Chapter 7: The True Master of the Pit
Though I am a man of luxurious taste, in this life and the last, none would associate with the word: frolic, and yet for the next sennight I had the run of the castle and the city, and by the gods did I frolic. With no right to sit the Iron Throne and hold court in absence of my father and sister, with no mother nor Kingsguards to disturb , I frolicked in the full depravity of this wretched hive of scum and villainy. Wine, won, dog fighting, wrestling, boxing, theater, dancing, feasting, juggling, japery, indeed there was japery, and best of all an arena of child gladiators.
Oh what a slaughter that day was. Just , so worthless guards, and an entire arena full of people to kill without any of those annoying things called consequences. It was a scumbag yard sale.
The wavy blade of Chira's Wail flashed in the dimly lit complex as I pranced and pirouetted through the stands and balanced atop the railings - one foot, two feet, no feet with a one hand stand - as I sliced and stabbed with great abandon. I do believe I found far more pleasure in that pit of suffering than any Aegon ever, and at the end of it all I raised a flagon to the wonderful patrons of the establishnt as the Gold Cloaks broke onto the scene. I smiled at my uncle's n and announced, "I'm done!"
Alack and alas my revelry ca to an end, and not even fresh controversy could distract my mother for long from having her pound of flesh for my behavior on Driftmark. Or more like her ringing voice in my ears.
"Why would you throw away years of effort seeking favor with your father, Aegon!" she screeched at in a private little corner of Maegor's Holdfast.
"Plans within plans." I offered, and her face told everything.
My mother gawked up at , like seeing for an idiot for the thousandth ti and yet still finding it shocking, "Plans within plans?" she repeated oozing frustration.
"Yes." I nodded, pretending like she saw the fullness of the painting.
"The songs, the late night conversations, the days spent playing with blocks together. Plans within plans." she derided .
Color surprised, for sohow my mother found so fresh way to offend . Another sign of her incredible talent though faulty wisdom. A woman of vexatious talent indeed.
"We do not play with blocks." I hissed down at her, "Our model city is an effort of scholarship, art, and luxury. There are few pastis more noble for a crippled king than that. Speak not a word against it." I paused to give my mother just enough ti to process that, but she didn't need it.
"And what about any of that makes up for your disastrous display the last fortnight, you fool!" My mother slapped a hand against my velvet doublet,
"It does not make up for anything." I shook my head at her hysterics, "That influence has yet to be spent."
"That influence is spoiled." she hissed.
"My father endures." I denied, "And he holds tightly to any source of comfort. You shall go to him and speak about my rescue of the children in the city as a sign of my virtue hidden amidst my vices. Then summon , and insist that sothing be done to correct my behavior. " I took note of my mother's confused face and offered quick explanation, "The fractured bone nds stronger." then continued, "I will then swear to abstain." now my mother's eyes looked upon as if to see the edges of the mask the Faceless Man is wearing, "And offer service to the family as penance taking up duties amongst the Dragonkeepers."
Now my mother recognizes . The Dragonkeepers were our project, though my mother knew not the full extent of my involvent.
In my boyhood, I looked to the Dragonkeepers, those seventy seven n who guarded the lairs of the dragons on both Dragonstone and in the Pit, seeking out those amongst them full of virtue, the incorruptible, the stalwart, those with honor and staidness. I looked for those n of valor and loyalty, and over the course of a handful of years I killed them all. Faked accidents, a few coins to make so barroom brawls gone wrong, and I got a lot of them with poison in a year with a particularly bad stomach flu. Those virtuous n shit themselves to death, and then I watched their replacents all the while reminding my mother how important it was that the right people take their places.
Though slower than my forr operation to secure naval bronze for my fleet of longships, the second verse matched the first, and with great patience ca great reward. The forrly politically agnostic and ultimately good for nothing order ended, and a new Green partisan faction rose up right under my sister's nose. The very Commander of the Dragonkeepers is a man married to one of my mother's forr ladies in waiting, a woman whose family is sworn to Old Town. I've seen him quietly rewarded and honored for his political acun, and appreciate his simian intelligence. While from the outside things all looked like a run of terrible fortune for the order, to those inside sothing was obviously wrong, and with only my mother's creatures pushing in, well, they were smart enough to let the implication remain unspoken. Good thing I'd removed the brave from the order first.
As the highest ranking representative in contact with the group, responsibility for communication and coordination fell to , and thus fell control into my hands. Even more so with my feats within the Pit itself, feats of peak human athleticism and my totality as a Dragon Lord. When I say be silent, not a voice among the order dares speak, and I have ordered silence of the greatest secret in the world. Silence kept, in fear of the troubles returning, this ti for them all.
She recognized the play, her mind twisted by years of sches. The appearance of contrition, without any of the substance, and my father - ever eager for words of reconciliation - ate it up. His weary eyes teared up at my oath of abstinence and offer of familial service, and he praised for my heroic deed in the city, calling a champion of the downtrodden and a reclair of lost children. When I revealed the creation of a new song about the event, he stamped his feet in approval and summoned the whole family.
Rheanyra and her bastards along with her beard, Ser Laenor, as well as my future bride, Heleana, and my still giddy brother Aemond arrived along with the Kingsguard to find tuning up my guitar and warming up my voice. Little Daeron now fostered in Old Town, so he got a pass, and unfortunately for him my songs rarely beca popular among bards due to haters calling them things like 'beginner friendly' and 'simple progressions' and 'lacking classical structure'. Hacks, the lot of them.
Channeling that grudge I began working through cord G, C, and D.
"~You can run on for a long ti
Run on for a long ti
Run on for a long ti~"
-Rhaenyra Targaryen-
The crown princess felt a bitterness in her guts as she watched her half-brother effortlessly dance his way back into their father's favor with another of his low-brow songs. Glide around the pit he dug with his brazen aggression at her good-sister's funeral, dodge the consequences of nearly breaking sacred Guest Rights. For the sake of the gods the first three lines didn't even rhy, just used the sa word last, yet there her father swayed and bobbed his head with a faint smile.
Her gaze t her brother's at the start of the forth line and he smiled,
"~Sooner or later I'll cut you down
Sooner or later I'll cut you down~"
Her jaw dropped and she looked to their father, still mildly dancing and grinning. Her brother openly sang of killing her and her father just ignored it. How could he possibly not realize the out and proud threat against her?
"~Go tell that long tongue liar
Go and tell that midnight rider
Tell the rambler, the gambler, the back biter
Tell 'em that I'm gonna cut 'em down
Tell 'em that I'm gonna cut 'em down~"'
Rhaenyra looked to Alicent's smug face, the woman obviously pleased by her abominable boy managing to slip a threat past her husband amidst swearing to slay all forms of villains lesser and greater, the woman zealot begot the boy zealot. The Faith of the Seven deed many things sinful and much anathema, and they'd get no more terrible a crusader than they could in her brother. He stood far taller than any other man in their family already, and his doublet strained to contain his bulging muscles. His neck erged from the collar, thick with creeping vascularity that flared as he sang.
"~Well my goodness gracious let tell you the news
My head's been wet with the midnight dew
I've been down on bended knee talkin' to the Father of all you see
He spoke to in the voice so sweet
I thought I heard the shuffle of the Maiden's feet
He called my na and my heart stood still
When he said, "Aegon, go do my will"~"
-Ser Criston Cole-
The embittered Kingsguard rembered fondly smashing the face of a bard that sought patronage among The Whore's ilk by degrading the Prince's playing. This song, like so many others, filled Criston Cole's heart with fondness for the young man, despite his natural orneriness towards his minders.
The knight smirked as he imagined what the pathetic pissant would say about this one, this knightly song. What could so wandering troubadour begging for favor know of sothing that spoke so deeply to the knightly calling. A quick glance at the other mbers of the Kingsguard revealed the faces of n who understood the ssage, who felt the righteous need to stand against evil. Ser Criston knew his brothers would one day stand with him, and take up the just cause of the future King.
"~Go tell that long tongue liar
Go and tell that midnight rider
Tell the rambler, the gambler, the back biter
Tell 'em that I'm gonna cut 'em down
Tell 'em that I'm gonna cut 'em down
You can run on for a long ti
Run on for a long ti
Run on for a long ti
Sooner or later I'll cut you down
Sooner or later I'll cut you down~"
-Aemond Targaryen-
The boy smiled brightly as his brother sang to their bastard nephews. Those beasts born of sin squird, understanding Aegon's preaching more deeply than the words any Septon ever wasted on them. They would never usurp his family, not with his brother standing in the way like a living sermon of the true-born. He looked to his half-sister and wondered how she could be so deluded as to believe that she will ever rule in a world in which Aegon exists.
Aemond hated Aegon, but moreso, he hated himself for the way he lacked in comparison. All his life, all he had over his brother was virtue, and a hollow one at that, for what virtue is there in being harmless? None. Now with Vhagar, the greatest living being in the world, his to command, he could finally let go of his hatreds and co to love himself and his brother. No longer did he look at his brother, and only see the ways in which he lacked, but now instead saw the future, their future. The golden and glorious tomorrow in which they rise ascendent together as brothers.
The world is theirs. It just hasn't caught on yet.
"~ Well, you may throw your rock and hide your hand
Workin' in the dark against your fellow man
But as sure as Seven made black and white
What's done in the dark will be brought to the light~"
-Alicent Hightower-
The Queen's eyebrows rose as the lyrics reminded her of the last ti Aegon sang about deeds done in the dark coming to light, and her gaze shifted over to her father who stood quietly at the back of the chamber, observing all others as is his way. 'Midnight Fire' she rembered the na of the song, and her sight locked in on Aegon once more as he smiled widely and sang on.
Mother's can so easily delude themselves, her 'rival' Rhaenyra embodied the concept, but Alicent knew that no amount of maternal love could ever change her monstrous firstborn, and now she needed to figure out how Aegon could have possibly murdered Lyonel and Harwin Strong.
Horrid of her to think so easily that her son could do such a thing as to light a castle ablaze with only innocent people inside, yet the piles of broken bodies she cleaned up in his wake made it all too easy. Since he was ten na days old, Aegon could burst a man's innards with a single punch, or smash open his skull. He could break people even more easily than make them, and he'd made hundreds of little Valyrian bastards, and those were just the ones she knew about. For all his size, Aegon moved quiet as the graves he filled, coming and going from the Red Keep as he pleased, unheard and unseen.
Alicent couldn't even say when it started, but she'd first noticed sothing strange when at seven years old he brought to her attention the number of vacancies in the Dragon Keepers that needed filling with the right kind of people, people obedient to her family, people loyal to their faction. It simply didn't raise any alarm in her until it kept happening, more mbers of the Dragon Keepers would et an untily end, and Aegon would remind her to fill the spots before soone else did.
She blad herself for it. Though she never said it aloud, Aegon grew up knowing full well that one day he would cast down his sister to take his place on the Iron Throne. He needed cruelty to achieve that, and cruelty he cultivated. He'd never hesitated to beat soone for overreach, and now that beating could at any ti turn brutally fatal. She shuddered in rembrance of the broken forms of the n she'd tried replacing his bathing servants with.
It was stupid, but she'd been at wits end covering up the deluge of bastards he produced daily and she just wanted one mont of peace. Even the old and the barren succumbed to his Seven blessed seed, what else was she to do? And in one misstep he created the biggest scandal she'd ever had to cover up. Rumors percolated, and she knew it was her fault. Her father would have permanently silenced the factors she employed in the clean up, but she couldn't make that command herself.
She felt weak, but wouldn't change that about herself. The gods would one day judge her, and they will not find Alicent Hightower a sinner.
"~ You can run on for a long ti
Run on for a long ti
Run on for a long ti
Sooner or later I'll cut you down
Sooner or later I'll cut you down~"
-Heleana Targaryen-
Oh gawd, he's hot!
"~Go tell that long tongue liar
Go and tell that midnight rider
Tell the rambler, the gambler, the back biter
Tell 'em that I'm gonna cut you down
Tell 'em that I'm gonna cut you down
Tell 'em that I;m gonna cut you down ~"
-Otto Hightower-
Fools whispered that his grandson was Maegor the Cruel Reborn. Fools indeed, for Aegon was everything Maegor wished he could be, and further more beyond that tyrannical brute's ken. Alicent did well in defending the boy's reputation with such vigor, but she lacked the natural air of authority and quality of thoroughness that Otto developed over years as Hand of the King. Too much mother in her, and not a bad thing at all, just not what was needed.
In just his short ti back in power, Otto followed the trails and now he knew and he understood. All the alliances, all the sches, all the rivalry, and all the politics. All of it smoke in the wind. Aegon mocked it all openly because he has already made his strategy, planted the seed, and now simply needs to watch it grow and be a good steward to it, for he has all he needs to win already in his hands.
Fire and Blood.
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------
You can support and my family at
ko-fi/jmanm
Reviews
All reviews (0)