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ELYAS, SEPTON OF THE RED KEEP198Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡ1ezUjXeLu0
"And may the Smith put the realm to rights, and strengthen every sword for the king."
"And may the Smith put the realm to rights, and strengthen every sword for the king," Valaena repeated with little more than a whisper.
"And may the Maiden protect the queen, the princess, and all the good women of the realm from harm."
"And may the Maiden protect…"
"You know, princess, the Gods are very high up. You may have to pray a little louder to be heard," Elyas said with a soft smile.
Valaena hesitated, a worried look on her face. Elyas noticed it, as he was trained to. "Is something the matter, princess?"
"My father never comes. He never speaks of the faith, either."
"Well," Elyas pondered, his mind juggling half a dozen answers. Speaking of the king was potentially dangerous business; a septon may have been trained to speak piously, but these days, they were obliged to speak loyally as well. "With the crown comes many distractions. He does his duty to the gods in his own way, do not fear."
"I don't," Valaena answered plainly. "It's just…" she shook her head, platinum hair falling to her shoulders.
"You are having doubts again, princess?"
A slow nod moved her downcast face.
Elyas sighed and stood where he had just knelt. "Come. We will continue our prayer tomorrow."
"My mother will still be gone. Three days," she said, standing.
"All the same. Ours is a private dedication, one to the whole realm. It is the most charitable devotion an individual can make; it is from one to all, leaving none behind. Come," Elyas said, leading Valaena deeper into the bowels of the Sept of the Red Keep.
"Have you explored all of it?" Valaena asked curiously, following his tail. Their light footsteps bounced barely noticeable echoes down the halls.
"Of course. It's not so vast as it seems, I assure you." Louder footsteps echoed behind them; the princess's escort—three scarlet guards and two white knights. "Not so vast as was Baelor the Blessed's."
"Did you ever see the Great Sept, before the Usurpers destroyed it?"
Elyas chuckled. "No, I'm afraid not. I'm not quite that old, princess. I'm actually quite young, so says the High Septon."
They rounded a corner and entered a newer wing than the last; before them sprawled a library, several floors beneath and above them. The balcony they now neared led to eloquent stone stairways headed both directions, each stone railing decorated with the mantle of a gargoyle-like dragon.
"I've never seen this," Valaena gasped. "How?"
"Technically, it is private," Elyas explained, and pointed down to the bottom floor where rows of desks were occupied by monks and scribal tapestries or copy papers. "Daenerys the Good had it built. An expansion, to house the displaced from the Great Sept. It was finished under your grandfather, King Jaehaerys."
Valaena ran to the balcony edge and leaned on the dragon-ornamented railing, taking it all in. Thousands of books must have been moved into the library; it was the swiftest growing archive in Westeros. Septon Elyas, in his most imaginative moments, considered that it may one day, many generations from now, rival even the Citadel. So long as it retained royal favor, anyhow.
"Wonderful," she mumbled. "Can I come again?"
"You will be queen, one day," Elyas said with a charmed smile. "You may visit any time you like. Just find me."
Even as Elyas spoke, he fidgeted his thumb and index together. So long as I remain a septon, he thought to say, but held his tongue. So long as the new High Septon stays in Oldtown, and your father remains sane. Yet the princess was pure, innocent; made in the light of the Mother Above. She was unlike her father, unlike her family; she resembled the Queen alone, and Elyas would sooner suffer torture than see that change. So long as Queen Syella is the one raising you…
When the princess had departed—lessons with the Grandmaester, no doubt—Elyas returned to the seven-sided prayer hall. He took up a new candle and refreshed the waning flames of the others, beginning with the Father.
Three years he served in the Red Keep. When he'd arrived, he hadn't a gray hair on his head. Now, he was alarmed to find new gray lines amidst his jet black strands every day. His knees creaked and groaned as he knelt in the sanctuary's center, his hands clasping together, warmed by their closeness to the open flames of the wicks.
"Father above," he began slowly, his voice a whisper. "Give me strength. Give me your wisdom, for I lack both. Help me to rear them in, to hold them to virtue, to hold them accountable," … he sighed.
"Father, you sent me here," he began, with a new tone, his eyes closed. "I wished for nothing more than that quiet life." I was contented to scribe away as the monks here do; I was contented with any job, no matter how dirty or low. He had suffered the worst of famine, the worst of sickness, the loss of his mother and father; he had nothing left to lose, and gave his all to the Gods. For peace. "For quiet, Father."
The Most Devout had different plans. "You had different plans," he complained, then thought better of it. "Forgive me my insolence, Father… forgive me my pride, my weakness, my ignorance," all reasons why he wasn't enough; why he was graying scarcely past thirty years; why he was terrified of the king, the High Septon, the Faith Militant, and the court of the Red Keep.
He waited. He listened for a sign; any sign, but received the usual silence. Then he went on.
"I will do my duty, as you will it," he mumbled. "But… give me strength, only, Father, that I do not fail you. I am so scared." He had lost nearly everything; to lose his life was simple enough, but to lose this, his closeness with the divine… what else would he have left?
A noise erupted; a long creaking of wood drew behind him. His eyes shot open with the alarm of a man whose wishes were answered; only to dart behind him, to catch the shape of a man drawing open the chapel doors.
"Septon," called the Lord Justiciar.
Slowly, Elyas stood, his prayer either interrupted or concluded. His knees creaked and he leaned on the stone table, a finger dipped in hot wax, until he was fully up anew. "My lord Longwaters," he replied. "You are earlier than usual."
"The king's council begins shortly," Laenor Longwaters said as he walked closer. "My granddaughter's prayer went well?"
"Well enough," Elyas said simply. This was a regular engagement, of course. "She excels as always with the gods; her bond with them is close."
"And her bond with you?"
Elyas paused. Lord Laenor did not elaborate; Elyas felt his worried eyes trail down to the pommel at the corner of his scabbard, before meeting his sharp blue eyes again, meeker than before.
"How do you mean, my lord?"
"She returns to us happy," the Master of Laws smiled. "Happier than usual. Her father has even noticed it, of late. You might try to make her gloomier."
"Is there anything wrong with being happy?" Elyas asked. Laenor had continued walking closer, his gait now slow and intimate; he was closer than was comfortable, and drawing nearer still. Elyas took an unsteady step backward, and felt the table behind him. His back robe dipped in wax.
"The gods I know do not make men happy," Laenor said, stopping just before the septon, his breath close. "They make them dutiful. Obedient."
"Her joy comes from her close bond with the gods," Elyas stammered. "She excels, I said, my lord. That is why she is happy."
"Well," the Lord Longwaters said, turning his head. His eyes danced between the Crone and the Stranger. "See to it that His Grace does not fear that cordiality leads to unnecessary familiarity. I say this for your sake, septon, not mine."
Elyas nodded slowly, a strange feeling of anxiety tracing up his spine.
"And how did she speak of her father?" Lord Laenor asked, turning outright and stepping away mindlessly.
"She…" Elyas hesitated. "She… fears that he is cynical, my lord. She complains that he speaks nothing of the gods."
Elyas could not see it, but he felt that Laenor had smiled, then.
"My daughter and the king make a fine union indeed," he said proudly, "but they are two very different people. Protect yourself, and continue your good work with her."
Elyas nodded again. "Yes, my lord."
Laenor turned, a now sharper look on his face. "Your robes, septon, are aflame."
He blinked, not understanding at first; the words swept past him without meaning. And then he recalled the anxiety which climbed up his spine. He turned, to find that his robe had piled into the row of fresh candles. "Oh, good Gods above," he cried in despair as Laenor faded into the distance, and the chapel doors creaked shut once more. Elyas, distracted as he tore off his burning robes and stamped them onto the stone floor, had scarcely noticed him leave. His mind leapt from one worry to the next; one fire to another. "Help!" he cried, knowing that his robes were very likely already too far gone to be repaired.
The Red Keep had this way of him; he had no time besides the present, no concern besides that which thrust itself before him immediately. Every private devotion went interrupted with newer business, and every business came with conditions, threats, and, worst of all, politics. A septon was not made for politics, Elyas knew: he understood that this place was a hostile ground, no matter how alluring the royal family's support might have seemed, nor how large the sept archives.
Had Elyas known he was an informant for the Lord Justiciar? Far from it. As with all things, he'd found his way into it blindly, he'd stumbled by necessity, and been backed into a burning corner. The flames caught him unwittingly. He would get burnt, as all good men do in intrigue, but to do that, he'd first have to begin to play the game. For the moment, the young septon was content to stay within the Sept of the Red Keep's walls, scarcely emerging besides at lordly requests. He was content with the comfort of a sept under siege; to sally out and meet the forces of the world was something for another man, a stronger man.
Elyas's robes were damaged beyond repair, as expected. It took three days to fetch new ones that fit the ostentatious requirements of a septon at royal court. Strangely, he felt more at ease without the weight of those layers of silk on him—the simple brown cassock of a monk fit him best. He continued his prayer with the princess on the next day, and postponed ritual devotions to the faithful of the city scheduled for the day after. That was the day word reached him. A wandering septon entered the sept with a letter from the Most Devout.
"Father above," the septon mumbled as he read in the silence of his cell. "Of all days. Of all things."
"I am doomed," Elyas said simply.
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