ACT II: The Reign of Jaehaerys I — Part 1: The Court and Its Loves (59 AC – 87 AC)
Chapter 5: The Plague and Futile Prayers (59–60 AC)
A septon, a sorcerer, and a king walk into a tavern.
In the first few months after my arrival in King’s Landing, that became the preferred opening for jokes whispered through the corridors of the Red Keep and down the alleys of Flea Bottom.
The Andal nobility waited, teeth clenched, for an imminent bloodshed or a theological duel that would destroy the capital as soon as the Mage of Vaelarys and the most influential priest in the realm shared the same roof.
However, to the bitter disappointment of the court gossips, there was no great friction between the Master of Arcana and the Hand of the King.
Septon Barth and I understood each other perfectly well.
We were, after all, two brilliant and practical minds stranded in an ocean of idiots.
Unfortunately, the same civilized temperament could not be said of the rest of the clergy.
The septons of the city and the council in Oldtown entered a state of hysterical uproar over my mere presence on the Small Council.
I was leaning languidly against one of the columns in the Throne Room, observing the court of starched flatterers.
As always, dressing in the suffocating decorum of the South was something I flatly refused to do.
My light trousers and my black tunic embroidered in red remained subtly open at the chest, exposing my marble physique to the scandal of the old and the unmapped delight of the royal ladies.
Looking at the grotesque figure positioned in the center of the hall, I couldn’t help but laugh silently at human stupidity.
In a room packed with wealthy lords, beneath the gazes of the King and Queen of the Seven Kingdoms, the person flaunting the most gold, fine silks, and precious stones on his body was precisely that fat pig dressed like a bride: the High Septon.
“— Are you by any chance paying attention to what I am saying, vile demon?!” the fat man’s nasal, shrill voice cut through my thoughts.
I blinked slowly, staring at the mountain of fat and sacred fabrics with a calm, provocative smile:
“— Actually, no.
Would you mind repeating that, pig in a dress?”
The hall held its breath in unison.
The High Septon’s face turned instantly from a pale pink to a purple of suppressed rage.
His wattles trembled violently as he raised a crystal-encrusted staff toward me:
“— You unholy beast!
You are a wicked demon who corrupts the sacred virtues of the Seven!
You seduce and ruin the pure souls of this city with your depravity!”
I let out a low laugh, taking a step forward with my hands relaxed at my waist:
“— I really don’t understand you, High Septon…
You were the one who sent those two young, beautiful septas to my chambers last week under the pretext of ‘converting my soul with the holy word.’ And now you accuse me of seducing them?
If your women of faith cannot endure three days of my company without renouncing asceticism and begging for the pleasures of the flesh, it is hardly my fault.
But know that I am a generous man.
If more of your beautiful septas wish to test the firmness of their faith against my virility, they know exactly where my room is.”
The court erupted into chaos.
Cries of heresy, blasphemy, and outrage echoed off the walls of the hall.
Several nobles covered their ears while the ladies fanned themselves hastily.
On the royal dais, I saw Jaehaerys pass a hand over his face in pure exhaustion, while Alysanne bit her lower lip to stifle a loud laugh.
Amidst the fanatical commotion, I noticed a calculated movement.
A noble-born knight, clad in gleaming armor embroidered with the seven-pointed star on his chest—who had obviously been paid by the church to provoke me—had been stealthily approaching me for some time.
With a roar of “For the Glory of the Seven!”, the fellow drew his longsword and lunged in a swift thrust to run through my chest before the Kingsguard could even shift their stance.
Ah, how predictable these people are…
I didn’t even move from the spot.
When the tip of tempered steel was inches from my exposed chest, I raised my right hand and caught the sharp blade using only my index finger and thumb.
The metal ground to a halt in the air with a dull sound.
The impact of the thrust triggered a shockwave that made the links of the knight’s gauntlet crackle, but the sword didn’t budge a single millimeter further.
The astonishment on the idiot’s face was glorious.
He blinked, staring at the blade trapped between my two fingers as if trying to decipher an impossible sorcery.
Behind him, the High Septon turned brutally pale, his mouth agape in dread.
The knight strained.
He pulled, pushed, and tried to twist the hilt of the sword with both hands, his muscles contorting until his face turned red, but my pale hand remained firm as a mountain of obsidian.
“— You know…” I commented casually, staring him in the eye, “you should have put more of your body weight into that thrust.”
I released the blade without warning.
With the sudden relief of resistance, the excessive force the knight was pulling backward caused him to lose his balance, trip over his own cloak, and fall flat on his ass onto the stone floor, letting out a painful grunt.
I looked down at the fallen knight and then at the mountain of sacred lard, flashing a sharp smile:
“— Well, look at that…
Is this by any chance an attempt at Trial by Combat, High Septon?
It is a bit rude to launch your champion at my back without a formal announcement, but I don’t care for etiquette.
Tell me, soldier of the Seven…
are ancestral weapons permitted in this holy duel?”
The knight scrambled to his feet, panic shining in his eyes, but arrogance forcing him to try to turn the situation to his advantage.
Knowing I wore no armor and carried no blade at my waist, and assuming I would need to ask for a truce to fetch a sword from the North, the imbecile answered loudly:
“— Yes!
By the laws of the Seven and the customs of Westeros, ancestral weapons are permitted!
Where is your sword, Sorcerer?!
Are you going to ask for a truce to fetch it from the North and delay your execution?!”
My smile turned cruel, displaying white teeth against marble skin.
“— Fetch from the North?
Whatever for?
My House’s ancestral weapon has been right here all along.”
With a fluid motion of my right hand, I didn’t need to draw any steel.
I clenched my fist and launched my arm forward.
A deafening hum cut through the air of the Throne Room as a dense spear of purely reddish and glowing fire, hot as the heart of a volcano, projected directly from my fingers.
The spear of crimson flames bridged the distance in the blink of an eye, pierced the steel armor and the knight’s chest as if they were cobwebs, and embedded itself deep into the stone floor behind him.
The man’s body hung suspended in the air by the fire spear for two agonizing seconds while the reddish flames consumed his innards without emitting smoke.
Then, the spear dissipated into sparks, and the charred body collapsed lifelessly inside the small melted crater that had formed in the stone.
An absolute, terrified silence fell over the Red Keep.
No one dared to breathe.
I adjusted the edges of my tunic with elegance and looked up at the royal dais:
“— Well…
look at that, King Jaehaerys.
It seems the gods deemed my soul innocent, after all.
In the eyes of the Seven, the victor in combat is the one in the right, isn’t that how it works?”
I turned my gaze to the High Septon, whose clothes were now dripping with sweat and impending dread:
“— Do you have anything to add, Your Holiness?”
Even if the man had ten times more courage than fat in his body, he couldn’t articulate a single word.
The High Septon merely shook his head frantically, eyes bulging, as his acolytes hastily escorted him out of the hall.
After that little “incident,” the church decided to leave me in peace.
Unfortunately, the downside was that they stopped sending hot septas to my chambers, forcing me to settle for the highborn ladies of the court…
a true dry spell for my appetites.
Weeks passed until a ruthless winter struck Westeros with terrible ferocity.
And with the harsh cold came calamity.
I walked toward the Small Council chamber clad in my usual black and red attire.
My mind was already calculating the events of the timeline: the epidemic of The Shivers—what in my original world would be a devastating form of super-flu or respiratory plague—was about to reach its peak in the capital.
Crossing the door to the meeting room, I was met with pale, distressed faces.
Jaehaerys looked up as soon as I entered:
“— About time you arrived, Arthos!
I thought I’d have to go fetch you from your room personally!”
I adjusted my tunic with a disdainful smile:
“— A sorcerer is never late, Jae, nor is he early.
He arrives precisely when he means to.”
“— Then tell the sorcerer to mean to arrive earlier next time!” the king shot back, his voice thick with stress.
He turned to the Grand Maester.
“Grand Maester, what does the Citadel say about these cases in the city?”
The gray rat of the Citadel adjusted his chains with trembling hands:
“— The Citadel…
the Citadel agrees with the reports, Your Grace.
This is the start of a severe outbreak of The Shivers.
People have begun dying in the streets over the last forty-eight hours.”
“— Hell!” Jaehaerys swore, slamming his fist on the table.
“And what can the maesters do to contain this?!”
The Grand Maester remained silent, lowering his head.
No one in the room had the slightest idea how to stop the plague.
I looked at the king and commented with refined irony:
“— You should go to the Sept and pray, Jae.
Maybe if you ask really nicely, the Seven Gods will forgive your sins and stop the plague.
Or something like that…
I wasn’t really paying attention to the nonsense the fat pig was shouting in front of a crowd in Flea Bottom last week.”
“— Not now, Arthos!” the king cut in, exhausted.
“Winter is already one of the harshest in history, and now this plague has begun decimating the people.
To make matters worse, that fool of a High Septon is spreading the rumor in the city that this plague is divine punishment against the realm because of your presence on the council!”
Jaehaerys took a deep breath and looked directly into my gray eyes:
“— Do you have any real idea of what to do, Arthos?”
I adjusted my posture and leaned back in my chair:
“— First: publicly declare that the High Septon was punished by the true gods for blaspheming against the authority of the legitimate king, and that is why he died.”
Jaehaerys frowned:
“— But he isn’t dead!”
“— Well…
he won’t be until tomorrow morning,” I replied with a calm wink.
The king ignored my offer of a political solution and gestured for me to continue.
“— Second: eliminate the rats in the city,” I continued.
“They are the main vectors of transmission.”
Jaehaerys looked surprised:
“— Rats?
Are you sure about that?”
“— Absolute.
Third: establish a quarantine.”
Septon Barth, who was listening to everything with surgical attention, raised his head:
“— Quarantine?
What does that term mean, Master Vaelarys?”
I remembered that the word didn’t exist yet in this century and explained:
“— Isolate the sick.
Strictly separate the infected from the healthy.
Close the gates of the affected districts and forbid movement.
For the Red Keep and the royal quarters, I can use my blood magic to seal the structures and prevent any germ from entering.”
“— And can’t you use that magic on the entire city?” one of the lords on the council asked.
In truth, I can, I thought to myself.
I just don’t want to.
Yes, I am a vindictive fellow.
Going through the trouble of channeling blood magic to save an Andal peasant population that spent its days calling me a demon in the squares was something I wouldn’t do even if paid in pure gold.
Eliminating the rats and imposing quarantine would be enough to contain the tragedy; people would still die, but it wouldn’t compare to the massacre of the original timeline.
A few old lords on the council began murmuring against the use of “unholy sorcery” in the castle, using arguments so stupid I didn’t even bother listening.
Jaehaerys, having no patience for the ignorance of the nobles, slammed his hand on the table and ended the session:
“— Enough!
We will do exactly as Arthos suggested regarding the rats and the quarantine in the city.
Meeting adjourned!”
When the room cleared and only the King, Septon Barth, and I remained, Jaehaerys sighed and looked at me:
“— Place the magical protection on my family’s quarters and the Hand’s tower, Arthos.
If those foolish lords on the council prefer to refuse your sorcery, let the gods bless them with luck.”
I let out a loud laugh and nodded:
“— It’s good to know at least two people on this council still have brains…
and fortunately one of them is the king.”
After using my blood sorcery to engrave invisible arcane glyphs on the doors and windows of the royal children’s, Jaehaerys’s, Alysanne’s, and Septon Barth’s quarters, I gathered my things.
I also had a domain in the North to protect.
I mounted The Cannibal’s back and headed North.
The journey took a few days—after all, Westeros is a gigantic continent, and even on the back of the world’s largest wild dragon, flying from King’s Landing past The Gift takes time.
How on earth the characters in the HBO show moved around as if they had a teleporter in the final seasons was something I would never understand.
Upon landing before the imposing Black Stone Tower in the Valley of The Gift, I looked up at the structure’s peak and thought to myself that I needed to build a suspended landing courtyard up top, just as the ancient towers of Valyria had.
Shortly after my arrival, the leader of the villages in my domain came to meet me.
Due to my father’s terrible reputation and my own, even the wildlings coming down from beyond the Wall didn’t dare cause trouble in my lands.
In fact, the local population was quite civilized toward me: many came to hunt in the blessed valleys and, in gratitude for the bounty, brought the finest cuts of meat and left them at my door as tribute.
“— Any sick in our villages, my good elder?” I asked the man.
“— None, my lord,” the man replied, bowing respectfully.
“Everyone is healthy.
But the Lord Commander of the Night’s Watch sent a messenger requesting aid for the men in the forts.”
I pulled two small leather pouches from my cloak containing pieces of obsidian engraved with blood glyphs:
“— Hand this first pouch to the Lord Commander.
Tell him to scatter the stones throughout the forts of the Wall; the mere presence of the sorcery will purify the air and destroy the disease.
The second pouch is for our villages.”
The elder took the pouches reverently:
“— Thank you very much, my lord.
I will see to it immediately.”
As the man turned to leave, I called him back:
“— Ah, and tell Darla to come up to the tower tonight.”
The elder froze, a visibly nervous expression appearing on his face:
“— M-my pardon, my lord…
but Darla recently got married.”
I raised an eyebrow, annoyed:
“— Really?
What a shame…
Darla had a truly monumental pair of tits.
If she cut half the chest volume off, she could still compete with a milk cow.
Who was the unfortunate fellow who married her?”
“— It was Darlan, my lord…
the blacksmith’s son,” the old man answered, swallowing hard.
I smirked:
“— Darlan, is it?
Tell me something…
does this fellow usually hunt alone in the forest?
In distant places where no one can hear cries for help?”
The elder shuddered from head to toe:
“— N-no, my lord!
He never leaves the village!”
“— Damn…
I mean, good for him,” I grumbled, disappointed.
After a second of silence, I asked: “And what about Freya?”
“— Freya is still single, my lord!” the old man replied hastily.
“But she is getting married next week!”
“— Next week is next week.
Today is today,” I decreed with a casual wave.
“Tell her to come up to my tower.
I have a practical lesson in human anatomy to teach tonight.”
After spending a few hours teaching beautiful Freya the secrets of human anatomy—appreciating her admirable flexibility and elasticity—I came to the conclusion that her fiancé would likely suffer a “tragic hunting accident” in the very near future.
I returned to King’s Landing days later.
The capital was in chaos, but thanks to the quarantine measures and the rat hunt I ordered, the mortality was infinitely lower than the disaster recorded in the original history.
At the Small Council meeting, I immediately noticed several vacant chairs.
I adjusted my open tunic and commented with light mockery:
“— Well…
it seems the Seven Gods didn’t bless the fools on the council, did they?”
Jaehaerys, exhausted but healthy, sighed:
“— Yes…
but fortunately, they blessed me and my family…
though not everyone.”
After the meeting ended, our usual trio—Jaehaerys, Septon Barth, and I—headed to the royal quarters wing.
Entering little Princess Daenerys’s room, we found Alysanne by the bedside, her face bathed in tears.
I looked at the bed: the little seven-year-old princess lay there, burning with fever and gasping with the symptoms of The Shivers.
Jaehaerys turned to me, dread and rage painted across his face:
“— I’m not doubting your word or your magic, my friend…
but why didn’t your glyphs work for my daughter?!”
I approached the bed and examined the blood magic engraved into the wood of the door and walls.
My gray eyes narrowed:
“— This is incredibly curious…”
Jaehaerys stepped toward me, his voice trembling with suppressed fury:
“— Arthos…
you’d better tell me exactly what is ‘curious’ about my daughter dying in front of me, or I swear I’ll punch you in the face!”
“— Calm down, Jae,” I replied, unbothered.
I approached little Daenerys and gently touched her pale forehead.
I channeled a spark of my blood sorcery directly into her body; the fever subsided instantly, the girl’s breathing stabilized, and healthy color returned to her cheeks in seconds.
She fell into a peaceful sleep.
Alysanne let out a sob of relief, embracing her husband.
I turned to the royal couple with a serious face:
“— Pay attention to what I’m about to say.
As soon as I arrived at the castle, I analyzed the energy of the glyphs I placed here.
The glyph in the princess’s room was activated and forced over twenty times in the few days I was away in the North.”
Alysanne blinked, shock painted across her face:
“— What?
Are you telling me my daughter fell ill twenty times in seven days?!”
“— Precisely,” I answered.
“Strange, isn’t it?
It’s almost as if she was being used as a constant target.
And now, pay attention to the crucial detail: the blood magic I engraved here protects strictly against airborne diseases and plagues.
It does not protect against poisons administered directly in food or drink.”
Jaehaerys froze.
The king’s eyes overflowed with murderous rage:
“— Are you implying my daughter was poisoned by someone inside this castle?!”
“— I’m not implying anything, Jae…
I am stating it,” I declared firmly.
“I just used my magic to purify her blood and expel a concentrated plant toxin.
Now…
who is the wretch behind this?
I don’t know.
After all, it’s not like I can read minds…”
Actually, I can, I thought to myself.
— …Or see the future.
Actually, I can do that too.
Jaehaerys stared at me with a desperate look:
“— And can’t you see the past with your sorcery, Arthos?!”
I merely smiled mysteriously, keeping my secrets guarded:
“— Well…
that, I can.”
Over the next forty-eight hours, the Red Keep was turned upside down.
With the help of my Greensight and the relentless investigation of the Kingsguard, the heads of three kitchen servants and a conspiratorial maester ended up mounted on spears atop the castle walls.
The first major crisis of Jaehaerys I’s reign had come to an end.
The plague had been contained, the princess saved, and the authority of the Crown emerged strengthened.
As I watched the city from the heights of my tower, I wondered if that assassination attempt would serve to open Jaehaerys’s eyes and make him realize the viper nesting in his own home while trying to please all the lords of the South.
Well…
I highly doubt it.