Chương 50: Interlude - The Three Queens III

The Dragon Queen A warm breeze rolled in through the open-faced side of the room, carrying with it the smells of the port town below, salt and pitch and roasting fish, the sour tang of unwashed bodies and the sweeter notes of tropical fruits being sold at the market. The afternoon sun beat down on the clear waters of the harbor, painting them in shades of blue and silver. Beyond the harbor lay the endless expanse of the southern sea. Rhaella paced the length of the great table in the center of the chamber.

Her bare feet made no sound against the polished black stone floor. She had grown accustomed to going without shoes in this heat, a small concession to the climate that would have shocked the lady she had been a decade ago. Then again, much had changed about the woman she had been a decade ago. Rhaella Targaryen, Queen of the Seven Kingdoms, would never have countenanced living among pirates and slaves. The Rhaella of Ax Isle had little choice in the matter.

The black stone of the chamber's walls seemed to drink in the sunlight rather than reflect it. The stones felt slightly greasy to the touch, similar in look if not in feel to Aegon the Conqueror's hall in Dragonstone. The same kind of stone, perhaps, though built by hands far removed from the lords of Old Valyria. The Quartheen pirate who had raised these walls some two hundred years ago had clearly known what he was doing, however he had come by the knowledge. The fortress had outlasted its builder by far.

Lord Lucerys Velaryon sat at the long table, his hands folded on its polished surface. His face wore a mixture of embarrassment and irritation that Rhaella recognized well from his years on her husband's small council. The Master of Ships had been her constant companion through five years of exile, the closest thing she had to a confidant or advisor. He was a steady man, careful and thoughtful, and his current expression suggested he could already imagine whatever excuse his son was planning to offer.

"Your Grace," Lord Lucerys said, his deep voice careful.

"Perhaps the messenger was wrong. Perhaps he heard only rumors of rumors. I do not think Monford would be foolish enough to do such a thing." Rhaella shook her head as she turned at the far end of the table.

"It was not your son who conceived of this foolishness, my lord. Of that I have no doubt." She paused at the open side of the room, looking out toward the harbor below.

"Unfortunately, I cannot say the same of my own." Lord Lucerys did not respond to that. There was no proper response to be made. Standing at the edge of the chamber, the warm breeze played with the loose strands of her silver hair, which had grown thinner these past years. The food on Ax Isle was plentiful enough—they had no shortage of fish or fruit or grain captured from various slaver galleys—but the worry had carved itself into her. She could feel her bones more sharply beneath her skin than she once had.

She could feel the years more sharply too. She had noticed how Viserys had grown increasingly restless of late. Especially, she thought, because she had not yet crowned him king. Her son respected her too much to rage at her about it openly, but she knew he had been growing anxious. The way his eyes followed the captains when they came to give their reports. The way he had begun training harder with Ser Willem every morning.

The way he asked, with carefully controlled casualness, about news from the Seven Kingdoms whenever any reached them. But Rhaella knew she could not declare him king. Not yet. Not until the truth of Elia and her children's whereabouts had been certified beyond doubt. Dorne had not answered their discreet attempts at contact for years now, not since that single brief acknowledgment when they had first escaped Dragonstone. Why Prince Doran kept his silence, she could not say.

He had reason enough to hate the usurpers who had stolen his sister's position and her son's birthright. But Doran Martell was a cautious man, and cautious men did not commit themselves to causes that seemed lost. Then there was the matter of the missing Kingsguard, Ser Arthur Dayne. And Lyanna Stark's babe, if such babe even lived still. She shook her head sharply. Those thoughts only served to perturb her further. Two grandchildren missing somewhere in the world, lost or perhaps dead.

One grandson far away from her in the hands of the usurper's dog, even if supposedly protected by the Sword of the Morning himself, the finest knight of his generation. She trusted Ser Arthur to do whatever needed doing for that child. But trust was a cold comfort across thousands of miles of sea. She already had enough problems without dwelling on what she could not change. Running their household, such as it was, and the island itself.

Managing their captains and crews and the ever-growing population of their island. Negotiating with the various petty kings and pirate lords of the Basilisk Isles who would gladly see them gone if they could find the strength to drive them out. Gods, what would her ancestors think if they could see what House Targaryen had been reduced to? From dragonlords and kings to disgraced corsairs hiding like rats near the dread shores of Sothoryos.

From riding the skies on creatures of fire and legend, to prowling the southern seas like scavengers, falling upon slaver galleys to feed themselves. She looked out at the port town below. The view, at least, gave her some small measure of pride. Five years ago, when they had first landed here, the place had been a den of piracy and degeneracy.

A scattered collection of huts and shacks and rotting wharves, populated by perhaps two or three hundred souls, pirates and runaway slaves and the worst sort of criminals fleeing justice from the Free Cities. The kind of place where a man might have his throat cut for his boots and his body left in the harbor for the crabs. Now it was a proper port town. Not grand, perhaps, not by the standards of King's Landing or Volantis or even Duskendale, but proper nonetheless.

Stone and timber buildings had replaced many of the lean-to shacks and huts. Streets had been laid out with some sense of order. A market square thrived in the center of the town, and proper docks now extended into the harbor where ships from across the southern seas put in for trade and repairs. The population numbered in the many thousands. The fleet captains and soldiers who had escaped with them from Dragonstone formed the backbone of the town.

Her own household servants had carved out their own neighborhood near the fortress. Lord Velaryon's men had built fine houses along the eastern slope of the harbor. Beyond these, the population had grown through accretion, freed slaves who had nowhere else to go, settling in their hundreds. Former pirates who had grown tired of the constant violence and welcomed a place where the rule of law, however roughly enforced, gave them peace. Merchants who saw the opportunity and came to ply their trades.

Refugees from the various wars and land disputes that plagued the southern coast of Essos. It was not the kingdom she had been born to. But it was something she had built with her own hands. She was proud of that, at least. But could she say the same as a mother? That was the question that troubled her in the late hours of the night when sleep eluded her. Running the island and managing all their captains and men to keep from defecting had given her less time than she wished with her children.

She needed to remedy that, if not with the fiercely independent Viserys then at least with little Dany, who still clung to her with all the desperate affection of a five-year-old whose mother was too often unavailable. A knock came at the great wooden door then, and Rhaella was almost glad for it. Lord Lucerys rose from his seat, smoothing his sea-green robes.

"That will be them, Your Grace." Rhaella turned from the window. She fixed her face into a stern grimace—the look that had allowed her to cow even the fiercest of pirates and captains these past years.

"Bring them in," she said. Escorted by two Velaryon knights in silver-and-blue armor, three young men entered the chamber. Viserys came first. Her son had grown tall in the past year, his thin frame stretched upward toward what would eventually be his full height. He wore a tunic of dark red silk and breeches of black wool, and he had taken some pains to comb his silver hair properly before being brought before her.

But he looked tired, his skin tanned darker than she liked from weeks in the southern sun, and the way his violet eyes moved suggested he had been preparing his arguments for hours. Behind him came Monford Velaryon, perhaps three years older, taller and broader through the shoulders. He wore the sea-green of his house, though his clothes were less fine than Viserys's. His face bore the chastened expression of a son who knew he had disappointed his father. The third was Aurane Waters, Lord Lucerys's bastard.

He was the same age as Monford, perhaps slightly older, with the same Valyrian features as the others—silver hair and pale skin and violet eyes, but with that subtle stamp of bastardy that Rhaella could not have defined but somehow always recognized. Perhaps it was the careless way he stood, with one hand resting easy on his belt. Perhaps it was the small smirk playing at the corner of his lips even as his half-brother kept his head properly bowed. All three had the deep tans of men who had spent weeks at sea.

Their silver-blond hair hung long and matted with salt and wind. They smelled, Rhaella noted with distaste, like they had not bathed properly since returning to harbor. This tale has been unlawfully lifted from Royal Road; report any instances of this story if found elsewhere. Viserys made as if to speak first, and Monford opened his mouth at almost the same moment. Both of them had clearly planned a thousand excuses.

But one look from Lord Lucerys, a single sharp glance, set the two of them quiet, heads dropping further toward the floor. Rhaella let the silence stretch as she studied them further. Viserys's fingers twitching against his thigh. Monford, who swallowed once, his throat working visibly. Or how Aurane kept sneaking glances at her and his father, that tiny smirk never quite leaving his lips. He was audacious enough not to show contrition before his sire and his queen, that one. A bad influence on Viserys, perhaps?

Possible. But her son was a prince of the blood. He should know better than to let bastards influence his judgment, half-Velaryon or otherwise. When she finally spoke, her voice was cold and measured.

"For five years," she began, "we have toiled in this half-forsaken corner of the world with one objective. One goal. The restoration of House Targaryen to the throne that was stolen from us." She paused, letting the words settle.

"And you three had the gall to put all of it at risk. And for what? Flying our flags before King's Landing as a mummer's show? A boys' jape?" As if he could no longer contain himself, Viserys's head snapped up. His violet eyes blazed with that particular fire Rhaella recognized from her own brother before him, and from her father before that.

"To send a message, mother!" Viserys said.

"To the usurper and his dogs and all our enemies. To let them know the House of the Dragon still lives! That we have forgotten what was stolen!"

"You are three and ten, Viserys," Rhaella replied evenly.

"And a prince besides. You should know better than to act on impulse against your queen's wishes. And the two of you—" Her gaze cut to Monford and Aurane.

"—are older still. You should have known better than to indulge a young prince's recklessness."

"No." Viserys shook his head violently.

"I'm tired of hiding. Tired of skulking in this jungle pit. All we've done is rescue slaves and send messages we don't even get answers to from supposed allies! Five years, mother! Five years of nothing! Enough! It's time we strike. Time we take back what is ours!" The two Velaryon knights who had escorted the boys in stiffened at that. Their chests puffed out, almost imperceptibly. As if excited at the prospect of war and conquest. Men were all the same, in the end. Rhaella had known this for many years.

But at least Viserys could inspire these men with his words. That would be a considerable boon when the time came for him to lead. Aerys had never been able to inspire men. He had only ever been able to terrify them. Rhaella sighed.

"You are like cabin boys looking out of a porthole and thinking you see the whole world's oceans," she said. Lord Lucerys let out a small snort before he could catch himself. She raised an eyebrow at him.

"Forgive me, Your Grace," Lord Lucerys said with a small smile.

"It is only that... a few years back, I could never have imagined to hear you say such a thing." She shrugged.

"Perhaps I have spent too long with sailors and mariners. I have started to sound like them. But there is a reason behind it all." She turned back to her son.

"Do you truly think that's all we have done, my son? That I sit here all day just watching the sun pass overhead?" Her voice turned icy.

"That your queen is some idle creature who waits for fortune to fall into her lap?"

"No, mother." Viserys spoke quickly now, his fire dimming somewhat.

"Of course not. I only meant—""I know what you meant, Viserys. Your fault is not ignorance, but recklessness." She walked closer to him then, her bare feet silent on the black stone.

"Let me enlighten you, then. Even now, Ser Gerold risks himself daily in Slaver's Bay, meeting with sellsword captains and trying to negotiate contracts. Ser Oswell—brave Ser Oswell—has been gathering men from the isles and from all over southern Essos who would hold a sword for our cause. Where before we had nothing, we now have agents in Volantis and Lys and Tyrosh and as far away as Qarth. We have allies, or potential allies, in places you do not even know exist." She stopped before him.

"But we are not ready. Not yet. And one boy's foolishness might have ruined everything we have been building." Viserys looked at her, his mouth slightly agape.

"I... I didn't know. I thought—I thought Ser Gerold and Ser Oswell had gone to Dorne or to the North. To beg for their support."

"They serve House Targaryen, Prince Viserys." Rhaella lifted her chin.

"And House Targaryen does not beg." The three boys reacted to that. Viserys straightened slightly. Monford's eyes widened. Even Aurane Waters looked properly chastened for once, the smirk finally fading from his lips. Rhaella turned away from them, walking back toward the open side of the chamber.

"You three are dismissed." They began to leave without a word, the two knights falling in behind them. But Rhaella called out before they reached the door.

"Oh. And neither of you is allowed on a ship for the next three moons. It will be the stables for all of you. Even a prince must learn how to shovel horse shit." Viserys's groans of frustration carried back down the hallway as they departed. Rhaella stood at the open side of the room and listened until their footsteps faded away. Then she let out a long, slow breath that she had not realized she had been holding.

"Has there been word of Ser Gerold?" Lord Lucerys asked from behind her. She nodded without turning.

"The Windblown's contract with Yunkai ends next year. The other companies he has approached around Slaver's Bay ask double the price for any work that takes them away from the slaving cities." She saw Lucerys nodding from the corner of her vision.

"Aye, I can see it. There is easy money to be made for them there. The Ghiscari pay well to keep their slaves in check and defend against the occasional khalasar. We don't exactly have the gold to match their offers."

"No, we do not." Lucerys licked his lips. He always did when he became nervous.

"Your Grace," he began cautiously, "perhaps it is time to revisit your—our—position on the Golden Company?" Rhaella turned toward him fully then. Lord Lucerys swallowed visibly.

"I understand your hesitancy, of course," he continued, choosing his words with care.

"Given who founded the company. But they are the best in the field, the best by far. And they would take our contract, I am certain of it. Many of them who still hold to their old houses would gladly take pardons and lands in the Seven Kingdoms as payment. Lands we can easily take from the usurper's allies once we have destroyed them in battle." Rhaella's jaw worked for a moment. This was an old argument between her and her councillors.

Lord Lucerys had been pressing it for years now, each time more directly than the last. He was right that the Golden Company was the best of the sellsword companies. He was right that they would likely accept their contract. He was right that the Lannisters and Baratheons and their allies had estates aplenty that could be promised as payment. But she had grown up during the time of the last Blackfyre Rebellion.

She had been a child still when Ser Barristan Selmy had killed Maelys the Monstrous on the Stepstones, ending the male line of the Black Dragon forever. Her parents and grandparents and the surviving knights who had served them had told her stories of the rebellions. The same warning was woven through every one of them. Never trust anything Blackfyre. Never.

The Golden Company had been founded by Bittersteel after the First Rebellion, and for a hundred years they had carried the Black Dragon banner alongside their own. They had supported every subsequent rebellion. They had bled and died for the Pretenders. But perhaps desperate times made for strange bedfellows. She did not have the luxury of choosing her allies these days.

Beyond the Golden Company, they had not yet tried to hire any of the companies that usually stayed around the western Free Cities and the Disputed Lands either. Those were too close to the Seven Kingdoms. Too likely to attract the attention of King's Landing and that whispering spider Varys. They had been forced to look far away, to keep east of the Rhoyne where Varys's network of little birds was sparser. In truth, Varys himself remained a mystery to her.

She doubted he was completely unaware of their whereabouts—the man's reach extended further than she liked to imagine. And yet he had not told his new master where to find them. Or if he had, the Baratheons had chosen not to act on the knowledge. Either possibility was strange. Either possibility unsettled her.

"Leave me to think for now, my lord," she said at last.

"I will give you an answer on the morrow." Lord Lucerys bowed.

"As you wish, Your Grace." He retreated from the chamber, his footsteps fading as Viserys' had before him, and Rhaella stood alone in the room with its open-faced wall and its black stone floor and its great painted table, a mockery of Dragonstone's own great council room. The afternoon stretched out before her like an unfinished tapestry. Down in the harbor, a few galleys were putting in to dock. Some of theirs, she recognized by the cut of their hull, returning from some weeks of raiding along the slave routes.

The cries of gulls drifted up from below, sharp and lonely. A child laughed somewhere in the streets of the town. Music played in a tavern, the cheerful skirl of pipes barely audible from this distance. The smell of cooking fish came stronger on the breeze now. A simple, ordinary day on her ragged little kingdom at the edge of the world. And her mind, as it always did when she was alone for too long, wandered back to the dreams. They had begun some months ago.

At first only occasionally—once a week perhaps, then twice. Now nearly every night. Strange dreams. Vivid in ways that her ordinary dreams had never been. She wondered if she was a dreamer like her ancestor Daenys the Dreamer, who had foreseen the Doom of Valyria and saved her family from destruction. The blood ran true sometimes, even after centuries of dilution. But her dreams were not of doom. Her dreams were of conquest. Of conquest, and of dragons. She saw them sometimes in the depths of those visions.

Great creatures of flame and shadow, moving through skies that were not the skies of Ax Isle, hunting through valleys that were green and wild. She heard their cries echoing across landscapes she did not recognize. She felt the heat of their breath as if she stood beside them. That was another reason she had been so cautious about showing their hand too soon. Something she had not told any of her councillors. Not even Lord Lucerys.

She was more convinced than ever that for House Targaryen to retake their throne, they would need the power that had united the Seven Kingdoms under Aegon the Conqueror in the first place. Dragons. And perhaps, if her dreams were true, if the blood of the Dreamer truly ran through her veins, then the answer lay closer than anyone might have imagined. Not in Valyria, lost to the Doom and the Smoking Sea. Not even in Dragonstone, their ancestral home. But here. Closer. To the south.

Deep in the green jungles of Sothoryos, where true dragons, the legends whispered, still lived in places no man had ever dared to map. She spent almost an hour looking out over the harbor, and there she thought about the dreams that came to her in the dark hours of the night. The dragons calling to her in voices that were not voices. Calling her home.