Elia hushed her son even though she knew it would do no good.
She didn’t know who was currently raising hell on the city of King’s Landing, but it didn’t really matter; if they were attacking, they either wanted Elia and her children as hostages or wanted them dead.
The Dornish Princess wasn’t overly fond of either idea.
…
Elia had had no idea where Ser Manfred was going, but where he came to a halt would have been one of her last guesses.
Her bodyguard slammed his palm three times on the door of Lord Varys’ chambers, and the The Spider opened it instantly.
The bald, portly eunuch wordlessly ushered them in.
Princess Elia, as confused as she could ever remember being, followed Ser Manfred in only when he waved his hand impatiently.
The Spider’s chambers were barren, with only a bed, table and a few chairs as decoration.
But it wasn’t what wasn’t in his chambers that surprised Elia even in this moment of panic and unknowing; it was what was.
Queen Rhaella Targaryen stood in the center of the room, one hand placed protectively over her swelling stomach, the other clutching the hand of the six year old Prince Viserys.
Elia’s uncle, aging Prince Lewyn Martell of the Kingsguard, stood beside them in his resplendent white enamel plate, his own hand resting on the sword at his hip.
“Elia,” the youngest Targaryen called, his young face scared.
He started towards the Dornishwoman but the Queen held his hand firmly.
While Elia and Rhaella got along fairly well in their limited exposure to the other, the Queen clearly didn’t want to release her young son’s hand when she didn’t know what she was doing here or what was going on.
Elia didn’t blame her.
She pulled the crying Aegon even closer to her chest.
The Spider spared no words, merely walking in that strange stroll of his and making a quick motion with his hands at the wall.
And then that wall moved, neatly floating up to reveal a staircase, and Elia decided that nothing made sense anymore.
“Up the staircase,” came the fluttering voice of Varys.
“My little birds will direct you from there.”
Ser Manfred nodded, turning to give them only a few gruff words.
“Follow me, Your Graces.” The knight turned and without ceremony stomped up the stairs, his hand on his sword, the passel of royalty following.
Prince Lewyn, giving his niece a confident smile, took the rear.
Aegon’s cries resonated in the narrow, musky passage, and Viserys repeatedly asked what was going on despite his mother hushing him each time.
Rhaenys took to crying as well, Ashara trying and failing to calm the child.
Elia knew Ser Manfred and her uncle had to be gritting their teeth, escorting three women and three crying children down an old passage that lead to who the hell knew, but the squat knight and elderly Kingsguard said nothing, focused solely on the dark passage ahead.
At the top of the stairs was their escort.
When Varys had referred to his ‘little birds’, he literally meant little .
The passage they were in was dark, only a few torches spaced generous distances apart offering light, but Elia recognized the youngster as a regular around the servant quarters, the daughter of the blacksmith or some other castle-bound smallfolk.
If this child is for Varys, who else is as well?
The thought was disconcerting to say the least, but since the Spider seemed to be her children’s best way to escape, she wasn’t going to give it all that much thought.
Priorities.
They made more twists and turns than Elia could keep track of, climbing then descending then going straight, the blacksmith’s daughter handing them off to another child the Princess of Dorne didn’t recognize before that child in turn handed them off to another and then another.
Elia was thankful for them all, because without them she would be as lost as a septon in a brothel.
Elia didn’t know how much time they spent in the darkness, her children crying, Viserys growing more and more stressed and Ser Manfred charging stubbornly on, before the smoothed stone below her feet suddenly turned rough, and the next thing Elia knew she was being blinded by sunlight.
“We need to move!” called the voice of a short, slender man with a rather ordinary face.
A boat with black sails, one so small she had trouble believing Ser Manfred wouldn’t sink it with his weight alone, was grounded on a narrow strip of beach behind him, surrounded by the rock of the cliffs on all sides.
The smell and sound of the Narrow Sea was overpowered by the smell of smoke and the cries from the city on the cliffs above them.
Ser Manfred stomped to the boat, turning to the royal family and ushering them on.
“Quickly Your Graces.”
They filed in one at a time, huddling close to one another, Aegon’s insistent cries grating with Elia’s already frayed nerves.
I know you’re scared, my love, but I can’t protect you if I’m deaf.
For the love of the Gods shush.
That prayer went unanswered, as Aegon’s cries only grew louder and more frequent.
Prince Lewyn assisted the pregnant Queen Rhaella aboard with great care.
“Careful now, Your Grace,” Elia’s uncle said, smiling as he always did.
“I’m already disobeying the king’s orders by being here.
I can’t have you hurting yourself and giving him even more reason to kill me.”
“Do not worry, Ser Lewyn,” said the Queen.
Her tone was quiet, but it had more strength to it than Elia had heard in years.
“If I were to die the King would probably reward you.”
Viserys doggedly stayed on the beach even after his mother was settled, eyeing the man with the boat distrustfully.
“Who is he, mother?
He smells like a fish.”
“This man is saving us.
Get on board.”
The young Prince scowled.
“Father wouldn’t like this.”
“Your father isn’t here, love.
Get on the boat .”
Viserys dug his heels into the sand.
“We are blood of the dragon!
We don’t go with peasants.” Elia was beginning to fear Viserys may hold them much too long.
She had known nothing of the secret passages of the Keep, and it seemed the Queen hadn’t either, so it was unlikely someone would follow them, but the sooner they were on the sea the better she would feel.
That was an odd fact considering she had no idea who the small man waiting nervously by the prow of the boat was.
Panic made for the strangest friends she supposed.
Elia began to rise with the intent of manhandling the youngest Targaryen Prince onto the boat, wanting more than anything to be gone from the wretched sounds coming from the city.
Ser Manfred beat her to it.
“Your mother says go, you little shit,” the big knight growled, his irritation as plain in his voice as it was on his ugly face.
“You’re going.” Ser Manfred moved astonishingly fast for a man of his stature, and Viserys couldn’t churn his young legs quick enough.
Her sworn sword grabbed the Prince, one hand clutching an arm and the other a leg, and jumped on board, the youngest son of Aerys shouting the whole way.
Ser Manfred payed him no mind, depositing the boy next to his mother who, despite her fierce protectiveness of Viserys, had not moved to protest the knight’s actions.
The big man kept one hand pressed down on the Prince’s tiny shoulder, keeping him firmly attached to his seat.
“Be off,” the knight barked, and the small man obliged, heaving the boat into the water with a strength that surprised the Princess of Dorne.
Once it was sufficiently water bound, the nimble man jumped aboard, taking one oar while Ser Manfred took the other, handing the duty of containing the still struggling Viserys to the knight of the Kingsguard.
“The wind is in our favor,” the brown haired savior said, Elia recognizing his accent as that of a man from King’s Landing.
“Once we row far enough out we’ll go full sail.”
“Thank you,” the Dornish Princess said, her heart feeling more and more relieved the farther away from the cliffs of King’s Landing they rowed.
She pulled Aegon closer, his cries no longer the nuisance they had been mere moments before, and reached to pull Rhaenys to her side.
“We can never repay you, Ser…”
“Davos, my lady,” the man said, giving her a quick grin through his salt and pepper beard.
“And I’m no Ser.”
…