Chapter 23: The Bridge
126
Princess Helaena Targaryen
She descended into the darkness of the wine cellar holding a Myrrish lantern. The expensive fusion of bronze and glass, a gift from the Triarchy. Tribute to buy her husband's favor, and after this most recent showing a wise choice by the typically foolish slavers. She found him deep amidst the racks, some scattered candles poorly illuminating the truth of his hulking mass. His chair backed to a barrel, a tankard big enough to get a horse drunk held under the spigot as the red flowed out of it. His fingers twisted it shut and he lifted the wine to his lips, uncaring of her approach.
"Leave me be, woman. I'm feeling chatty." he grumbled and continued his drinking.
Only Aegon could ever feel chatty and seek solitude. In two lifetimes she'd never seen a man he would call a friend, ignoring the obvious fiction of his 'best friend' Lord Jasper Wylde. A person could look at him, and say 'It's lonely at the top' but she remembered well the times in which they were at the bottom of Westeros's pecking order, and even then Jorah never sought alliance through friendship, only through benefits. Who would care to listen to Aegon's plights, monster that he is?
"Good, perhaps you will explain yourself with words, for your actions are damning." even she felt disgust at the crucifixion of those boys, and her eyes saw much barbarity in her years.
"You wish to know? Do you think I spare you from knowing my mind for my sake?" Aegon chuckled, a rumbling thing that reminded her of the bestial inhabitants of their former home, "For yours, to spare you the weight."
Helaena chastised him in her typical sarcastic manner, "The burden of guilt rarely shows itself on your shoulders, so great your ambitions. It's good to see that there is finally a line that bothers you to cross, so deep into moral darkness as it is."
"Guilt? Ambitions?" Aegon shook his head, "You truly know me not. Purpose, the ultimate burden, so great even its absence crushes men. What I do in service of mine… Only I can, and thus I must."
His sister-wife wanted to gawk at him. Though hard to look at him and remain clear headed, so beautiful and masculine his face, his countenance seemed sincere, as if revealing some great truth in his verbal drivel.
"There is no purpose that excuses such a spectacle of kinslaying!" Helaena shrieked at him, causing him to wince and pinch the bridge of his nose, "Look what you make me do, Aegon, I'm the one who should be killing your horde of bastards! Not you, yet here am I the advocate for the nameless faceless masses of unloved seed you sow across the world!"
"Unloved?" Aegon glared at her, "You know nothing of what I cherish. I did so because of my love for them."
"Now this I want to hear! What twists and turns in that wicked labyrinth of a mind do you follow to believe that you loved those boys?" she derided him.
Aegon explained after a long tipping back of wine, "Disobedience, death, simple as. I gave them a path to greatness, and they chose to walk its counter, to become terrible. Thieves? No far worse than that for my dragons are not simple treasures to draw the greedy. Betrayers, and all traitors must die, no matter their kinship. Those boys chose death, but I gave them something far greater, for I love them despite their betrayal. I made it epic. I could have vanished them quietly, and after a moon of whispers they would be forgotten. I carved their image into their brothers' minds. They will never be forgotten and perhaps the lesson they taught will save the others. Perhaps that virtue will be attributed to them, or perhaps for their suffering the gods will take pity on them and save them from the deepest Hell they damned themselves to as betrayers. What greater love can a father give than to enshrine the memory of his sons, and intercede on behalf of their souls? That, woman, is what you stand in condemnation of. I blame you not, for what can a woman know of man's virtue?"
Helaena raised her hands to her face with her fingers spread and curled, looking at him from between them, "You are a uniquely demented being. You think I cannot fathom the reasoning of your kinslaying because I am a woman? You speak of gods you don't believe in, while your own men are demoralized by your actions, let alone what will come once this leaks out of Dragonsreach!"
Aegon shook his head some of his shoulder length hair coming around to cover his face, but his massive hand dragged the silver gold fall back, his head tilting as his eyes scanned the ceiling, as if deliverance could be found there instead of his cups.
"Of course they are demoralized, this is a terrible thing we've done, but they hold their tongues and stay their feet because they understand. I am the bridge between what is, and what ought to be, and there is no sacrifice too great to protect that bridge. " Aegon leaned back and closed his eyes, as if that proclamation of megalomania explained everything perfectly.
Helaena reached out her hands to his neck, as if to strangle him, "This act will destroy your reputation beyond any chance of recovery."
Aegon peeked open a single lid and smirked, "How? No one will talk, because all have seen."
"They talked!" she screamed, "Why do you think I know?"
He briefly chuckled and applied more wine to his system before answering, "Of course they don't hide things from you. How else would you get the chance to hear something worse?"
Helaena glared at her seated husband, the man at eye level due to his freakish height, her eyes wide with shock. He remembered a conversation from decades ago, but couldn't remember their baby girl's name.
"AAAAAHHHHHHH!" she screamed as she lunged at him.
Aegon merely laughed, his mood lifted as he wrestled her to the ground with one hand while the other kept his wine steady.
-Daeron Targaryen-
A wail of pain interrupted the day's duels, and though Daeron kept his eyes on his opponent, when the other boy hesitated as well the pair looked over to see a familiar boy on the ground weeping as another stood over him.
"Get up! I want to do it again!" screamed Randall Flowers, the bastard of Horn Hill, one of the few his brother fathered on a noble woman present amongst the company Daeron trained with daily.
Gregor Flowers, common born, lay on the ground holding his midsection. His wails of pain felt so foreign amidst the hardboiled boys, who rarely cried out beyond grit teethed grunting even with a broken limb. Randall versus Gregor made for a poor match up to begin with, the former one of the strongest in the company due to his early life training among his kin. Even with over a year over him in age, Daeron struggled against the bullish boy, and would likely lose to him if not for Aegon's personal instruction keeping him ahead of the others in skill.
Gregor, well, Daeron wouldn't call him weak, just unexceptional among the company of boys all strong enough to slay full grown men in fair combat. Not that anyone could tell these boys weren't men with a helmet on, for they already stood the height of a full grown small folk, and out weighed most too. The boy on the ground would be a complete unknown to Daeron if not for the meal he shared at Aegon's table. When he refused to stand back up, Randall put the boot to him, kicking the downed boy until a knight pulled him back.
Seeing his partner's dissatisfaction at the man's action, Daeron engaged him before the duel resumed, "What's this about, then?"
His partner frowned and responded, "It's not something that should be talked about."
"Yet here I ask." Daeron raised a brow, but the other boy just kept frowning.
"It shouldn't be talked about." he repeated, and now Daeron frowned at the second denial.
The prince appreciated the fraternity that kept him silent about whatever the matter going on amongst his bastard nephews. He certainly felt the same for Aegon and Aemond, willing to keep their secrets even to the grave. It allowed him to overcome the natural anger at the refusal by his social lesser. That, and the fact that Daeron had not an ounce of cunt in him. Instead to cause a fuss, he simply dedicated himself to beating the boy in front of him into the ground for his audacity.
-Rhaenyra Targaryen-
Her consistent good mood left her with her babe, and instead her old appetite returned. The vigor in which she operated felt entirely sapped, though she needed no time to recover from her birthing labor. Because of that decrease in energy and emotional balance, Rhaenyra found herself bitterly unmoved by the plight of the small folk of Dragonstone. The village she visited certainly looked impoverished, being largely built of driftwood and mud bricks, and the people looked hardworked and hungry, but her heart failed to stir. The only thing that moved her was the sight of all the bastards her brother left behind, left behind to live in squalor.
Where once she saw liability, now she saw potential. There was simply no way these children were left behind as some kind of advance force by Aegon, and if she can turn them to her side, to make them love her, then her problem of Aegon's possible seven hidden dragon riders giving him the absolute advantage in numbers may have found its solution, his downfall sown by his own disregard.
Despite that, Rhaenyra took the matter seriously, listening to the woman who helped birth her babes bitch and moan about this and that ranging from matters she controlled like the taxes and regulations, to matters she didn't like families moving away from the island. While the Lords of Westeros wielded considerable power over the small folk, they possessed no lawful means to prevent migration.
Most importantly the woman explained the phenomena of the small folk seeking to settle matters amongst themselves due to a lack of faith in the judgement of their lords. On Dragonstone the custom began during the time of Queen Visenya, who often dealt with disputes in the harshest and most bitter of ways for all parties involved. The small folk began handling matters amongst themselves. Rhaenyra herself thought the lack of disputes for her to manage on Dragonstone meant that the small folk were content and orderly. Now she knew that silence didn't mean peace, it simply meant no one trusted her.
Though she left the meeting fully certain that she would kill the woman some time in the future, Rhaenyra learned a valuable lesson about the downstream effects of policy and judgements, and resolved herself to better support those under her rule, to further contrast herself against her harsh and tyrannical brother.
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My will to write has been empty of late, and this chapter came slowly and in small pieces. I had little desire to write Daeron's PoV, but I needed to get Randall Flowers established as Gregor's chief tormentor. By the time I realized that I needed to do one more Rhaenyra PoV I just said fuck it and summarized rather than elaborated.
Thank God we only have one more chapter before we time skip to the death of Vizzy T. As much as I love that based Chad-King, I've had enough of all this rising action. One more chapter to lock in everyone's character arcs and then we can get back to what Aegon does best: applying final solutions to problematic people.
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