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JAEHAERYS II
Destruction often gave way for life restored. The usurpers destroyed; the restorer rebuilt. This was the common understanding that underlay Westeros in the aftermath of the reconquest. But there were times when destruction reared its ugly head before it was due, before the things of life had come to their vantage point and were old, ready to be cycled away for the new, to be buried under ash. The field of Tumber's Falls was the latter; the Sept of Baelor the former.
The clergy of the Faith of the Seven had never been as powerful as it once was, after its destruction. They scattered at first; Jaehaerys had been taught that there was, for one year, three High Septons, each in a different realm. There were talks of schism, talks of heresy, talks of conversion to the foreign fire god. All ceased when a new hand took the crown, and sought to bring about peace and stability to the realm, rather than sow further discord. Oldtown was renewed as the seat of the Most Devout and the High Septon, as in the days of old. This change saved blood and ink both from spilling over the fragmented faith, perhaps, but Jaehaerys's brother Haegon had once said that it reduced King's Landing from a capitol to a mere sideshow, and restored Oldtown as the greatest city in Westeros. Jae had little reason to doubt his brother in scholarly matters.
As he neared the old city on dragonback, seeing its faint, aged red spires stretch up into the clouds, he recalled that only a year ago, King Jaehaerys sat the throne. My namesake, when things between my father and him were easier. Only the second to take the crown after the Good Queen died—her eldest daugher Rhaenys I lasted as long as the war against Rhaegar did, and not a day longer—Jaehaerys had the combined support of the Lords of Harrenhal and Summerhall.
"We ruled as one, for the crown," Haegon had told him. "Until father fell out with his cousins."
There was more to the story; that much, Jae intuitively understood. But he'd never asked his elder brother about the details—Jae wasn't an asker besides, especially concerning something so grave. It was tied, he expected, to Valarr Summerstorm, and the way Haegon had lost the use of both of his legs. It was why their father took Jaehaerys, who had claimed Whitewyrm, and not Haegon, his heir, to court at King's Landing.
Jaehaerys had drawn near enough to the city to discern the Dragonpit, its oval roof forever opened; he steered the Sentinel toward it and began to caution her as she descended. It would have been years since she spent a night in the Dragonpit; she was far smaller, then, and was prone to underestimating her own size. It is because she has been alone, all these years, he thought. Most dragons grow with their own kind. She did not.
The Sentinel once again touched ground hard, creaking a long groan when she did. She was graceful in flight, but needed work with her landings. Aides began to rush into the domed pit, having heard the echoing sound of a dragon and felt the quake of one landing nearby. Jaehaerys clambered from her saddle and met them head-on.
"My prince," the foremost aide said, too young to have served here when Jae was a young boy. "Your prince-father arrived ahead of you, and awaits you in the Red Keep."
Jaehaerys turned toward the Sentinel, who was watching him warily. He took a step nearer to her and placed a hand atop her scaled neck. "I'll see you every day," he said, and then turned back.
As he left the pit, he left instructions for the aides. "See to it that she is given space." She had lived in the open for decades now; chains and a cell would have startled her.
"Whitewyrm will want for nothing in our care, my prince," was the reply. Jae wasn't convinced; he carried with him a certain caution as he entered the city, and swore to himself to keep his commitment to her. Every day, at least once.
"Your horse and escort." The voice that greeted him was his father's man, Ser Axel Roote. Jae nodded to him and pat Ben's neck before climbing atop him, his feet firm in the stirrups—he had to check twice. Easy on me today, little Ben, he prayed. The escort started off down the Street of the Sister, four horsemen on Jaehaerys's either side.
"How was the flight, prince Jae?" Ser Roote asked. The prince felt himself over-lean to the left as he focused on the words.
"Er, fine," he said mindlessly as he over-corrected, and slid right, leaning the opposite way. "A bit of wind, but fine." He grit his teeth as he pulled himself back into proper posture, and this time held his back upright as straight as an arrow.
"Wind, eh? Think there's a storm coming?" Axel asked effortlessly, even managing to look at the prince as he spoke, without the slightest error on horseback.
"Maybe."
"If there is a storm, the tourney ought to be delayed. You ought tell your prince-father."
"Unlikely," the prince amended, answering as little as possible.
Two years ago, he'd bit his tongue on horseback. They gave me Ben. "He'll be easier on you," the castellan said, in the tone one might take speaking to a slow child in need of a handicap in the training yard. So now, he kept his answers short and sweet.
The city streets were buzzing with activity; men packed into every open space available to them like cattle, and, the deeper into the city they drew, the louder the noise and more jostling the hubbub became. "Can you smell that?" one of the Trident retainers snorted. "Disgusting."
"You're smelling the lifeblood of the realm," another retainer said. "This is the center of everything, here." He pointed west, toward a row of residences, their bottom floors carved out for shops and seating areas, their higher floors decorated with either bare, fading paints or cloth linens lined above the streets, fabrics hung from every available inch. "That way's the grounds of the Great Sept, you know."
The first retainer chortled. "Little more than ash, now."
Jae recalled the Sept. It was rare for the princelings to be let far from the late-king's reach; when they had the chance, it certainly wasn't the Great Sept they ran toward. Yet one morning, they did see it up close—that was during the small procession they held for the death of old Ser Lewys Lychester. The king—his namesake—had stopped near the open, flat grounds where Baelor's once stood and had sobbed for but a moment. It was a riveting story of empathy, he realized; how much of it was really memory, though? Everybody had known Jaehaerys III to be a pious man, but with the rift that had grown between the Red Keep and Harrenhal, Jae knew not what to believe.
The deeper they drew into the interior of King's Landing, the tighter packed the streets became. Soon, they were scarcely moving a step a minute. Ser Roote's patience wore thin, and before long he'd leapt off his horse angrily and waved the crowd as if to part it. It earned them maybe two additional steps a minute.
The prince was awed with the sights. Oh, there was little to make of the rows of buildings; they were just as jam-packed as the passersby, but that had a striking character of its own right, with market stalls literally hanging from second floors, and goods being tossed down in exchange for coinpurses tossed up by balconies—for those wealthy enough to own the balconies. Jae had also seen his fair share of urchins on this ride; countless raggedy children slipping through the spaces underneath the crowd; they were perhaps the only mobile creatures other than the birds. And, Gods above, the birds: it seemed there were more pigeons nested atop King's Landing than there were fish in all the rivers of the Trident. The prince was sure he'd heard voices calling to buy fresh pigeon-flesh more than once.
"Was it always this way?" he asked Ser Roote mindlessly, only to recall that the man had probably little experience with King's Landing. Only, Prince Jaehaerys felt that it had changed, in some way. It had become… messier, fuller, and slower.
Ser Roote gave no answer. He likely wouldn't have heard Jaehaerys if he'd shouted the query, and had his hands full aiming to part the sea of peasantry before them.
"Yes," answered a retainer behind him abruptly. "In most ways, yes."
Jaehaerys turned his head carefully—only feeling confident he wouldn't fall from his horse since Ben was scarcely moving a tall, now—to look on the man who answered him. He was young; older than Jae, but young nonetheless. He had a splotched complexion—perhaps he was lowborn.
"In most ways, you said," he repeated. "Besides?"
"Under His Grace Jaehaerys, this street was a good one. There was the commons, aye—but there were patrols, too. Look around, my prince, can you spot a single gold-cloak?"
Jae did exactly that and, truth be told, though the color gold should stand out in a sore thumb in a crowd like this, he couldn't discern it anywhere. "No," he answered.
"Where have they gone, if they left these good streets?" the retainer asked rhetorically, with a tone knowing an answer Jaehaerys didn't.
"What is your name, ser?" the prince asked. "I don't recall you."
"Hal, my prince," the man replied, dipping his head. When it rose again, he repeated it. "Just Hal."
Jae made a mental note and then felt himself reduce again into quiet—whether it was awkward or dignified, he wasn't quite sure—as they began to hit a swifter pace on the road. His attention turned to the looming hill on the horizon, vaguely in the direction they were headed, scarlet spires of the Red Keep rising distantly. Father is already there, he contemplated. Has he met the king yet?
Jaehaerys considered that if things were to sour during their stay he might need to fly his prince-father to safety. He began thinking of Whitewyrm anew. They have guards around that Dragonpit, he recalled. Not to mention aides, trained in some Valyrian like the dragon-tamers of old. He began to regret landing the Sentinel in the city—how hard might it have been to keep her to a hill not far outside the walls, where she'd be safer and saner, and ride through one of the gates on horseback? I'll come back tomorrow, he decided. It would be easier to smuggle himself out of the city than to break into a locked and guarded Dragonpit.
The nearer they got to Aegon's High Hill, the wider the streets became—and the more open. The boiling-over of activity from passersby, shopkeepers, and customers had subsided for a more simmering commotion that, only every minute or so, filled over thickly enough to block the road again, and minutes after would clear up. Eventually, the escort even began to see gold-cloaks patrolling around, though they were sparse, and Jaehaerys noted that they were scarcely a thirty minute walk from where the Red Keep. Where have they all gone? By his memory, he'd guess half the city or more was left unwatched.
They came to a forum plaza with a center too crowded to discern beyond that it had some statue obstructed by passersby and market stalls. Only the head could be seen unobstructed, peeking meekly above the mass of daily city life; the head was nothing more than stone, and it could have been anybody, as it lacked the defining feature of a crown. Past this dense plaza was the first gate of many that filtered the inclined street to Maegor's Holdfast. By now, gold-cloaks had become a common enough occurrence to seem regular.
The incline was an arduous ride for Jae, who more than once contemplated slipping off of his horse and leading it by foot to avoid the trouble. He nearly slipped off of Ben accidentally besides, when the chestnut lost his footing to a stone. Thankfully, Ben was quick to regain his balance when he'd lost it. The prince was not so lucky, and spent the next three or four moments straining to not fall on his face. After he'd found his riding posture again, he caught Ser Roote side-eyeing him with an unreadable look that the prince at once took as disappointment.
The sun had begun to set when they reached the inner gate to the Red Keep. Ser Axel had briefly engaged with the watchers of the gate, who pulled it open and alerted some section of the royal household of their arrival, as there were aides, pikemen, and courtiers to welcome them in with pomp and attention. The prince looked up at the towering construct of the Targaryen dynasts of old, peering well enough above them to seem magical. And yet in its faded red—in the evening a brighter crimson than in the day—it reached high only to penetrate a sky of looming reds and golds, turning slowly to dusk. Jaehaerys looked down on the rows of attendants before them as they began to dismount and see their horses led away; the uniformity in them was stunning, and there was a healthy dose of scarlet on every gambeson, tunic, and tabard. Everything here was drenched in crimsons; even the golds were fading away in the wash of red.
Jaehaerys thought it odd that his father hadn't come out to see him in. All the same, he told himself as he had an attendant guide him and his retainers into their allotted wing of the Red Keep. The place was opulent enough; they had a balcony view, with a lined wall of open windows and a sea breeze in their suite, which sat in the center of a spiral of bedchambers, a servants' quarters, and some long space loosely outfitted as a barracks. The silky curtains of the open windows, Jaehaerys noticed, now waving politely with the dusk breeze, were red. He turned to Ser Axel, who just then was planning the postings of the guard.
"My father—where is he?"
"I believe the prince was busy in an arrangement with Prince Baelor," Ser Roote answered, right as the door to their suite had begun to draw loudly open. "Ah, young prince, he is here now."
Addam had walked in with the tired look of a man worn down past his limit. He entered the room, saw his son, and his face lit like a premature candle-flame—bright for but a moment, and then dark again. "Jae," he said. "You've arrived."
Jaehaerys hadn't seen him like this in some time. Some days, he wore the quiet frown of a contemplative in mourning; but, for the most, he had the dignified look of a Lord Paramount, which is what he was. And yet today, he'd seemed close to his worst. "Father," Jae muttered. "What's come of you?"
"I have something to ask of you, my son," Addam said slowly. "The tourney. We had made plans, but those plans have been changed. Will you represent our house?"
Jaehaerys blinked. He searched for a word—a single one, no, would have served perfectly well—but could not find the strength of tongue to say it. Instead, he numbly asked.
"Isn't Baelor our champion?"
Addam sighed and turned to Ser Roote. "If you would, give us the room." Axel nodded and was vacant in nearly an instant. The Prince-Paramount of Harrenhal continued, a fatigued gravity of duty overtaking his tone as he found a seat and fell down into it.
"Baelor often was, in lists past," Addam said, bringing a hand to his forehead. "I treated the boy like a son. And yet…"
"What has happened, father?" Jaehaerys asked, drawing closer, tapping his fingers together nervously behind his back.
"It does not matter, Jae," Addam said. "Only this. Every dragon—Aemon, Orys…—will have a Targaryen champion. Save us; we've nobody, just now."
Jaehaerys blinked again. "Baelor is Prince Aemon's champion?"
"The king's champion," Addam corrected with a tone of disgust at the words.
Jaehaerys couldn't imagine it. After all those years with Baelor—no, the Baelor he knew wouldn't have leapt back at his elder brother so quickly, nor so desperately… he was, in a way, like a brother to Jae, and yet wordlessly he went from serving Addam to serving the man who had tried to crush him…
"Will you do it, my son?" Addam said, meeting his eyes with a severe look on his face.
He needs me, Jaehaerys thought. I ride Whitewyrm. Haegon cannot ride a thing, any longer. Haegon is not even here. My father needs me.
"Of course," he answered.
Of course, though Jaehaerys could scarcely ride a horse.
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