Chapter 22: Plans Within Plans
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"What's wrong?" Rhaenyra questioned in a panicking tone as she looked around at the faces of the people in the room with her, Maester Gerardrys and the midwives.
She waited with her legs pressed to her shoulders, for the command to push again, but instead of developing a rhythm for the delivery, the second command to push never came: instead, the grey robed man was working his face as if overcoming shock, and then the cries of a babe rang out, cutting through her panic and informing her of what had quieted the room. It was already over. This struggle on the 'woman's battlefield' she so feared as a child, come and gone without so much as a 'By your leave'.
The women brought in to assist her huddled together behind the eldest of them, a woman she remembered from her previous deliveries on Dragonstone, a middle aged woman with faded Valyrian features. If Alicent Hightower never made it her personal mission to make every gesture demeaning, and every word an implication, Rhaenyra might have missed their countenances in the rush of love and joy of hearing her babe's first cries, but the bitch Queen trained her well in the art of deciphering faces and body language, keenly attuned her to it. She didn't miss the sharpness in the older woman's gaze, nor the barely contained fear in the women behind her.
The women rallied and went about their tasks, but not even Gerardrys handing her new daughter, finally a girl, distracted her from observing them.
"Stop." she commanded, "You," she nodded to the matron of the midwives, "What was that I saw behind your eyes? Do not dismiss the inquiry."
"I wouldn't dare, milady." the heat in the matron's words rubbed the princess the wrong way, certainly not a tone appropriate for a smallfolk to use even towards a simple landed knight, let alone a crown princess, yet even under the obviously displeased gaze the woman stood straight backed, head tilted up as if looking down her nose at the Realm's Delight, "I am commanded to speak, and I have much to say. We will start with what I feel in my heart at this moment. It is fury."
The horrified hisses and squeals of the other woman matched the expression on the Maester's face, one of disbelief and anxiety. When small folk are commanded to speak, they do so in such a way as to assuage their betters, to avoid or deflect wrath, rare is the small folk who speaks directly with nobility, rarer still those that live after.
The woman before her committed to the cause, "I know." she said the words, an accusation.
Rhaenyra's heart beat rapidly in her chest as her own fury raised up, "And them?" she practically spat, but princesses do not spit.
"They know too." the matron confirmed, causing a cacophony of weak denials that caused the stony furious woman to fully lose her cool, whipping her silver streaked and silver gold hair around, "Enough!" she screamed then turned back to glare at Rhaenyra, "The Grey Rat knows too." she pointed at Geradrys without looking at him, her indigo eyes not looking away from the princess.
"Did your heart skip a beat, when he smiled at you?" the matron's question raised Rhaenyra's brows, but she didn't wait for a response, "My daughters said the same about him, about that beautiful smile, like he'd found something he'd always wanted. All three told me the same story within a sennight of each other, but when that smile turned on me I knew the truth. That boy wasn't smiling because he saw someone he wanted. He smiled because he found another person to use. He smiled for you, didn't he? Did you believe it was because he wanted you? Fool."
The blood pounding in her ears almost made it hard for her to hear the woman's scathing words, but she heard each and everyone despite her heart pounding like a drum in her chest. Her mind ran in every direction, hatred for this woman, fear for herself and her child's safety, fear of the consequences of her adultery finally catching up to her, fury and the desire to destroy the woman by screaming for the guards barely held in check by her stretched thin situational awareness.
"If you harm us, he will know too." the matron smiled at Rhaenyra, darkly, "Another bastard, Princess? How will the Rogue Prince react? Will it be the same as the pillow biter? Will he smile and accept another man's spawn as his own? You know he will not. Aegon will smile, as your marriage turns to nothing but charcoal and ash and the final obstacle on his path to the throne removes itself."
Rhaenyra wanted to say something, but found her mind blank of the words, instead she just asked in horror, "How?"
"In his youth, your brother trained his dragon by flying him to Dragonstone every other day, for years. While you were in the capital he was here. He's seen every inch of this island, and had every woman! I've twelve grandchildren from my three daughters, and three little boys those grand children call uncles! All of them were born JUST LIKE HER!" the woman screamed as she pointed at Rhaenyra's youngest who wailed in response, and Rhaenyra wanted to join her.
"If you harm us, he will suspect, and with your history, his suspicions will be treated as truth, and they will be the truth." the matron returned to her quieter but still furious tone, "But if we keep silent, no one will ever know, and our silence will be bought."
Rhaenyra brimmed with malice and loathing for the woman, but understood that if she had panicked and called the guards, or done so by giving into her base instinct to destroy this lesser being threatening her, then everything will pass through her fingers, and possibly even her very life would not escape Daemon's wrath. This woman will die by her command, but it needed to be done in such a way as it does not lead back to her and this hour.
"What do you want?" she played along, meekly, downtrodden, the chastised whore before the scornful Septa.
"Kindness." the woman spoke the word as if exposing an old and painful wound, "To be treated as if kin. We are kin, I am your kin. I descend from the father of the Conqueror. I am your kin, I live in your ancestral land, and ever since we helped your family, our kin, conquer Westeros, we who dwell on Dragonstone have been treated worse than strangers. Restricted, neglected, abused, as if this island is nothing more than a dragon farm and a CUM DUMP!"
The words screamed let Rhaenyra know beyond a shadow of a doubt this woman knew her brother personally, the loathsome phrase heard from his lips herself in regard to the women he held in thrall from the Red Mountains, 'Dornish cum dumps'. And just like that the room faded from her view, and the people too, till it was just her and her newborn surrounded by darkness and she felt a pair of hands wrapped around her neck, not squeezing, but steely strong, unbreakable. The princess struggled to breathe as she realized that not even Dragonstone, her domain, her home, was free of him.
She remained in that fugue state of dread until a pastel pink dragon burrowed into her arms and coiled around her new daughter. The gentleness and care of the act softened the heart and brought temporary relief to Rhaenyra, and after agreeing to meet with the woman further she ordered Geradrys to her side and spoke to him in harsh whispers.
"How could you have possibly failed to inform me of Aegon's actions on this island?" she felt like screaming, but kept things down to a low snarl.
Geradrys's lips quivered and twitched as he considered his words, then cleared his throat, "I do not leave the castle grounds often, nor partake in gossip with the servants. I attend my duties, and in my free time continue my studies with tomes in the castle library, and partake a few simple hobbies." he paused for a time, to let her mull over his excuse then continued, "Despite that, I've heard rumor of Aegon having many bastards on the island, but-" he looked at her quite pointedly, "I do not propagate rumors of royal bastards, nor shall I ever."
She felt like Geradrys never spoke more plainly with her despite no overt accusation made. How she hated him for it, but she hated everything right now, even the babe currently cooing at her dragon rubbed Rhaenyra wrongly. She grit her teeth and breathed heavily, doing her best to avoid gnashing her teeth.
- Gregor Flowers -
His anticipation made him fidget and flex under his new high quality clothes, such a departure from the rough wool that grated against his skin for nigh a year now. The rest of the boys in Aegon's Army stood in ranks with him as their father approached, knight sergeants dragging three of their number behind them and tying them to posts.
Aegon spoke not a word, just stood still and silent as the sergeants rent the grey wool tunics down their backs, exposing the impossibly muscled flesh for boys their age. Impossible for all save the sons of Aegon.
"Begin." their father commanded, and the boys began screaming as the sergeants' whips flogged them, but more horribly than any flogging they'd ever seen before. Each crack cut bloody trenches across their backs, and the flogging went on for far longer than a man could reasonably survive. They screamed out for their father to save them, as their father oversaw it all with a face carved of marble, not formed of flesh, perfect and cold.
Survive, the wailing boys did, but what came next made them regret the inherited toughness. The sergeants dragged the limp boys over to tall columns of wood laid upon the ground, with a beam crossed it, laying them atop the cross section pulling their limbs into alignment. Gregor, who stood in the first row, gasped as he saw the mallet raise and the thick nail poised over his half-brother's wrist. The fall of the hammer saw his brothers' capacity to further scream renewed, and it happened again and again to the other wrist, and then the feet, stacked and nailed to the column.
He'd dined at his father's table three nights past, and informed him of the boys now suffering sneaking off from the barracks and stealing three dragons for themselves. The clothes he now wore a sign of his father's favor, granted to him for his loyalty and diligence. In that one night, Gregor felt like a prince for the first time in his life, not the dull understanding that princely blood flowed in his veins, but as a real Targaryen Prince. He'd dined with his father, his aunt, and their true born children. He drank rich wine and succulent roast meats while bards played a melody that raised his mood higher than ever in his life. His father welcomed him warmly, even embraced him and told him stories of the world.
That man showed no trace here save the eerie resemblance of form. Fear of him nestled in Gregor's heart, but also pride. He'd brought three thieves of the highest order to justice, and reaped the rewards. Soon enough, his father will call his name at the end of his training, and make him a dragon riding prince in truth, not a thief like these fools.
With ropes they hoisted these three crosses up and slid the bases into pre dug holes, allowing the assembly to see the wretched state of their kin. Aegon's piercing whistle drove out the sounds of their sobs briefly, and soon eight dragons assembled, Sunfyre and his gold and yellow brood.
"Call out to them, thieves. Call out to your dragons to save you from me." Aegon spoke and they all heard his words despite the tone barely more than a low growling whisper that sent chills up Gregor's spine.
"Father no! We are not thieves!" a particularly clever boy with his wits somehow still about him denied.
"You would have me believe you, over my own lying eyes?" their father chuckled, a dark and rumbling thing that ended abruptly, "Call to them."
Soon enough the first of them broke and called out to a 'Swiftwing!' and the others breaking with him called out to a 'Starfyre!' and 'Goreclaw!' and three dragons emerged from the grounded flight.
"Heel!" their father commanded, and the three dragons stopped their advance.
Aegon strode radiating wrath to the foot of the crosses.
"Unfaithful! Unfilial! Unworthy!" their father roared, a guttural animalistic thing straight from the chest, "Suffer and show the others the wages of sin!"
With that he went to Sunfyre and mounted the great father of dragons, taking to the sky in a mighty leap. Even after he departed, their brothers weakly called for the dragons they stole, but the dragons never moved, just watched them as they expired throughout the day with the rest of the assembly who departed in the evening when the last of the trio died.
Gregor climbed into his bunk in the barracks the boys occupied and smirked up at the planks of the ceiling. Three down, and ninety left to secure his place as a prince. He settled in and soon dreamt of his life spent in a castle with servants, every night a feast beyond the common folk's imagination.
A terrible pain in his guts wrenched him from that pleasant place, and he tried to scream, but a knot of rough wool in his mouth muffled it. Again and again pain across his whole body as something struck his arms, core and legs over and over, unable to rise up as his very sheets held him down. His eyes opened and he saw the pale and furious face of one of his brothers holding the gag across his mouth. To either side of his bunk his other brothers passed by swinging rags with something hard wrapped inside like a cheap flail. All of them.
When the last finished beating him, the one holding the gag raised it out of his mouth and snarled, "It's just a bad dream, snitch!"
Gregor curled up, desperately holding his stomach as he wept into the night in a room full of his enemies. His resolve to overcome them solidified into hatred.
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