“Lyza!”
Gael’s face went as red as a ripe apple.
She wished desperately for a crack in the floor to swallow her whole, so she could curl herself up into a tiny ball, just as she once had in her mother’s womb.
“There, there, my princess.”
Lady Lyza settled gently beside Gael, retrieved the needlework the princess had dropped, and pressed it back into her hands.
She lowered her voice, adopting an air of great secrecy.
“Lady Rhea Royce tells me my lord Quentyn won’t have his audience with the king until after the Day of Prayer.
You’ve got several days yet to prepare, and Lady Rhea has promised to keep an eye on his movements for us.”
Gael clutched at the ball of yarn in her hands, not noticing at all that her thin, pale fingers were slowly turning red.
“I…
I’m not sure, I…
I think…”
“Don’t worry, you have us.” Lyza turned slightly to reveal the several other ladies-in-waiting behind her.
Queen Alysanne treasured this one surviving youngest daughter deeply.
Before Gael turned ten, the queen had even shared her bed with her every single night.
Even now, the ladies-in-waiting the queen had chosen for Gael were carefully handpicked noble girls.
“We’ll dress you up as the loveliest girl in all of King’s Landing.” Lyza smiled and gently rubbed at Gael’s reddened hand, working the color back to normal.
“My lord Quentyn won’t be able to tear his eyes away from you.”
Lyza declared, entirely certain of herself.
King’s Landing’s nights were nothing like the nights at Harrenhal.
In Quentyn’s memory, what carried him off to sleep back home was the moaning of the wind, like a witch’s murmur, the strange sound of the God’s Eye’s damp air eating slowly away at crumbling stone, and the low, mournful cries that seemed to rise from every corner of the ruin beneath him.
For some reason he couldn’t name, Quentyn slept soundly at Harrenhal, yet found himself lying awake all night on King’s Landing’s soft silk sheets.
Still, King’s Landing’s nights were, if nothing else, a good deal livelier than Harrenhal’s.
From next door, a woman’s coy gasps and a man’s satisfied sighs carried on well past midnight.
Robb knocked on the wall to quiet them several times, but it only bought a moment’s peace before thunderous snoring erupted from the room on the other side instead.
In this age, even nobles and the wealthy could hardly escape the troubles that came with shoddy construction.
Quentyn himself didn’t much mind.
When he’d first discovered the doors inside his own mind, he’d tried all manner of ways to push them open.
His first success had come after twenty straight sleepless nights, at the very edge of exhaustion, when the doors had finally given way.
And what waited beyond them, that first time, was the same colossal tree that stretched from earth to sky.
From that tree, Quentyn had plucked a fruit called “Night Owl.” That fruit let him stay alert through the night, and needed only the briefest sleep to restore him completely.
It was Robb who suffered for it, though.
The boy kept pinching himself at breakfast, terrified of dozing off by accident.
But Robb, after all, was still only a boy of about ten, and could only hold out for so long.
At Quentyn’s insistence, he obediently retired to the other small bed in the room, and was soon fast asleep.
After all, a boy who dreamed of nothing more than becoming Quentyn’s sworn knight would never refuse a simple line like, “Only a boy who sleeps well grows into a good knight.”
Music drifted in through the window.
The Day of Prayer procession had already set out from King’s Landing’s sept, moving through the Mother’s Herald Street and past the Alchemists’ Guild, heading toward the Dragonpit.
By tradition, the septons carried the sacred image of the Seven-Who-Are-One through the entire city, receiving the prayers of the common people along the way.
The septons’ prayers reached Quentyn’s ears, faint and indistinct.
He could make out hymns praising King Jaehaerys and Queen Alysanne, verses that had come down from the seven preachers who had once traveled the realm on their behalf, embedding the Exception deep into the very foundation of the Faith of the Seven, so that people even now believed the marriages of House Targaryen were sacred, blessed by the gods themselves.
But the hymns praising the king and queen passed quickly enough, and what more and more voices took up instead were hymns praising the Seven themselves.
At first it was only the septons chanting, but little by little, the nobles and wealthy of Gold Dragon Lane and Hook Lane, the craftsmen of Steel Street, the whores of Silk Street…
more and more voices joined the chorus.
The whole of King’s Landing was gradually swallowed by songs in praise of the Seven.
Their praise of the Seven had, little by little, come to outweigh their praise of the king.
Quentyn shut the window, sealing out the singing that grew steadily more fervent, more devout, with each passing verse.
Perhaps this was part of the reason why, in the history he half-remembered, the mob of King’s Landing had once been whipped up by a shepherd, and had gone on to destroy the last hope of House Targaryen.
Peace brought prosperity, but it also brought a certain emptiness of spirit, and religion was always ready to fill the gap it left behind.
Quentyn glanced around the room.
The dark-haired boy on the small bed was still fast asleep, licking his lips now and then, as though still savoring the taste of the lamb he’d eaten that morning. Read the latest chapters at novelping.com.
On the parchment covering the desk, dense lines of Quentyn’s own invented script filled every inch.
It was a script only he could read.
At the Citadel, this was how he’d guarded his secrets, and it was in this same script that he’d carried away no small amount of forbidden knowledge from the place as well.
Now he used it just the same, to record the power he’d come to command.
And his own forecasts for what was yet to come.
Returning to his seat, Quentyn went on setting down his plans on the parchment, murmuring under his breath in a voice only he himself could hear.
“Within the family’s own demesne, Tungwood and Ewe’s Hollow both suit mulberry trees well enough.
Ha.
Why is it Ewe’s Hollow sits in the woods, while Elderwood sits out on open pasture…”
Quentyn scratched at his hair.
His silver hair was nothing like his mother Valera’s, whose curls came to her naturally, while his own hair fell smooth and straight, exactly like his grandmother Agatha’s.
Quentyn had once suspected his grandmother Agatha might be that suspicious predecessor transmigrator herself: her origins were mysterious, and she too had hair like pure silver and eyes of violet.
But after thirteen years in her company, Quentyn could say with certainty that she was simply a food-loving, talkative, kind old woman.
She had no vision beyond her own time, only a heart of gold, the wisdom that comes with age, and boundless love for her family.
In her presence, his father Daeron remained forever an unruly child, and his mother Valera was still, in her eyes, that innocent girl who had once hidden away in Harrenhal’s maze of cellars with her mother, brother, and sister, fleeing her uncle Maegor’s search parties.
“The mulberry trees in Tungwood have been growing there for centuries upon centuries.
Hmm, should I be thanking Harren the Black for preferring oak?
Otherwise I’d be stuck racking my brains over mulberry stock too.
Still, neither the Riverlands nor the Reach has good enough silkworm stock of their own.
Myrish lace has no equal anywhere, but the Council of Myr guards its silkworm eggs more jealously than their own mothers.
Lys might be worth considering, though.
Give a Lyseni merchant enough coin and he’d sell his own mother along with it…
but Lys’s silkworm stock isn’t nearly as good as Myr’s.”
“If the world of Ice and Fire really were a planet, Myr and Pentos would sit at a latitude and climate closer to the Riverlands’ own.
If I used Lys’s silkworm stock instead…
who’s there?”
The door creaked open.
Quentyn shot to his feet at once.
Robb scrambled up from the bed, still half-asleep, eyes not even open yet, and threw himself toward the door, planting himself between Quentyn and whoever stood there.
“Quenny, it’s me.”
The boy leaning on a cane limped his way inside, pulling back his hood to reveal short silver hair.
“Daemon?
Are you out of your mind?”
Quentyn bit back a curse that had nearly escaped him, his eyes wide with disbelief.
He knew exactly how remarkable his power of Life-Weaving was.
If he’d wanted to, he could have healed Daemon completely on the spot, at least as far as the visible wound and inflammation went.
Whether some other internal infection might still be lurking, he couldn’t promise, but clearing away the most obvious injury would likely have lowered that risk considerably on its own.
But in order to satisfy Grand Maester Elysar, Quentyn had deliberately left behind a remaining injury, one that would heal naturally with nothing more than time and simple care.
“I’m fine now.” Daemon tossed his cane aside and stretched his leg out with a wince.
“Seven hells, last night was fucking miserable.
The itching kept up the whole night.
I nearly chewed straight through the floor of Maegor’s Holdfast.”
He tried to walk over to Quentyn, but his leg wouldn’t cooperate.
“Boy, get over here and help me up.”
Robb glanced uncertainly at Quentyn, who sighed.
“Seems like you really do want to pick one of those two nicknames after all.
Only then did Robb carefully step over to steady Daemon.
“Not a chance.
Your work is a hundred times better than those mumbling grey sheep.” Daemon hopped excitedly over to Quentyn’s side.
“It itched all night, but this morning, aside from the leg still not quite listening to me, I can barely feel a thing.
Seven hells, you should have seen the old grey sheep’s face yesterday.”
“And so?” Quentyn crossed his arms, unimpressed.
“Does Baelon know you’re here?
Or has the fearless Prince Daemon gone and snuck out again?”
“Of course he doesn’t.” Daemon spread his hands, entirely unrepentant.
“There’s no way he’d let me leave the room, so I pulled a little trick.
Brother, I told you I’d pay you back properly.”
“By the family tree, you ought to call me uncle.” Quentyn snorted.
“I’d suggest you come up with an excuse and get back before long, lie in bed and groan a bit, and maybe Baelon will go easier on you.
Where’s Viserys?
Don’t tell me he’s part of your little trick.”
“Of course not.” Daemon flatly denied it.
“Aemma ate something bad yesterday, and Viserys is still with her right now…
anyway, enough of that.
Seriously, brother, put this on, quick.”
Daemon produced a cloak from somewhere and threw it over Quentyn, covering his silver hair at once.
“I’m taking you somewhere a real man ought to see.” He dragged Quentyn along without waiting for an answer, scooped up his cane with his other hand, and headed outside.
The tavern was nearly empty during the day, especially with the Day of Prayer underway.
The common room stood deserted, save for the serving boy snoring away behind the counter.
Quentyn shot a look at Robb, who stood there uncertain of what to do, and the dark-haired boy understood at once, making no move to stop Daemon.
The two of them slipped out of the tavern like that, vanishing into the Day of Prayer crowds.
The bustling procession never noticed the two extra boys among them.
People went on singing their hymns, showered by flowers tossed down from the houses lining the street, basking in the fervent atmosphere.
“What are you up to?” Quentyn let the crowd carry him along easily for a while before Daemon yanked him straight into a side alley.
Quentyn sketched out King’s Landing’s layout in his mind and let out a breath of relief.
This wasn’t Silk Street.
Good.
Good.
Quentyn watched Daemon limp along ahead of him, a flicker of suspicion rising in his eyes.
Where is he trying to take me?
Flea Bottom?
“I’m giving you the best thanks I know how to give.”
Daemon pushed open the wooden gate at the mouth of the alley, tossing a silver stag into the arms of the blind old man guarding it as he passed.
On the steps just inside the entrance sat a travel-worn soldier, young in years, his gear ragged and worn, a rusted sword hanging at his hip.
The moment he spotted Daemon, he froze for only an instant before drawing his sword and thrusting it toward the sky.
“Long live the King of Flea Bottom!”
In an instant, the whole alley, and the open square beyond it, erupted into noise.
Quentyn saw pockmarked old soldiers, faded and worn-out whores, half-naked children, broad, sturdy farmwives, and gaunt, skeletal young men…
These were exactly the sort of people one would expect religion to sway most easily, and yet here they were, not among the Day of Prayer’s marchers at all, going about their ordinary lives instead.
Now their voices wove together into a single cry.
“Long live the King of Flea Bottom!”
Daemon turned to face Quentyn, beaming with pride, and spread his arms wide.
The arms reaching up around him wove together above his head, and there in the shadow cast by the houses to either side, it looked for all the world like a crown forged of light and shadow.
[So you’re planning on being called King Daemon the Cripple, then?]
Quentyn crossed his arms and narrowed his eyes, switching into High Valyrian.