vaemond’s ship that she’d played with the crew, where the one with the most white horns at the end was the winner and got to take a sip of everyone’s beer. A simple game, more blind chance than strategy involved, but she’d mastered it as much as it could be mastered and had immediately seized on the chance to defeat the old woman at something.
As it turned out, Johanna Westerling had not been talking about the card game.
She’d been talking about running about in the grass with paper horns tied to their heads. Loreon’s favorite game, apparently. They had explained the rules to her, thrice now, but there was no logic to it. The person with the black horn—Loreon—was the most powerful, but he was also the one that wasn’t allowed to move, so everyone else with the white horns had to grab him up and run with him to keep him from being eaten by the evil unicorn—Johanna with the red horn.
She’d dropped Loreon twice and was now serving time in the dungeons.
“The dark lord has pardoned you,” Cerelle declared, her little brother on her back holding onto her two braided pigtails as if they were reins.
“I have pardoned you,” Loreon said with a magnanimous smile on his happy face.
Rhaena nodded, wiping sweat from her forehead as she stared up at the golden sun beaming down on them.
She did not know how old Cerelle and the other girls were, but they were all too old for this. Much too old. And Johanna was the worst of all. From what she’d gleaned by listening in on her father and Rhaenyra, she’d expected Johanna to be a shrewd old harpy. Commander Westerling in a dress. Not… this.
Cerelle set her brother down and Rhaena took a step back. “I am unfit for duty, my lord,” Rhaena said. She did not know the rules, but she’d been playing the game for at least two hours and was catching on to the jargon. “You need a swifter steed,” she said, and then dropping to her knees in a dress that had cost her a purse full of dragons, she added, “I am unworthy, but see, yonder?” She pointed to his oldest sister Tyshara. “What doth mine eyes see, but Ancient Manara, the skydancer who pulls the moon behind him!”
Loreon turned around and squealed with delight as if the mythical horned horse was actually in his father’s courtyard.
Mad cunts, she thought as they ran off, the boy scaling up his sister’s back with the nimble grace of a spider, toy lance in one hand, Aemond’s very real, very sharp dagger tied around his waist.
When she heard giggling from the tree behind her, she looked up to find yet another sister in the branches, this one about six or seven. Alyssa if she were remembering it correctly.
“You’re cheating,” the girl said.
Rhaena laughed, suddenly missing Joff whose idea of fun was sitting quietly in one place and watching his dragon eat. As much as she hated playing nursemaid, she found herself feeling sorry for her little stepbrother who had no trees to climb or games to play. Not much in the way of name-day celebrations either.
As horrible as her life had been on Dragonstone, she’d still had those early years in Pentos where she’d had friends. Where she’d had fun in the sun, where she’d built sandcastles on the beach and laughed when the waves washed them away because she was already planning a bigger, better one anyway.
“I’m not cheating. I just want your brother to have the best chance of avoiding the Dreadbeast Voracorn,” she said pointing to Johanna who was running around with some kind of red coloring around her mouth to symbolize the blood of one of her eaten children.
“It’s his favorite game,” Alyssa said, swinging her feet.
“And a lovely—” Rhaena leaned over suddenly and threw up the cup of water she’d just drank down. She coughed and wiped her mouth on her sleeve. “A lovely game. I am simply—”
“You’re not good at it.”
“I don’t see you down here taking part,” Rhaena snapped at the six-year-old before she could stop herself. She spat out the bitter taste in her mouth and sat down, propping herself against the apple tree. “I’ve never played this game before. It’s very complicated.”
Alyssa threw down a leaf at her. “How old are you?”
Too old for this, she thought. Much too old.
“Twelve?” Alyssa guessed.
Rhaena shook her head, black spots appearing in her vision.
“A hundred?”
She only looked up at the girl.
“Mother says you have dragon blood and that dragons live to be very old.”
“I’m not a dragon,” Rhaena said. “I’m just like you.”
Alyssa stared at her for a long time. “Your hair is gray.”
Ah. She’d forgotten that. “You caught me,” she said with a smile. “I’m two hundred and fifty-two years old, and I’m not used to running around anymore. My bones hurt.”
The girl nodded in understanding. “You should be with the other old people then.”
Rhaena nodded, looking around the green grass yard. Driftmark was nice, but Casterly Rock was just about as beautiful as they came. Everything was so green and alive. Music, children laughing and screaming, fresh salt air, strong winds…
“Where is everyone?” she asked.
“At the tourney,” Alyssa said easily. “Mother keeps us out here because Loreon’s afraid of the noise.”
“Where’s the tourney?”
Alyssa pointed to the other side of the castle. At least a mile away. “Can you walk that far?”
Rhaena shook her head.
“Do you want me to fetch a horse for you?”
She nodded. “If you would be so kind.
In contrast to the rickety structure she’d been expecting, the pavilion seemed like a permanent feature of Casterly Rock. Not so permanent as the arena in King’s Landing, but not something struck up overnight either. The wood had been painted white to match the castle walls but the age of it was clear and she lifted her skirts as she climbed the stairs, not wanting to be the first person to trip and stain the wood with her blood.
At the top she studied the gathered crowd, spotting Aemond’s bright hair at the front easily, but Jason was to his right and some other old lord to his left. She looked higher up in the stands searching out a free seat. There was a row to the very back that was still open, and she started making her way towards it when she heard Aemond call her name over all the noise and commotion. She turned to look at him, mouthing the word ‘What?’
He raised a hand, beckoning her forward again with his fingers.
She shook her head, not wanting to be introduced to anyone else. She’d met enough people. She’d shaken too many hands, and all she wanted to do was have some wine and sit for some hours by herself. She was not cut out for social gatherings. Thinking back, she had never been cut out for social gatherings. Baela’d always been the one putting in the pleasantries, and whatever little skill she’d had then was gone rusty now after her time on Dragonstone.
She’d become unused to people, she realized. Disaccustomed to lords and regular folk alike. Aemond had told her about being kept at the capital, but he’d not been kept isolated. He’d met many of the lords and their wives. He knew which of them had children to inquire after. He knew all the right compliments to pay and all the right questions to ask, but Rhaena was exhausted, and it was only just past noon.
He waved her on again and she stomped over, just as the presenter began introducing the next two riders approaching the tilt. A Manderly with a red coat behind him and a Stormlander from House Brownhill. She didn’t recognize the name, but the loud applause was all for him.
“There are seats to the back,” she told him, trying to make herself small as Aemond did the opposite, standing and surely blocking the view for all the spectators behind him.
“Sit here,” he said, pointing to the seat to his right. The man she was standing in front of looked up at them both and blinked.
“It’s alright,” she said quickly, pulling on a smile, just as Aemond turned his attention fully on the man. “Surely, Ser Tybolt doesn’t mind giving up his seat for a lady in need.”
Ser Tybolt blinked again, big gray eyes becoming that much larger. “Oh, not at all,” he said, pulling on a pained smile. “Not at all.” He stood, dipped himself into what was almost a curtsey, bowed to Jason and Borros with a murmured, “My lords,” and then scampered off, up the stairs and to the rows in the back.
Rhaena took the empty seat just as the knights charged at each other, Manderly on an all-black horse, the Stormlander on a white gelding. They met in the center of the field, Manderly taking a lance directly in the chest and sent flying out of his seat.
Aemond turned to her only slightly, head lazily tilting back to her, his single eye fixed on her, the black in it shrunken down to a pinprick.
“What became of you?” he asked softly.
Rhaena stared, not quite sure what to say, distracted by Manderly trying to get back to his feet as his horse pranced and stomped around him and by this newly discovered version of her cousin who casually ordered men from their seats. His hand went to her head where he plucked a loose leaf from her hair which he deposited in her hand as if it were something valuable.
“Johanna and the children,” she explained. “They’re playing in one of the yards,” she said, waving vaguely in the direction she’d come from.
“And how goes your seduction of the brave lord?” he whispered, softly enough so Jason wouldn’t hear.
She fixed her head forward.
“A strapping lad,” he persisted. “If there was ever a man to trust with your life, it is him.”
She bit her tongue to keep herself from giving him the reaction she knew he wanted.
Marrying Loreon Lannister was not a viable option. Firstly, while she had settled herself with the idea of being betrothed to a child, she had pictured a more somber child, more inclined to sitting and reading in the shade than running about. She had expected that growing up with a mother and five sisters would have softened the boy into something easily controlled but Jason and his wife had raised their daughters to be energetic, monstrously strong, tree-climbing savages. She needed a husband who would bear her up, not one who demanded to be carried around on her back.
She leaned a little closer to him. “Everyone here is so happy,” she whispered, a hand over her mouth in case there were lip-readers about. “If we go to war, half of them will be dead in a year.”
The presenter announced two other riders. A Lannister cousin and an old, heavily bearded man from House Hetherspoon. They rode, clashed, rode again, clashed again, and then rode once more where the Lannister was unhorsed but fell to his feet uninjured to resounding applause.
“Tourneys help sell the idea of how courageous and enjoyable it is to test yourself in combat against your fellow man,” Aemond said, answering her as the noise ebbed. “You can hardly recruit soldiers with tales of injury, shitting yourself in your armor, and death.”
She sat back, knowing what he said was true but finding it eerie all the same. For as long as she’d known herself, she’d always been afraid. Afraid of being put out of the house in Pentos, afraid of her mother having a son that she’d prefer, afraid of everyone flying away and leaving her alone, afraid of her sister dying in the wars, Moondancer gobbled up by some older dragon—Vhagar—even though she always tried to convince herself that the odds of the same dragon killing both her mother and sister had to be slim to none… Laenor was living like a wild animal in Essos, scurrying about like a rabbit with wolves behind him, easily startled by the slightest wind. Even Aemond, for all his calm poise and languid bearing, as if he had not a care in the world, had been living with the knowledge that half his family was going to try to kill him when his father died.
It wasn’t fair, but Aemond waved over a serving girl with a tray of pastries and a wine cup, and she decided to make the best of her day out and pretend to be as carefree as everyone else. Jousting was more exciting to read about than it was to watch in person—she kept flinching whenever anyone was hit, and Jason and Lord Borros kept remarking on how they’d expected Daemon’s daughter to be in the listings herself for all they’d heard about her and how she’d taken after her father, clearly mistaking her for Baela—but it was entertaining enough, and the wine was sweet.
Just as she yawned, a new rider appeared with a green cape billowing behind him and the white, flaming tower emblazoned on his chest… She turned to her side to ask Aemond if it was Daeron, having been on the lookout for The Happy Hightower Boy which was what she’d dubbed him, but Aemond had stepped away for a moment to discuss some business or the other with a Ser Bryndon.
The knight rode up to the gallery, ignoring Jason and Borros as if they weren’t even there, and stopped directly in front of her. His visor came up, and she saw that it was not a boy at all. Definitely not Daeron.
“I’ve come to ask you to run away with me,” the knight told her with a smile as his horse tottered back and forth, hardly willing to stand still for its rider.
Rhaena opened her mouth, realized she had nothing to say, and then shook her head. He was young and handsome and from a proper house, and she was in great, desperate need for someone to steal her away, what with her betrothal to Luke looming on the horizon, but it didn’t seem proper, and by the wicked smile on his face, it was very likely that he was only teasing.
“Not today,” she said, returning his smile and ignoring all the eyes she could feel on her. Lord Borros wasn’t even pretending to look elsewhere.
The rider’s lips turned down in an exaggerated frown. “Tomorrow then,” he said resolving the matter without any input from her. “In the meanwhile, would you do me the honor of your favor? Musgood’s trying to make a name for himself, and I don’t like it,” he said with a smile. “We beautiful people must come together and stamp out ugliness wherever we see it. Don’t you agree?”
Jason laughed.
“Sadly, I have no favor to give,” she said, wishing the knight would simply get on with it.
“I’d take a kiss for luck,” he said, turning his horse around and coming back to her. He was holding up the entire presentation now.
She shook her head, remembering Baela telling her to beware of strange men and not get herself kidnapped by some stranger on a horse. “Tomorrow,” she said instead.
He sighed dramatically in what she was starting to see as the Hightower way. They were a very dramatic, very sensational, very charming type of people. Aside from Aemond.
“A lock of hair?” he suggested, riding closer to the pavilion and holding the railing to keep himself in place.
“Not even if we were married,” she said, “but you might have a ribbon if that would suffice?”
He laughed, eyes on her and ignoring the hundred or so people clamoring behind her for him to go ride. Someone tossed an apple which he dodged with a grin.
She got to her feet with the ribbon she’d taken from her sleeve and tied it loosely around his lance. “There,” she said.
“Rhaena?” he asked, some of the laughter gone from him now that she was near.
“Yes.”
“Hmm,” he said, and then the smile returned as he pulled his horse away. “Wish me luck then, princess.”
She said that she would, but she didn’t need it. The two knights charged at each other, and he quite easily caught the Stormlander, Mussgood, with a blow in the side that sent the man limping off to everyone’s groaning disappointment.
When Aemond returned, Jason wasted little time in updating the prince on what had happened.
“A poor escort you are, lad,” the man laughed, clapping him on the back as if they were old friends. “You best keep an eye on her. The minute you look away, she’ll be running off with that cad.”
Aemond turned at her, mouth slightly open, eyebrow raised.
“It wasn’t like that,” she said quickly. “He was having a laugh.”
“Who was having a laugh?”
She looked to the field, spotted the green banner, and pointed. “That’s your house's sigil, isn’t it?”
“They’re eloping tomorrow, so look out for that,” Jason contributed. “I've never seen a beautiful woman who didn’t have chaos and bloodshed following in her wake.”
Aemond followed her pointing finger, found the knight, and then sighed. “Really?” he asked.
“I thought he might be another cousin and I was being friendly.” And truly, he had no right to be upset. She had come to Casterly Rock with the specific intent of finding someone interested in whisking her away and she’d been very clear about that. “I must peruse what other goods are on offer.”
“That’s my uncle,” he said.
Rhaena closed her eyes, letting the wave of embarrassment pass through her. “How was I to know that?” she said, raising her chin. “He seemed young.”
“He is young,” he said, staring at her. “He’s my mother’s little brother. The baby of the family. Absolutely nothing to inherit. Are you after someone of standing, or are you simply after anyone who isn’t me?” When she said nothing, he stood. “Do you want to meet him first before you run away with him?”
To be spiteful, she stood and nodded. “Yes. I would love to. He was quite pleasant. Well mannered, unlike certain other Hightowers gathered—” She waved a hand in apology to Lord Ormund, his wife, and his sons. “Unlike you,” she said, being very specific.
Aemond frowned, almost exactly the way his mother and uncle did it. “What do you want me to do?” he asked innocently. “Ride out to battle him in defense of your honor?”
“It is what a knight would do if some villain was after his cousin.”
“I'm not killing my uncle for you. He is not a villain. He is quite charming and pleasant, and you may marry him if you so desire,” he said, guiding her down the pavilion ahead of him with a hand on her back. “You might be homeless, but you’ll be happy and that’s really all that counts at the end of the day. Castles and estates are just… so much upkeep.”
“What would you know about it? You have no holdings either.”
“That’s why I’m killing your father and taking Dragonstone,” he said near her ear so as not to be overheard.
“Well, I don’t want to go back to Dragonstone.”
“I would not invite you to the place where your family was slaughtered.” On the grass again, Aemond pointed to the green tarpaulin some ways away. “My uncle lives his life from tourney to tourney, living off winner’s purses. Your children will be born in tents,” he said. “In all this fresh air and sunlight.”
“I’m not marrying your uncle,” she said. “It was done in jest! Because you’re all jesters. A pack of clowns, laughing while the world is on fire.”
“We’re not on fire yet,” he said, bumping her shoulder. “And you really ought to make more of an effort to put yourself out there. If I could leave you here, there’d be more room in the saddle for whichever lady I have to take back with me.”
“And how is that going?” she asked. “Any progress?”
“I’ll kidnap someone,” he said easily, “which is why I’ll be needing all the rope.”
Back in his tent, helmet all the way off now to reveal yellowish-brown mussed-up hair, Gwayne Hightower was having water poured into his armor.
“She could not resist,” he announced as she entered the small space, and then when Aemond came in behind her, he added, “You’ve come to duel me, I take it?”
Aemond sniffed. “Not at all.”
The knight chuckled, belched, and then sent a squire off to fetch more wine. “So is the old bat dead at last?” he asked, propping himself against an old table.
“By and by,” Aemond said. “In a month perhaps.”
“And Aegon?” he asked, eyebrows furrowing. “Is he… better?”
Aemond made a choked sound, shook his head, and then shrugged. “He’s the same. He’s… himself.”
“And your sister?”
“She’s well.”
“And my sister?”
“She’s in good health,” he said. And then he reached into his coat and passed his uncle a bundle of letters tied together.
Gwayne took them and set them all aside. “So, who’s dead?”
“No one!” Aemond said, dusting off a chair for himself. “No one’s dead.”
Gwayne looked at both of them, eyebrow furrowing. “So why are you here?” And then he gasped, dramatically, “Gods, are you two eloping?” He clapped his hands. “And you came to your favorite uncle for help! Wonderful.”
Aemond blinked. “You’re my least favorite uncle. You’re a child.”
“Such wonderful news,” Gwayne continued. “What did I tell you Aemond? You remember what I said?”
“I have no idea what you mean.”
“I said that if she was meant for you, then she will return to you. Do you remember when I said that?”
Aemond shook his head.
Gwayne turned to her and grinned. He had a face like a fox and looked full of mischief. Not what she’d expected from one of Otto’s children at all.
“He was inconsolable,” he said to her. “For months after you'd gone. After that day with the jugglers—”
“Were you there?” she asked. She didn’t remember him being there.
“I try to never miss out on children’s celebrations,” he said, and she couldn’t tell whether he was jesting or not. “Wherever there is meat and free wine, you will find me at the table. Wherever there are mothers and sisters, nursemaids and pretty cousins.”
“You’re an ass,” Aemond said flatly.
“When my sister said she needed jugglers urgently, I had no choice,” the knight continued. “And you turned out well.” His eyes raked her up and down with not even the slightest sense of propriety. Like a man sizing up a horse he might by. “Well enough, at any measure.” He turned to Aemond with a raised finger. “Honestly, I don’t think you can do any better, nephew.”
How was she supposed to take that?
“I can,” Aemond said.
“You cannot,” she heard herself say. “Which is why you should simply join the Kingsguard.
“There’s Floris, Maris, Ellyn…” Aemond recited. “And Cassidy.”
“Cassandra!” she snapped at him. “You don't even know her name!”
“Baratheon,” Aemond said, lapping one leg over the other, chin rising in the air as if he were above such petty things as names. “Baratheon is the only name that matters.” And then, addressing his uncle, “She's refusing to marry me because I have no inheritance, and she thinks me too lowly and—”
“That is not the reason!”
“And she’s afraid her father will have me killed, so she’s trying to sacrifice herself in some man’s bed to save my life.”
Rhaena swallowed, face hot with embarrassment and raw rage. She was trying to keep them all alive, him, her sister, herself, Laenor, his sister and her children, the people of Westeros, their dragons…
“You are an afterthought,” she told him.
Gwayne cleared his throat. “I'm very confused. Are you eloping or not? Because if you are, we should have it done before the septon goes for his lunch. He’s a very hard man to pin down once he's on the move.”
“No need,” Aemond said. “She's set her target on Young Loreon. She means to snatch the boy out of his mother's lap and make herself mistress of Casterly Rock when Jason passes.”
Gwayne eyed her for a long moment, rubbing at the faint beard on his chin. “Not a bad idea. If I were a young woman, I'd do the same, but alas.”
“How is it that you are still unmarried?” The question came out of her before she could stop herself.
Gwayne laughed. “Are you offering?”
“You are old enough to be her father,” Aemond groused.
“Five minutes ago, you said I was a child,” his uncle reminded him.
“I mean only that you are not ugly,” she said. “I’d heard that you were maimed by my father at a tourney when you were younger. My father often cites this as one of the reasons why your father hates him. I thought you’d be scarred, or at least…”
It was only at Aemond’s clenched jaw that she realized what she’d said, but he didn’t so much as turn her way and his uncle didn’t even seem to notice. “Your father’s a cunt,” Gwayne said plainly. “That’s all. Any right-minded man of the Faith should hate him, but I wasn’t maimed.”
“He said you lost your teeth.”
The knight smiled to show her that he still had all his chompers. “I lost two milk teeth,” he said. “The pointy ones, and one was already loose anyway.”
“Milk teeth?” she asked, even more confused. “How old were you?”
Gwayne frowned. “Thirteen?” he said after a moment of deep thought. “I was knighted at thirteen, if I'm remembering it correctly, so it would have been sometime after that. Or twelve. Decades ago, either way. What does it matter?”
Rhaena sighed, having very little difficulty imagining her father taking great pride in knocking a Hightower child off a horse. She dusted a chair for herself, dragged it next to Aemond’s, and sat down. “I only mean that it’s odd,” she said to the knight. “You are skilled at jousting—”
“Years of practice,” he said, eyeing his nephew.
“I practice the arts of war,” Aemond said. “When I pick up a weapon, I mean to draw blood, not earn points and applause.”
“—and your sister is Queen,” Rhaena continued. “Your father is the Hand; your nephew will be king. Surely there are ladies willing to marry you. You are all very handsome—” That would have to do for an apology for now until she could tell Aemond properly that she did not think him ugly because he was scarred or maimed or disfigured or anything like that. “—and Daeron is sure to have admirers with his warm friendliness.”
Gwayne refilled his wine cup. “My father tried his hand at matchmaking once and it's gone so wrong, I think he resolved to never do it again. Ali looks like our mother, we boys take after his father, you cannot blame the man for having favorites.” He plucked out an apple from the bowl of fruit on the table and shrugged. “I think they're all waiting to see if we survive the war. The odds aren't all that good for us. All the beasts of Dragonstone against our three... However good I am with a sword, I can't fight a dragon. It is hard to plan for a future you may not have,” he said earnestly. “Hard to bring someone innocent into a war. If Daemon sits the throne, my father is dead, me and my brothers are dead, my father's grandsons and great-grandsons are dead, and Ali and Hells Bells sold off to brothels, perhaps. If I am dead, I wouldn't like to think of my widow left behind to plead for your father’s mercy.”
“The trick is to go for the eyes, I think,” Aemond said, looking at her in that bored languid way again. “There's no creature, great or small, who keeps fighting after losing an eye.”
They all looked at him, confused.
“If a swordsman were to fight a dragon, I mean. This is what I'd suggest,” he clarified. “Avoid the fire and get to the eyes.”
“Get to whose eyes?” Daeron asked, entering the tent with another man, both of them carrying large buckets of water which they promptly doused Gwayne with. The man with him was yet another cousin, Garmund Hightower, who kissed her hand.
Aemond snorted and pushed his cousin away from her with one idle boot as Rhaena took her hand back. “You’d be better off with the toddler,” he told her.
“Cousin,” Garmund said brusquely.
“Go fuck your stepmother,” Aemond drawled out before turning to her. “They’re all waiting for Ormund to die, so they can battle it out between themselves for the widow.”
Unbothered and clearly used to being on the receiving end of much teasing where his stepmother was concerned, Garmund introduced himself. “It is lovely to meet you,” he said. “I’ve heard about you, but I pictured you differently.”
“Why are you picturing her at all?” Aemond asked. “She is my intended. What is wrong with you? You fucking cheesehead.”
“Again, fuck you,” Garmund said politely to Aemond, and then to her, “I thought you’d be more like your father.”
“Have you ever met my father?” she asked.
“Never, but people are always speaking of him being terrifying. I thought you'd be terrifying, but you're just… ordinary.”
“I'm working up to it,” she said. “My plan is to be deceptive and patient, and then slowly grow into a terror later on.”
Aemond snorted again.
“What?” she snapped at him.
He shook his head. “Nothing.”
“You’ve been grumbling all day. Don’t stop now.”
He leaned forward a little. “I mean only that you have always been a terror,” he said simply. “You hover somewhere between terrific and terrible. You oscillate between the states and settle in the middle.”
Was he drunk?
He’d been nursing a single cup of wine all afternoon, so she didn’t think so, but he was being so cantankerous and moody and sensitive, she wanted to hit him and snap him back to the person he’d been two days ago, practicing swords in the courtyard.
A noisy roar went up, horses and people screaming together, and Garmund dashed out of the tent.
“Anyone but him,” Aemond said as soon as his cousin was gone.
“Is he dangerous?” she frowned, having discerned none of that from the boy’s cavalier attitude. “He's your cousin.”
“He is a page,” he said, eyebrow raised as if he were explaining something heinous. As if the word was taboo. “He has come of age and has not yet been promoted to squire.”
“And that is… bad?”
Daeron nodded. “It's as bad as it gets. He’s a complete moppet.”
Rhaena’s ears perked up. A moppet was exactly what she was looking for. Someone controllable with access to a castle where she might hide Laenor. Someone she might convince to marry her in a week, whose claim to her would not be set aside for Luke.
No one would believe Garmund to be a kidnapper, regardless of what story Rhaenyra and her father spun, and it would be her father’s greatest shame to find himself challenging a page. No self-respecting prince, lord, or knight would draw swords against a page.
Could she marry him though?
Gwayne stretched, his turn to ride again quickly approaching. “That boy… He’s a kind heart, but he’s about as useful as teats on a lion.”
She stared blankly at the knight until he took her meaning and explained himself.
“Well, you're never going to try to milk a lion, are you?” he asked. “So there’s always that bit of doubt that the teats do produce milk.”
“Mm,” Aemond said.
“A lion’s teats might produce honey or wine… We’d never know, but the possibility remains that they might serve some greater purpose that we simply cannot see or understand. I like to think that in time, someone will be able to just…” He made a crude milking gesture with his hand. “That someone someday might squeeze if only a single drop of talent out of him. And you, nephew…”
“What about me?”
“You can have my place in the lists,” the knight offered. “Show your own talent.”
Rhaena agreed heartily. “Yes. Go prove your fearsome manliness to Cassandra,” she said. “Let her swoon before you.”
“I haven’t ridden a horse in ages,” he said simply.
She stopped herself from asking about Thunderhoof. She’d read pages upon pages about that damned horse Criston had bought him. He’d told her about the horse-master. About how different it was compared to Vhagar. How foolish it seemed that he should run towards dragons but be afraid of horses.
‘They are so easily spooked. So skittish. If I were ever kicked in the head by a horse, I think the shame more than the hoof would do me in.’
But she had lied about his letters. She’d told him that they went unread, so she could hardly ask after Thunderhoof without betraying herself.
“It is hard to think you’ve never had a horse in all this time,” she said, speaking as generally as she could.
“Why would I need a horse?” he asked.
“I remember you wanting one.”
“I want a great many things, Rhaena. A horse is perhaps least on the list.”
“Still,” she said. “I would think that Criston at least would have taught you to ride. What if you’re being attacked and Vhagar isn’t around.”
“I know how to ride,” he relented with a groan. “I had a horse for a year or so.”
“And you don’t ride it?”
“Sunfyre ate it.”
“Sunfyre ate your horse?”
“Yes.”
“Oh. I'm sorry.” He had left that out of his letters completely, and now she felt sorry for the poor animal. Sorry too that she could not say something more meaningful.
“It was a horse,” he said. “I've lost more important things—”
She sniffed and turned away from his gaze, knowing that he meant her. She wanted to take his hand and crush him in a hug and tell him that he had not lost her, and that if he would simply join the Kingsguard for a year or two, she would solve everything.
“—like my eye, of course—”
Rhaena bit her tongue to keep from saying anything. He had meant her. He had very obviously meant her and their betrothal that had never truly been.
“—and my swords. I am constantly losing my swords. Which is why I keep them strapped to me.”
“Oh, so you tie things to you when you’re afraid of losing them?”
He laughed, and she awarded herself the victory when he took his bottom lip in his teeth, the top of his cheeks coloring a bright pink that no one in the tent missed.
“What’s this now?” his uncle tsked. “Who was tied to what? After all my sister’s done to raise you in the path of righteousness? Aemond? What do you have to say for yourself? Tying up maidens—how could you?”
“To keep her from falling out the saddle, was all,” Aemond said, just as his uncle started tossing him with oranges and calling him a scoundrel. “She has weak hands!” he yelled, shielding his face from the fruit. “A weak grip. She cannot be trusted to look after herself. Which is why I’m here playing guardsman.” He got to his feet. “And I should return you to the pavilion and away from these lechers. Young Loreon must be missing you by now.”
As annoyed as she was with him, she took his arm happily, actually looking forward to the rest of the tourney now that she had met at least one of the knights and had someone to root for. Someone riding with her ribbon tied to his lance.
Asses, the pack of them. But friendly ones.
“You cannot encourage him,” Aemond said when they were out in the air again. “My uncle. He is a philanderer of the lowest order.”
She wasn’t so sure about that. As far as she knew, he hadn’t killed anyone. Hadn’t raped anyone. And he was right in a way. They might all be dead soon enough. Would it be fair to any wife he might take? What harm was there in the man finding some little pleasure in his numbered days?
She had lived by the rules all her life and where had that gotten her? Baela had been as perfect a daughter and granddaughter as anyone could have been and where had that gotten her? Disinherited in favor of a stranger’s bastard, and married off to another? She thought of Aemond’s mother and the seven-pointed star around her neck. Where had faith gotten her? Where had duty gotten her?
"Why don't you like Garmund?"
"He stayed with us for a year," he said simply, "and he was insufferable. He's like all the Strong Boys rolled into one person. Completely useless."
“We should enjoy ourselves,” she said.
“I’m enjoying myself.”
“I mean, truly,” she said. “I know you do not like to be around this many people. And I apologize for the way Loreon stared. He doesn’t know better.”
“I am used to it.”
“You are not ugly,” she said, finding no soft way to put it. “Of course, I am horribly biased, and in reality, you might be monstrous, but you are not ugly to me, and my opinion is the only one that should matter to you.”
“I do not need empty flattery.”
“I am not flattering you,” she said. “You have the personality of a disgruntled maester, the hair of an ice princess, the mouth of a cat, and worst of all, you resemble my father. If I said you were better looking than Ser Cole, that would be empty flattery.”
He cackled and shoved her away from him. “The man is old enough to be your father. He is old enough to be my father.”
“The years were extremely kind to him. You'd think he'd have some grey in his hair at least, but the gods are good.”
“Stop!”
Rhaena laughed. “Is it scandalous to say that a beautiful man is beautiful?” she asked, copying Daeron from earlier. “I am not saying you are beautiful. I am only saying you are not ugly. Do not get your feathers ruffled, you bloody peacock. You are not beautiful, but you are… appealing.”
He stopped walking, hands on his hips, head tilted to the side. “Appealing?”
“Yes,” she said, not quite meeting his eye. “There are other qualities that make a person… appealing besides a symmetrical face.” Why had she started this conversation? “There is your sense of confidence. And you are always authentically you. You are never affected by others and that is something as well, to be so resolved about oneself. And you remembered to bring a gift for Loreon though you do not like him.”
“I did not remember to bring a gift for Loreon,” he said. “That was my own dagger. Valyrian steel. You think I go around giving gifts of Valyrian steel to random children?”
“Well, you are still generous.”
He huffed. “I’m going to steal it off him before we leave,” he said, looking at her as if she were going daft and she felt daft, trying to compliment her idiot of a cousin.
“You are honest then, and this is also a good trait. I’m only saying we should make an attempt to enjoy the festivities,” she said, taking his arm again as they resumed their walk to the pavilion. “At the dinner tonight, if you want to dance, you should dance. Without worrying about who is staring or who is gossiping. The Baratheons would be lucky to have you, any of them, and they could not do any better. I am giving you my permission.”
“I don’t need your permission, though.”
“True,” she said as they walked. “As I also don’t need your permission to dance with Garmund if he asks me.”
He chuckled. “Honestly, I think I’d prefer Luke,” he said. “At least the bastard knows how to use a dagger.”
Rhaena covered her mouth with her hands. “That is not funny.”
He shrugged. “My life is a long joke without a punchline, cousin. If I can’t find a way to laugh at it, I might cry and never stop.”
“We are such crybabies,” she said.
“A lot of fuss,” he agreed, “over a missing eye and a dead mother. We are such spoiled, pampered gremlins.”
“We are horrible.”
“The worst,” he said. “The absolute worst.”