“Unhand me, Gremenson!
Let me strike down this insolent heathen!”
Septon Balbon shook with wine-fueled fury, his white hair and beard bristling like the mane of a cornered lion.
His knuckles were white as he struggled to pull away, determined to break the slender youth who sat unmoved across the timber bench.
“Peace, Septon, please!” Assistant Maester Gremenson groaned, massaging his temple with a soot-stained thumb.
A dull ache hammered behind his eyes like a war drum.
The Order of Maesters had long held its seat in Oldtown, tracing its roots back to the Age of Heroes.
In those ancient days when Garth Greenhand still walked the fertile river valleys of the Reach, the high king had wed his daughter, Maris the Maid, to Uthor of the High Tower.
From that union came Prince Peremore the Twisted.
Misshapen of bone and frail of frame, Peremore possessed a towering intellect that outshone the warlords of his era.
Around the Honeywine, the prince gathered scholars, sorcerers, alchemists, healers, and seers from across the known world, building an enclave of knowledge that rivaled Asshai-by-the-Shadow.
Following Peremore’s early death, King Urrigon Hightower granted the river islands to those gathered masters, establishing the foundation of the Citadel.
Over the centuries, the order had spun its web through every castle in Westeros.
High lords, petty knights, Ironborn captains, and the black brothers of the Wall all kept a gray-robed scholar at their elbow.
Young sons were sent to Oldtown to forge their chains, casting off their family names to serve as physicians, tutors, accountants, and counsellors.
They held a quiet monopoly on the written word.
“You wear the pewter link of religious study about your own neck, boy,” Gremenson pleaded, straining against the old septon’s cassock.
“If you passed the examination before the Archmaesters, you know the complexity of doctrine.
Why must you bait the man?”
Rhaegar Velaryon looked down at Gremenson’s collar.
The assistant maester’s chain already carried black iron for ravenry, copper for history, bronze for astronomy, pewter for the Faith, gold for accounting, and silver for medicine.
He lacked only the iron link of battlecraft to be raised as a full maester.
Had it not been for the Citadel’s rigid bureaucracy and Dragonstone’s modest need for scholars, Gremenson would have worn a full title years ago.
“I passed the trial precisely because I recognized the flaws in their scripture, Assistant Maester,” Rhaegar replied, wiping a thin line of blood from his temple with the back of his hand.
His face remained cold, unbothered by the tankard that had struck him moments earlier.
“Truth does not bend to comfort an old man’s delusion.”
“Blasphemy!” Septon Balbon spat, his voice turning raw.
“How dare a whelp mock the higher powers in the presence of an anointed brother!
How dare you question their divine presence!”
“Whether your Seven exist is an open matter, Septon,” Rhaegar said evenly.
“Truth remains truth.
“Lies and poison!” The old man cleared his throat with a furious rasp, chanting the common litany of the Sevenfold Aspects:
Plowman, when you turn the soil, heed the Father’s golden scale:
Pray that honest sweat and toil yield a harvest that will not fail.
“The harvest belongs to the peasant’s labor and the lord’s grain-tax,” Rhaegar remarked with dry indifference.
“Shall I recount how the riverfolk starved eleven years ago when King Harren seized their winter stores to purchase gold for the grand sept at Harrenhal?”
The septon’s face flushed darker.
He raised his voice higher:
Mother, when the labor tears, hear the maiden’s desperate cry:
Bless the womb that life may bear, lest the seed within should die.
“If the Mother possessed power over childbirth, what need would the realm have of midwives and maesters?” Rhaegar scoffed.
“The Moonsingers of the Jogos Nhai have recorded hundreds of documented deliveries aided by their chants.
Yet two years past, the Lady of Goldengrove died in blood while three high septons chanted beside her bed.”
The old man’s voice cracked with rising indignation:
Warrior, when the steel is drawn, guide the knight’s unyielding blade:
Let his armor shield the pawn, till the final debt is paid.
“Men swung bronze and iron long before Andal invaders brought their septs and tourney lances across the Narrow Sea,” Rhaegar retorted.
“The Warrior is merely a romantic portrait painted over the brutal necessity of tribal butchery.”
Maiden, when the salve is spread, bring the fragrance of the spring:
Heal the wounded, soothe the dead, beneath the shelter of your wing.
“A fine sentiment,” Rhaegar countered.
“Yet she offers remarkably little shelter to the girls selling their flesh in the alleys outside your sept.”
Septon Balbon trembled, his knuckles turning white.
Outside the tavern window, Raegon stood listening to the exchange with an amused grin, having slipped away from the banquet hall with Aethan under the pretext of showing his cousin the harbor.
As a dragonrider and the favored son of House Targaryen, Raegon paid little heed to the rigid etiquette of the high table.
“So this is your wayward cousin?” Raegon whispered, keeping Aethan tucked under one arm.
“Why did you never mention you had such an entertaining scholar in your household?”
Aethan looked ready to sink through the cobblestones.
“Please, Raegon, can we not pull him out before the village watch arrives?
If my father learns of this…”
“What cause is there to fear?” Raegon laughed softly.
A wooden altar in a local sept will not turn aside a single gust of Raegor’s breath.”
“That is not the point…”
“Let us see how long it takes him to break the old man’s temper completely,” Raegon murmured with a wink.
Catching sight of several fishermen approaching with billhooks and boat hooks, drawn by the septon’s shouts, Raegon stepped away from the tavern wall.
His boyish smirk shifted into an easy, noble smile.
“Good folk, return to your hearths,” Raegon called out, his voice clear above the surf.
“Lord Daemon Velaryon feasted in the Great Hall this noon.
By order of Lord Aegon, black bread and salted herring will be distributed at the lower sally port at the Hour of the Stag.
Provisions are limited, so make your way up early.”
The crowd hesitated, eyeing his black velvet tunic and silver hair, before breaking into a hurried trot toward the upper gate.
A few elderly fishwives remained, glancing toward the tavern with worried frowns.
“Young master, we heard the holy father shouting…”
“Worry not,” Raegon assured them with a warm nod.
“Septon Balbon has watched over this harbor since I was in the cradle.
I will see that he returns to his quarters in one piece.”
Reassured by the boy’s words and spurred by the promise of free salt and bread, the elders bowed and shuffled away.
They respected the septon for his good temper and his rich autumn wine, but free grain from the castle larders carried far greater weight.
Inside the taproom, the argument had reached its zenith.
When Septon Balbon attempted to praise the Smith for granting mortal men the art of the forge, Rhaegar systematically cited the bronze-working of the First Men and the ironcraft of the Rhoynar, dismantling the myth of divine tuition.
When the old man began the verse of the Crone, Rhaegar simply laughed aloud.
“You…
you insolent pup…” The septon clutched his chest, completely out of breath.
Neither his prayers nor his authority could sway a young man armed with the harsh rationalism of the Citadel.
Gremenson sighed, leaning against the counter in defeat.
He knew well enough that the Faith possessed little answer for such secular skepticism, though few in the kingdoms dared speak such thoughts aloud.
“Tell me, Rhaegar Velaryon,” a cheerful voice called from the open doorway.
“If the Seven are hollow, what truth remains?”
Rhaegar turned toward the threshold.
Raegon stood framed in the sunlight, his mismatched eyes shining beneath the gray coastal clouds.
“All seven are false,” Rhaegar replied without a heartbeat of hesitation, pointing a slender finger toward his own chest.
“Only we are real,” the exile declared, his silver curls catching the sea breeze.
“Only mortal men are true.”