"-. 274 AC .-"
Climbing to the summit of the Hightower on foot instead of taking the lift wasn't his favorite pastime, but he chose it nevertheless. Gave him time to think. About little sisters feeling caged, a young brother that understood too much, and the simmering rage at his increasing failure to dig up the holes of child-buggering shitstains. He stewed in it, that anger. Stewed more and more with every murdered scribe and dead acolyte and maester's carcass that showed up in a ditch. What had started out as an investigation against old men too big for their britches had turned into a bloodbath, then into a frayed web of thinly veiled grudge killings that even the full mobilization of House Hightower's garrison hadn't managed to suppress.
Ser Baelor Brightsmile they called him. Baelor Breakwind too, by the Dornish. He'd have a different name entirely soon enough, he was sure of it.
Baelor had started out helping oversee the investigation, outright refused to play a part in the travesty his father unleashed when Stark showed up out of nowhere, then nearly refused the peace offering to be spokesman for their house, after his Lord Father's first and only face-to-face meeting with the Lord Warden. Baelor never imagined he'd turn around and outright demand to be brought back into things when Stark left. But he did. And his father, to more surprise than he should have had cause to feel, agreed. Gave him full command of the guard when Stark's private tip-off about child-buggering shitstains began turning up its own trails of skittish scribes, catamites and corpses.
That had to be why he was being summoned to his father's high seat that morning. He'd been called back from the guard barracks he'd been switching between for sleep, down in the city. Just a day after he'd begun tracing certain skeletons to the closets of certain worthies not associated with the Citadel or its books and maesters. It couldn't be a coincidence.
How swiftly times change, Baelor Hightower thought bitterly. Just a moonturn ago he'd not have thought twice about his father's respect for the rule of law. Now he was assuming the worst of the one who'd raised him on the values of justice and chivalry. Oh, how the Seven Hells liked to mock the righteous!
The last stretch of stairs to the Summit lacked railings. His father had once told him that it was meant to remind them of the dangers of looking too far down upon others. Baelor wondered when Lord Leyton Hightower had stopped taking his own advice.
The Summit of the Hightower was not so much a Solar as it was a great hall unto itself. It was wide, tall and supported by many load-bearing columns done in Ghozaian style. They tapered up into strong archways from whose vaults hung great chandeliers. Most of them were just for show though. During the day, the Summit was lit by the myriad of arched windows lining the single, circular wall. And at night, light cascaded from the great Beacon above them through the many panels of stained glass incrusted into the ceiling.
There were no walls inside the Summit, but there were plenty of spaces and daises set apart. Some high, some low, some large, some small, many even afforded a certain measure of privacy by YiTish dividers. Dining tables, game tables, playpens, reading areas, living rooms and more. Highest of all, though, was the Lord's Office. The largest and highest platform, from where the Lord of the Tower could rule all he surveyed. It was accessible by four staircases and sat in the very center, atop the summit's private amenities – privy, bathhouse and kitchen. There were four bridges too, aligned with the cardinal points. They connected to the mezzanine running along the walls, from which one could exit into the open-air terraces beyond.
In older days, House Hightower was of such numbers that the Summit fully deserved its role as private common room just for their family. Leyton Hightower's admittedly prolific seed seemed to be making a good bid of restoring that state of affairs. Or, at least, setting down the foundation for it. Baelor wondered how many women he'd be calling 'step mother' by the time his father was finished. He was at three at the moment. Probably going on four, seeing as it had been almost two years since the passing of Lady Druella. Alerie had once joked that Lynesse had to have sucked her mother dry before she even burst out of her belly. How else would such a lively, plump, big-boned Manderly not live past her birthing bed? Which wasn't entirely unfair, seeing how high-maintenance Lynesse was turning out to be. Not that it stopped any of them from spoiling her rotten.
Baelor had, briefly, wondered if maybe something more sinister had been at work. If maybe their House had been undermined by their maesters like who knew how many others. Fortunately, that didn't seem to be the case. Archmaester Ebrose was an old friend of the family, a genuinely kind old man, and the sole reason Baelor had a full five siblings instead of half. The Healer had been horrified by the purge, but that only made him seem less suspicious in Baelor's eyes. More tellingly, Ebrose had strongly advised their father to lock down the Citadel and kick over the whole hornet's nest the moment Stark's raven arrived. Use a stick and carrot approach to encourage internal dissent instead of attempting any sort of secrecy. Compel someone to come forward. If it truly existed, no conspiracy so large could be entirely free of dissent or detractors, and trying to out-subtle the maesters was a fool's errand. So Ebrose had argued.
Rightly, as it turned out. Baelor didn't even know who was killing who at this point. It wasn't because people didn't come forward – they came in great number just on the worth of his chivalrous reputation. It wasn't because they didn't have evidence either, there was too much evidence for everyone and everything. There was seldom a way to know if it was true or planted too. It was galling. Hundreds of guards deployed through the whole Citadel, hundreds more all over Oldtown, yet still no rhyme, reason or end to the murders happening right under their noses. The initial purge had been entirely on his father's orders and at the hands of Hightower soldiery, but it wasn't long before that stopped being the case. Over two thirds of the maesters and archmaesters whose heads were now on spikes had already been dead when the guards went to seize them, conveniently surrounded with confessions or proof of their wrongdoings. And Stranger take whoever expected him to buy into the various 'suicides' that beset the Citadel the day after Stark left. There had been one fool who tried to blame it on the Lord of the North. He turned out to be one of the handful of people in the know about certain child-buggering shitstains.
Baelor had never dreamed Citadel politics could be so bloody. Hells, he'd not heard of there even being dissent in the Citadel before. The Conclave was supposed to run things with a very firm hand. Then again, that assumed it really was all maesters killing maesters, instead of certain worthies having a hand in it.
The number of bodies in drains and ditches seemed to have tapered off the past few days at least, but Baelor wasn't ready to feel optimistic just yet.
He was glad Ebrose hadn't complained when father ordered him to remain under the protection of their house until further notice. Losing him to the madness would have been a tragedy. At least the Holy Mother still had some mercy to dole out, even if that wasn't what Baelor really needed.
Father grant me justice and Chrone your insight in the coming days, Baelor prayed as he approached the High Office. I am preciously starved for both.
The Lord's Office was a perfect circle with four fannable dividers made of alternating oak and weirwood, framed in brass enamelled in Hightower smoke grey. The panels were each as wide as a man's arm was long, and the hinge rods were fitted with wheels on the top and bottom, enabling them to slide and roll on the rails built into the ceiling and floor. Usually they were folded away behind the lord's chair, both for practicality and protection. Today, though, they enclosed the high rise completely.
Baelor climbed the stairs with a feeling of trepidation but didn't hesitate to push open the way.
Ebrose was seated on a couch to the right, anxiously wringing his hands. Leyton Hightower was at his desk, writing a scroll. And to the left, sitting at the small carrel where usually worked one of his father's many scribes, was Malora. Baelor's elder sister. She sat still in her seat, her long white hair hanging limply over her back and shoulders as she kept intent, blood-red eyes on the only object in that place that Baelor had never seen before.
A glass candle. Tall, twisting, sharp at the edges and colored gleaming jade, all except for the flame. It was an unpleasant brightness that gave off no color of its own. Instead, it seemed to be a patchwork of all the colors around and behind it, only stranger. The yellow of the desk's wood shone like gold, shadows looked like holes in the world, Malora's white hair looked like fresh snow, and her red eyes looked less like blood and more like glowing embers.
"Did you know the only difference between black and green glass candles is that black ones are broken?" his father asked idly. "I didn't, until a no-name scribe delivered that one today. Along with an unsigned letter telling us that the Citadel has finished settling its internal matters."
Baelor blinked and mentally readjusted himself.
"It was unsigned but written in fifteen different hands, four of which Ebrose recognised. I'm still not sure if it was a misstep or peace offering."
Baelor stood half-way to the candle.
"They included a warning that other people and things may be watching through the flames when used, also as peace offering."
Baelor stood half-way to the candle he didn't remember approaching.
"Please don't interrupt your sister though, as I've also been told that the flame will not last overlong."
The knight shook his head and took a wary step back. There was a long list of something next to the candle, he now saw. Malora briefly looked away from the flame to underline something on it. Names, Baelor though through wooly thoughts.
"Take a seat, son."
Disturbed, he did as told and quietly took the chair opposite the desk from his father.
The other man didn't look up but slid a thick scroll in his direction, already open. It looked to be no more than one generation old, if that. "Read that aloud to me. Just the first paragraph for now."
Baelor suppressed the impulse to shake himself out of whatever that had been. He took up the scroll and did as bid. Boons of the Andals, the title said, by Septon Cozbi. "When the Andals came, the Hightowers were amongst the first lords of Westeros to welcome them. 'Wars are bad for trade,' said Lord Dorian Hightower, when he set aside his wife of twenty years, the mother of his children, to take an Andal princess as his bride. His grandson Lord Damon (the Devout) was the first to accept the Faith. To honor the new gods, he built the first sept in Oldtown and six more elsewhere in his realm. When he died prematurely of a bad belly, Septon Robeson became regent for his newborn son, ruling Oldtown in all but name for the next twenty years and ultimately becoming the first High Septon. The boy he raised and trained, Lord Triston Hightower, raised the Starry Sept in his honor after his passing."
His father hummed, but still didn't look up from the scroll he was writing. Whatever it was, it had to be important. It was the best quality parchment they had, framed in gold ink. "Does any of it strike you as strange?"
Baelor thought over the words a few times before it came to him. "His wife of twenty years," The knight frowned. "The mother of his children. As in more than one."
"Go on."
"What in the hells? Were did they go? Where did all the other grandchildren go for that matter? All our other relatives?"
"Where do you think?" Layton Hightower still wouldn't look up from the increasingly wordy document he was writing.
"…. Father," Baelor said slowly, his mind going over and over the same three words. Raised and trained. Raised and trained. Raised and trained. "Why the hells did we let some Septon take up regency of our lands and our family?"
"I don't really need to answer that, do I?"
There were none of us left to gainsay them, Baelor thought. A great maw opened up in his belly, black and simmering.
"Read the next section," Leyton said.
Baelor did, not trusting his own thoughts at the moment. "In the centuries that followed, Oldtown became the unquestioned center of the Faith for all of Westeros. From the dark marble halls of the Starry Sept, a succession of High Septons donned the crystal crown (the first of which was given to the Faith by the Lord Triston's son Lord Barris) to become the voice of the Seven on earth, commanding the swords of the Faith Militant and the hearts of all the faithful from Dorne to the Neck. Oldtown became their holy city, and many devout men and women traveled there to pray at its septs and shrines and other holy places. Doubtless it was in part due to these ties to the Seven that the Hightowers were so often able to keep themselves separate from House Gardener's countless wars."
"Skip the next one. Read me the other two."
"By the time of Aegon's Conquest, Oldtown was beyond question the greatest city in all of Westeros—the largest, richest, and most populous, and a center of both learning and faith. Even so, it might well have suffered the same fate as Harrenhal if not for the close ties between the Hightower and the Starry Sept, for it was the High Septon who persuaded Lord Manfred Hightower to offer no resistance to Aegon Targaryen and his dragons but instead to open his gates at the conqueror's approach and do him homage.
"The conflict thus averted flared up again a generation later, however, during the bloody struggle between the Faith and the Conqueror's second son, the aptly named King Maegor the Cruel. The High Septon during the first years of Maegor's reign was kin by marriage to the Hightowers. His sudden death in 44 AC—shortly after King Maegor had threatened to incinerate the Starry Sept with dragonfire in his fury over His High Holiness's condemnation of his later marriages—is considered quite fortuitous, as it allowed Lord Martyn Hightower to open his gates before Balerion and Vhagar unleashed their flames."
"Did you know there were six high septons during the Conqueror's reign?" Leyton Hightower asked blandly. The man then slid forth an open tome. "Read me the addendum at the bottom."
The black pit broiled. "The unexpected nature of the High Septon's death in 44 AC aroused much suspicion, and whispers of murder persist to this day. Some believe His High Holiness was removed by his own brother, Ser Morgan Hightower, commander of the Warrior's Sons in Oldtown (and it is undeniably true that Ser Morgan was the sole Warrior's Son pardoned by King Maegor). Others suspect Lord Martyn's maiden aunt, the Lady Patrice Hightower, though their argument seems to rest upon the belief that poison is a woman's weapon. It has even been suggested that the Citadel might have played a role in the removal of the High Septon, though this seems far-fetched at best."
"I don't need to spell it out for you, do I son?"
Baelor stared down at the words, speechless. Times before he'd read the same histories, but after the past week they seemed to have a completely different meaning.
"Now read this," his father pushed forth a raven message. "Quietly if you please."
Baelor took the small scroll, read the tiny script of the royal proclamation and blanched.
Lord Leyton Hightower put down his quill, sealed the gold-framed scroll in wax with his signet ring, pushed it across the desk and rose to start packing various effects from the rear counters and bookshelves.
Ser Baelor Hightower took it with a deep feeling of dread. He read it. Then he read it again, desperately wishing the words said something other than what he'd craved for since New Year. The words stuck out to him. Some stabbed at him outright. I hereby do declare. Witnessed and signed by. In full possession of my faculties.
A House Head's High Warrant.
The closest thing to abdication you could get.
Baelor looked up at his father, horrified. "Father, what…"
"I am summoned to account to the King," the older man said as he loaded a satchel with records, writs and confessions. "I need also ascertain the fate of my uncle. You have full authority to do whatever you please with me gone. Depending on who gets to whisper in our good King's ear before I get there, it may be some time before I return. If I return."
"Father!" Baelor shot out of his seat. It nearly toppled, and in the aftermath the knight found himself not knowing what else to say.
"I've no time to discuss or argue with you if I'm to catch the high tide." Leyton donned his satchel and walked around the desk to lay his hands on his son's shoulders "But I don't need to. Do I?"
"Father…" Baelor's heart seemed to be bursting at the seams and salt stung at the edges of his eyes suddenly. "You can't be serious. One would have to be mad to think…"
Leyton smiled grimly at the way he trailed off. "Yes. One would have to be mad, wouldn't he?" The man embraced his son then. Briefly but tightly for all that.
Baelor returned it fiercely. This was nothing like what he expected this meeting to be. How he wished it was.
"Sharks are attracted to blood, my son." Lord Hightower pulled away, cupping his son's face what might well be the last time. "Remind them of our house words."
"We Light the Way," Baelor said bleakly.
"Yes," Layton said darkly, pushing a small coin into his hand. "We Light the Way. The reach of the Faith is wide, but their foresight is poor. It took us generations to avenge ourselves on the fanatics that took us, but we had our victory in the end. We changed the faith itself to suit our purpose. Eventually, ever so naturally, it was once again the name Hightower that went to light the way. You understand, now, why I did upon the Citadel what I did. Don't you, son? You, who now want to do the same unto others."
Baelor didn't agree. Didn't approve either. But his father was right on one thing. He did understand him now, if just a little.
The other man nodded, not needing or expecting more than that. "Strike hard, son. Strike fast. Strike first."
Lord Leyton of House Hightower ordered Archmaester Ebrose to sign as witness to the High Warrant and then left.
Baelor watched him until he disappeared down the lift, then looked around at the vast and opulent emptiness he was now Lord of in all but name.
He left. He couldn't stand to be there right then. He strode away, across the southern gangway towards the mezzanine and then beyond even that. The doors creaked as they gave way to the howling winds of winter. The cold bit at him despite the waves of heat that came down from the great beacon above and behind him. He ignored it. Went and leaned over the railing to watch the city. The roads. The bridges. The harbour beyond. He waited there for his father to emerge from the grand entrance below. Watched his procession all the way to the docks. Watched him get on the ship. Watched the ship pull away. Followed it until it disappeared beyond the horizon.
His father didn't look behind even once.
Baelor stood there for hours, thinking of trade, war, murder and the small coin that kept turning between his fingers, cast in the shape of a green hand. A thought came to him then, of what he'd thought was an unrelated piece of history. Of an ancient House that shared their features and interests. A house that used to be sworn to the same line of kings before being cast out. For growing too powerful, the histories taught. Their exile from the Reach had been around the same time that bad bellies started to determine succession, wasn't it?
What a coincidence.
When he went back inside, Ebrose was fussing over Malora while said sister was ignoring him in favour of reading the list of names. The glass candle was no longer lit.
Baelor hesitated, then sat down at his father's desk. It didn't feel like anything.
Malora quietly gave him the scroll. That list of names. It was written in fifteen different hands and detailed the helpers, abetters, identities, occupations and addresses of the child-buggering shitstains. All but two of the worthies he'd been suspecting were on it.
"Archmaester," Baelor asked, not looking up. "How much should we trust this?"
"I will never presume to make such decisions for you, My Lord."
Such decisions. Not 'any' or 'all' decisions. "How much do you trust this then?"
"More than I trusted the prior Conclave, that's for certain."
He looked up in surprise. "That was beyond blunt."
The Healer wrung his hands somberly. "Do you know how I was able to rise to my rank?"
"By being the best?" But he already knew it wouldn't be so simple.
"I told the archmaesters how wise and good they are. I told them that my liege and my parents commanded me to put myself into their hands. I told them that I had always dreamed that one day I might be allowed to wear the chain and serve the greater good, that service is the highest honor, and obedience the highest virtue. And when one of my fellow scribes died of a bad belly a day after he openly vowed to crack the higher mysteries, I made sure to say nothing of magic or prophecies or dragons. I never planned to delve such matters regardless, but I made doubly sure not to say anything indiscreet."
Baelor felt the broiling chasm in his belly burn with a poison flame. "That sounds like slavery."
"It does."
Baelor decided not to ask how much of that his father had been aware of. "How much should I trust this 'peace offering'?"
"That only you can decide," Ebrose told him. "I am not thinking clearly. I am still processing the possibility that I might be able to teach my students to speak freely without expecting poison in their porridge."
Baelor clenched his fist. "They call themselves the 'Twisted.'"
"Yes," Ebrose smiled. "A fine homage, don't you think? The origins of the Citadel are almost as mysterious as those of the Hightower itself, but most credit its founding to the same person: the second son of Uthor of the High Tower, Prince Peremore the Twisted. A sickly boy, born with a withered arm and twisted back, Peremore was bedridden for much of his short life but had an insatiable curiosity about the world beyond his window. So he turned to wise men, teachers, priests, healers, and singers, along with a certain number of wizards, alchemists, and sorcerers. It is said the prince had no greater pleasure in life than listening to these scholars argue with one another. When Peremore died, his brother King Urrigon bequeathed a large tract of land beside the Honeywine to 'Peremore's pets,' that they might establish themselves and continue teaching, learning, and questing after truth. And so they did."
Wise men. Priests. Teachers. Maegi. Argument and debate. It sounded so different from what the Citadel was like today. Or maybe had been. "Leave me."
Ebrose bowed and took the lift down to his chambers, though not before seeing Malora to the sleeping area she'd set aside for herself. It had been years since the Mad Maid had descended from the Summit. She wasn't changing her routine today, it seemed.
Baelor spent the day thinking. Of conspiracies, mysteries, crimes and options. He thought about the people of Oldtown who were living in fear. He thought about his reputation as a chivalrous knight and the damage it had been taking. Damage he could not suffer now that he couldn't just spend it like coin to get his way. Like he'd been planning, even if it got him banished or exiled to soothe fears and tempers. He thought of his father, who surely must hate to be indebted to the Citadel, especially after he'd tried to clamp down on it only to weaken his hold even further. And he thought that his father probably still preferred it over being indebted to Rickard Stark.
He had a plan by noon, sent a runner out before supper, and town criers were spreading word by mid-afternoon, of his plan to hold a great speech in front of the Citadel. He spent the rest of his day with his brother and sisters.
And the next morning, upon confirmation that the guards had followed his orders to concentrate around the Mansions of the Pious instead of the Citadel, Baelor Hightower climbed the pulpit and gave a speech. A brief apology, a read of the King's royal decree, full disclosure about the events at the Citadel, and his personal reassurance that things will go back to normal. As soon as he's finished excising the canker represented by child-buggering shitstains like Septon Utt, matron Cozbi, Septon Dolion, Septon Donahue, merchant Enyo, Septa Deianira, Septon Aridam, Septon Bronach, Septon Ubel, and every other worthy on the far too long list he had with him.
The thing about purges was that they scared the mob. The thing about mobs was that they were led easily by the right people. And the thing about people was that there was always someone smart enough to notice when a group outnumbered all others combined thrice over.
He was not discreet. He didn't need to feign his outrage at their supposed spiritual leaders. He didn't need to mix rabble-rousers in the crowd. He didn't even need to bring forth any witnesses. So many days of people living in fear combined with his impeccable reputation did all the work by themselves.
When the Sea Lion docked at Oldtown, he only spared whatever time was needed on the basic courtesies. When people told him the Lannisters were poaching their learned men, he told them the Citadel could mind its own business. And when the second decree came to Oldtown and unceremoniously requisitioned all the present Lannisters and their resources for the establishment of a new Citadel on the opposite coast of Westeros, Baelor Hightower only scanned it to make sure there wasn't a mention of his father getting burned at the stake. Then he went back to his own business.
Keeping up with all the lynching going on was hard work.
It turned out that people could feel rather betrayed and angry on learning the things their spiritual guides got up to with their young. More than even public executions could appease. Those all too few he had proof enough to justify.
He could almost see the ripples as they burst from Oldtown and stretched to the very ends of the lands where the Faith held sway. The end wouldn't be cut and dry, he knew. No matter. Whatever happened next, he and his would be right there to light the way.
Strike hard. Strike fast. Strike first.
Ser Baelor the Bloody smiled grimly as the streets ran red with the blood of priests.