Chapter 14: The Great Tourney of Dragonsreach Part 2
125
-Queen Alicent Hightower-
"Is that Lorathi ivory?" the Queen asked her daughter in reference to the engraved white bands decorating her belt, housed in silver.
"These, no." her daughter shook her head while wiping clean the bottom of her youngest son, the princess completely unbothered by the heavy scent of shit in the air, a true daughter of King's Landing, "The ivory comes from the Bay of Ice. Walruses big as a boat with tusks long as a man. Aegon's ships hunt them down after they finish trading food to the Northerners."
Alicent narrowed her eyes, trying to remember if she'd ever received news that Aegon's sailors operated as far as the North. She failed to recall if they ever even made it to the Riverlands. All she recalled was Tyland Lannister insisting that Aegon drove a hard but fair bargain with Lannisport. Typical second son behavior to admire her son's mercantile ways. Shameful, for a prince to work like a merchant, but she admitted the utility in it, as her son now kept a large host of battle ready knights. Men all eager for the day of his ascension to the Iron Throne.
"How long has Dragonsreach traded with the North?" Alicent inquired, hoping to learn more about her son so as not to be blindsided by whatever fresh controversy he manages to conjure.
"From the start." Helaena informed her, as she wrapped her son in fresh linen, "Aegon had all the agreements in place before he finished the first of his ships. Old Town, Lannisport, Seagard, Flint's Finger, Barrowtown, Torrhen's Square, Bear Island, and Deepwood Motte."
"That is a lot of Northern seats." Alicent mused, trying to remember if her son ever had anything good to say about the biggest of the Kingdoms.
"The North needs food, always, and we grow food." her daughter explained the simple equation, as if that answered anything, "As much as Aegon might deride them as uncouth savages, he is happy to send them what they need in return for what they have. He's a gift for turning around a profit on it. Moving things from one place to the next. Its silver compared to the gold he can mine at home, but it keeps his ships moving, and having a fleet is always better than not having a fleet."
At the very least, her son used the coin he degraded himself to earn for lordly purpose. On top of what he hopes to one day call The Bronze Fleet, Aegon's additions to Dragonsreach pleased the eye, Middle Valyrian, her husband insisted on pointing out each architectural feature he recognized from his studies. Something their daughter found hilarious during their tour, and informed them that her husband did the same for her with everything in the Blue Keep. After seeing both Dragonstone and Dragonsreach, High Valyrian architecture vs Middle Valyrian architecture, the Queen of Westeros spat on the memory of whatever sorcerer first created the dreary blackstone that delineated the styles. Dragonsreach possessed an aesthetic beauty that warms the spirit, ironically opposed to the blackstone, a creation of some form of pyromancy, that drags the viewer and occupant down into a cold depression.
Of course neither husband nor son put any claim to Low Valyrian architecture, what their kind built when they were sheepherders living in shacks, while across the sea her family had lived in the Hightower for thousands of years ruling over free men and women long before the Valyrians mastered dragons and became the preeminent slaver society of the world through uncheckable violence. Looking at this middle Valyrian town, possibly some day a city, all its beauty comes with the implicit understanding that this isn't a revival of what Valyrians built all those years ago, but what their slaves built. Did Valyrian minds even produce these designs, or was it learned men clapped in irons, forced to produce beauty or be the next victim of foul sorcery.
Truly, the Seven can bring good out of all things, even evil, for today such wonders are not the product of slaves and sorcery, but the blessings of the Smith brought about by the hands and minds of free men. The dragons that once made slaves of the world now defend the free world, and defend they shall, her son and his partner Sunfyre, possibly two of the ablest agents of warfare to ever walk the earth and fly the skies.
Just as the dreadful and wonton Rhaenyra and her terrible and cruel husband stood ready to claim the Iron Throne, her son and his dragon rose up, ready to defend the world from them like Ser Galladon of Morne and the Just Maid, though based on the certain nature of his blessings perhaps the Mother loves her son, not the Maiden. It would certainly explain the rather incredible transformation her daughter went through in the last three years, from a skinny and broad faced maiden to strong and filled out woman, so filled out that Alicent often found herself on the cusp of demanding Helaena don more appropriate dresses, but jealous eye of the Crown Princess stayed her lips.
She remembered the cruel whispers Rhaenyra's courtiers filled the Red Keep with while the girl grew up, and only her daughter's unique strength of character allowed the girl to stand strong throughout it all. Now, her girl looked like she could squash those courtiers' heads between her thighs. Who cares about a broad face when the girl can now smack'em with her broadside and send them to the dirt?
Unlike her older half-sister who never lost the weight she gained carrying her children, Helaena took after her mother and remained trim and lean despite the multiple pregnancies, though from the firm rounding of her shoulders and power in her waist it was an undertaking in effort rather than in moderation. She looked like she could wrestle down any three or even four of the women who grew up with such unkind words on their lips about her, and while the strength of her physique didn't match the standard of a proper noble woman, she certainly looked well paired with her brother-husband.
After settling her son from crying during the changing of his soiled smallclothes, Helaena handed the infant off to a Dornish girl, and Alicent winced at the exchange. Her daughter's large - often called too large in her childhood - purple eyes fixed on the shift in her expression, and the girl's wide mouth went up on one end.
"Is there a problem, mother?" she asked in that sinister playful tone she perfected as a child.
'Is there a problem?' she asks, after engaging in obviously problematic behavior. The dusky skinned girl is the closest thing to a slave in Westeros, one and ten years old with a lifetime of degradation ahead of her, and trusted with the safety of her grandchildren.
"Yes." Alicent answered, the dire nature of the situation evident and emphasized in her tone.
"That is so you, mother, worrying over matters long since settled." Helaena chuckled as she led her mother to a sitting room where she instructed a servant to bring refreshments.
Some of the clearest glass Alicent ever saw filled the window, allowing nigh pure daylight into the comfortable space. Her daughter sat easily in the rounded low backed armchairs her husband preferred, and the Queen felt a sudden need to redecorate the Red Keep with them after lowering herself into its pair.
"That is 'so' your brother, paying no mind matters only he considers settled." Alicent countered her daughter's dismissal, "That girl is a thrall, a slave in all but name. How could you stand her presence, let alone allow her near your children?"
"Now mother, let's not get hysterical calling Dori a 'slave in all but name'. Thralldom is a long and historic institution practiced by all nations in Westeros, save the Valyrians, who practiced actual slavery. That it is merely out of fashion with most is not yet cause for concern, not unless you intend to do a Good Queen and get it outlawed like the Right of First Night." Helaena possessed an inexplicable scorn for the Good Queen, much like Aegon scorned the memory of the Old King, and implied something few others would by likening her to the woman.
"You speak of such barbarity as if it is merely some less popular tradition, rather than the evil that it so plainly is. You reap what you sow, daughter, and so you must sow good, before the seeds of evil grow and spread." Alicent argued and her daughter listened her face turned slightly away, but her eye on her mother.
"You speak of a just world, of reaping and sowing. Something straight from the book of the Father, no doubt. Conveniently forgetting the teachings of the Stranger, that there is no cosmic force of justice balancing the scales of good and evil. That the foolish and the wise all die the same, and that lucky and the unlucky both exist and neither is a sign of favor nor disfavor, merely circumstance. That he who sows and he who reaps and he who eats are not always the same man. That one day, all we have and all we built will come into the hands of an idiot who will see it all squandered and ashes." Helaena, also like her brother, oft weaponized the Seven Pointed Star, choosing passages that strip away the comfort of the others. Passages about what is, not what ought to be, not what is right.
Alicent hated it when they did that. It is such a defeatist take from such an edifying book. Something wicked in them caused them to delight in what is rather than what is right. They settle on what is better rather than what is best. They act on what is good for them, rather than on what is good. Lovers of the world, not lovers of God. For a pious woman like Alicent, the state of her children's souls oft plagued her, but she had faith that as time passed and their responsibilities increased, that they would more and more look beyond their own competence to see the day through, and towards the Seven-Who-Are-One.
Dragonsreach isolated them from the greater trials and tribulations of the Kingdoms, and Alicent didn't spite them for it, but instead thanked the gods for the paradise they gave her children, but one day soon her husband would breath his last, and Aegon would shoulder the burden of the Kingdoms, leading millions instead of thousands. He needed more than his force of personality and competence to succeed as a King, for the weight of the crown crushes any man that seeks to bear it alone. Alicent only hoped that her son and daughter gained this wisdom before they came upon the trials, not after.
"Have a care, daughter, for what is right." Alicent advised the queen-in-waiting, "For the future depends on the Lords of Westeros doing what is right, rather than what they've sworn."
Helaena turned her head to face her fully and her expression conveyed her confusion and then pity, "Oh mother, you still do not know."
Her daughter reached out and took her hand.
"What a wonderous surprise you are in store for." Helaena smiled softly and spoke as if to a small child.
Occasionally, Rhaenyra is right to hate a bitch, and oh how Alicent hated herself for thinking that.
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