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The Black Prince by cxjenious
Harry Potter & Game of Thrones Xover Rated: M, English, Fantasy & Drama, Words: 138k+, Favs: 9k+, Follows: 10k+, Published: Mar 8, 2015 Updated: Jan 23, 2019
3,297Chapter 2: Prince of Thieves
Disclaimer: I own nothing therein. This is known.
(2)
The sun burned bright in the sky, and cool ocean winds gusted across the castle yard. The air thrummed with the sharp thwacks of wood on wood and the ringing clang of steel on steel.
Harry was sure he would have long since roasted in his armor if not for that wind. He had been out here since dawn, toiling with Ser Aron amongst the dirt and grit of the yard, practicing sequences with spear, sword, and a shield and sword together. Sweat made his hair stick to his forehead, stung his eyes as it dripped down his face, trickled pleasantly down his back, beneath a black doublet and silver cuirass. His arms burned terribly, and come morning, he was sure he would be covered in bruises. Still, he fought on.a
Beyond the yard, the castle bustled. Guardsmen and sers took up sword and lance in the wards below the barracks, drilling for war, and servants hurried about as they saw to their duties, hauling food stuffs and soiled clothes and messages. Harry had seen one stout man herding a passel of hogs to the kitchens, a matron dragging a great sack of linens behind her, and a lad about his age trembling under the weight of a towering stack of books. Then there was the coal boy, tanned skin dirtied with smoot, and a pretty serving maid whose stomach was swollen with child.
And so it went, until came Ser Jaime, and then Ser Barristan. They watched Harry drill from opposite ends of the solid wooden fence that encircled the yard.
"I've seen stable boys better with a blade," Ser Jaime called out to Harry, smiling. "Might be you are better suited to grooming horses than fighting with a sword." The golden knight stood at the edge of the training yard, tall and handsome, his cream and burgundy gambeson fine and unblemished. Harry ignored him, focusing instead on the man opposite him and the bruising sword in his grasp. Ser Aron was fast and strong, but worse, he was tricky, and skilled besides. The swarthy Dornishman led Harry along, slipping through his guard on every fourth or fifth exchange. Last month it had been every second or third.
"Don't mind the Kingslayer," said Ser Barristan, white haired and clean shaven, old yet lean as any young knight. "You're doing well enough, my prince. I wasn't half as swift with a blade when I was your age, nor as sure in my stance." The old knight wore a suit of white enameled scales and plate with silver chasings, his cloak as pure as fresh-fallen snow. Beneath the sun, Ser Barristan shone like a steel moon, gleaming and glittering.
This wasn't the first time the knights had come to watch Harry, but it was the first time they had crossed paths while doing so. Jaime would belittle him, always japing, pointing out his errors, as if the bruises left by Ser Aron's blade weren't lesson enough. Ser Barristan tended towards praise, but every once in a while, he would take Harry aside and show him little tricks he had learned or created, and help him with his footwork and balance. Same as Ser Aron, only less intensive.
Harry turned away a downcut that shook his arm all the way up to the shoulder, ducked beneath a high sideswing, then twisted away from the sloping backswing as Ser Aron arced his blade back around. Harry lashed out as the knight's blade swept pass him, but his sword was batted away at the last moment, and he was attacked in turn.
"You must not have been a very talented child," said Ser Jaime. "A late bloomer, I imagine? You don't get to be so old and gray without some measure of skill."
Ser Barristan was wholly unamused. "Old as I am, I could still carve you up as easily as cake," he returned. Jaime laughed.
And then the fight was over. Ser Aron feinted to Harry's left, and when the prince stepped right, the knight kicked his legs out from under him with a sudden move. With a deft flick of his wrist, Ser Aron brought his sword to bear at Harry's chest. "Do you yield?" the Dornishman asked.
Harry could do little more than nod, winded as he was. But his lack of breath didn't stop him from scowling. With the end of the fight, the reality of his circumstances had come rushing back; he had been forbidden from leaving the Keep after his folly in the Kingswood, and his punishment had not been lifted in months. His nameday was coming up soon. He would go mad before.
"Come on then. Give me your hand." Ser Aron held out a hand and helped Harry to his feet. "You must remember - attack and defend simultaneously. One cannot suffer for the other."
Easier said than done, Harry thought. Why don't I look left and right at the same time while I'm at it?
"Every strike must flow into the other, but strength and speed must not suffer for fluidity," Ser Aron continued. "But I do say you are improving, my prince. Your dedication these past months has been admirable."
What else would I do, Harry wanted to say, trapped in this damned keep? But he only nodded and smiled. There was truth to Ser Aron's words. He was improving. And quickly, at that.
Since the incident in the Great Hall, Harry had thrown himself into his duties, especially training at arms. He didn't have to think with a sword in his hand. His mind was soothed and quietened by the movements, by the exertion. He spent every waking hour in the training yard, with a sword, or a spear, or a bow, and sometimes a morningstar or a mace. It was all he could do not to hear Pate's cries, to see the red welts blossoming on his skin, see the blood running in rivulets down his back.
Pate's back had been a tattered mess of nasty purple bruises and broken flesh by the time his father allowed Harry to stop. The prince had seen worse, before and since, but never by his own hand. Just last week Ser Illyn Pane had beheaded a murderer from Flea Bottom who refused to take the Black, and he once saw a whore boiled in the square for passing a pox to nearly a score of lordlings. The whipping had sickened him, and his anger at his father had barely cooled in the months since. It made meal times awkward, the king's gaiety and his sullenness, and created even more dissent between himself and his brother, whose japes and jeers he could no longer ignore, so hot was his anger. His mother, however, had known exactly how to appease him, and to his chagrin, his displeasure with her barely lasted past the night of the incident itself.
"I am sorry, sweetling," she had said when he stormed into her chambers. "So very, very sorry. I knew this would hurt you, but I need my lion strong." And then she had held him close and tucked his head into the crook of her neck. Her perfume had smelled heavenly. His anger had started to leave him then, breath by breath, bit by bit, like drops of dew evaporating in the sun. "You are a lion, are you not?"
Harry remembered hugging her close. His dreams had taught him to appreciate his mother's love. Things could have been much worse.
"This world is a cruel place, love," she had said. "More cruel than you could possibly know. Would that I could spare you from it, but I am only a woman, and it is not my place to fight the battles of men."
Her words had made him sad, so he said, "And I am glad of it. I rather like you as woman. You're much too pretty to be a man." She had laughed at that, a clear, ringing sound like bells chiming in the wind. His father, however, had not apologized, and Harry didn't think he ever would.
He'd had no more success crafting a wand in those few months either, and whenever he tried to question the Grand Maester about magic, he was scolded not to entertain the "imaginative fallacies of children", as the maester put it.
"Magic is a matter of the past," Pycelle had told him, voice dry and raspy, "when there were yet dragons soaring through the skies. Only darkness comes of magic, and you would do well to remember that."
And so, bereft of a wand, ahead in his lessons, and still nursing his anger, he had implored Ser Aron to intensify his training. The Dornishman had not disappointed. Now there weren't but a handful of squires that Harry couldn't match, and all of them were older and bigger besides.
"The ser lies," said Ser Jamie. "You're getting worse. Slower and clumsier by the day. I think I can hear the horses neighing your name."
"Go bugger one of your precious horses," Harry returned.
Jaime's laugh was sudden and fierce. "How crass," the knight said, as if affronted. Ser Aron shook his head in apparent amusement, moving to put the practice swords back on their rack.
"For once, Kingslayer, I agree with you." Ser Barristan climbed into the training yard and walked towards Harry. "That was quite unbecoming," he admonished. "I didn't think you one for such talk."
Harry knew that Jaime wasn't the least bit insulted, and he wouldn't have cared if he was. His uncle could do with a little insulting from time to time, as often as he did it himself. "I am sorry you had to hear that, Ser Barristan. I will take care to censor my words in your presence." He smiled at the old knight, by far his favorite of the Kingsguard, and the grizzled ser ruffled his hair in response.
"Gah, begone boy, you've spent enough time here, and you stink like a pig's arse."
Harry laughed at that, but did as he was bid, and returned to the keep to seek out a bath. The sun beat down on his back like a drum, and the wind sent his hair aflutter. His eyes were stinging, and he tasted salt on his lips. As he cut a path toward the inner ward, Jaime fell into step behind him.
"You've been spending too much time with Tyrion," his uncle told him as they walked. "Or Tyrion's guests, maybe. He doesn't entertain whores in his apartments, does he? That would be like him - probably beds them before sending them off to the king."
"Don't speak of such vulgar things, Uncle," Harry said without much feeling. He had heard worse from the men in the barracks, and worse still from the sailors down in Fishmonger's Square, to say nothing of the wretches in Flea Bottom. "You're a knight of the Kingsguard, not some bloody freerider."
"But it's okay for a prince? Tsk, tsk, my dear nephew, that's quite hypocritical of you. If I recall correctly, and I do, not even five minutes ago you told me to go bugger a horse."
"So I did."
Jaime was silent for but a moment. "Still angry about the whipping?"
"I am," Harry admitted, voice soft. "Every time I step into the Great Hall I hear his cries."
"The memory will fade," Jaime said. "As will your anger."
Harry wasn't so sure.
The Red Keep was even busier inside than out. Servants scurried through the corridors like headless chickens, weighted down by trays that were laden with food and flagons that sloshed with ale. Handmaidens and dressing maids weaved in and out of the bedlam wielding fine cloths and foreign lace like swords and shields. He glimpsed his father's youngest brother, Renly, the Lord of Storm's End, in the halls, tall and slender and handsome with black hair that fell to his shoulder; of all his uncles, it was Renly that Harry resembled the most. Him, and Jaime. A fair-haired Pentosi woman trailed behind him, and behind her came a train of dressing maids, arms heavy with fabrics.
Harry's name day was in six days, and his father had called for a tourney to celebrate the day. Hopefuls were already pouring into King's Landing, hedge knights and landed knights and all those in between. The notable among them visited the keep to show fealty to his father; a few of the knights had been given leave to house in some of the barracks behind the keep's curtain walls, and a select few were given apartments in the keep itself. The only one he personally knew was Thoros of Myr, who had been away from the capital fighting in a tourney in the Reach. The purse was grand, Harry had heard, and the priest, with his flaming sword, had claimed victory in the melee.
If Harry had to hazard a guess as to what Thoros was up to at the moment, he would put his coin on the balding, bearded man getting drunk with the king, as he oft did. Probably on arbor wine, no doubt, and maybe even rum; the good kind, not that black tar shit, as his father put it.
Their path through the labyrinthine corridors of the keep took them to the inner bailey and the heart of the keep, then across a dry moat lined with wicked iron spikes. Maegor's Holdfast stood tall at the end of the bridge. The square fortress was massive, a castle within a castle, with solid stone walls some twelve feet thick. Harry rather thought that Maegor, for whom the fortress was named, had been awfully paranoid.
And then he remembered the story of Maegor the Cruel, how he had executed all who worked on the castle to preserve its secrets, how he had slaughtered an entire House for an imagined betrayal, and he thought of his own interactions with the ghost king. Paranoid and half mad. If not for his magic, proof in Maegor's eyes that he was a Targaryen scion, he was certain the ghost wouldn't have bothered with him. He had been intrigued that Harry could see him, but it was the magic that drew him in. Other ghosts followed suit, but none were quite as persistent as Maegor. Some days it seemed as if he couldn't escape the old brute.
Harry hoped he never grew so paranoid, so broken, but as his eyes roved the walls and fell across the many cracks and crevices in the aged stone, across the nooks and crannies and alcoves that dotted the corridors, he suddenly felt cramped, trapped even, as if the walls were closing in on him, pressing down from all sides, the splintering stone like jagged teeth. The keep was a giant of pale red rocks and he was falling deeper and deeper into its crushing maw.
"I must be free of this place," he announced suddenly as they passed the Queen's Ballroom. "This keep... it's suffocating." He sighed. "And Joffrey, the ponce, isn't helping either."
For the past few weeks his brother had tried and failed to bully him into some semblance of submission. Whenever Joffrey shoved him, tore at his books, or demanded his obedience in some scheme or another, Harry shoved back harder, sometimes with fists, and told him he could stuff his obedience. Harry had never liked his brother. Hated him, even, as much as he pitied him. He had seen inside his brother's mind, had seen the foul, vile thing that he was, and his contempt of him colored their every interaction. Likewise, he had seen Joffrey's pain at their father's dismissal, and thus his pity was born.
Joffrey had tried to terrorize Myrcella when his efforts against Harry failed. But when Joffrey went to her, Harry was waiting. Had anticipated it. They came to blows then, far rougher than their usual scuffles, but with all his practice and extra work, Harry was stronger and faster than his brother. There had been little contest between the two. He remembered Myrcella shrieking frantically, her voice a sharp and high-pitched. "Stop, stop, stop!" she had screamed. "Please stop. You're family!"
Harry was ashamed he had lost his temper, but he counted the confrontation a victory. Joffrey hadn't bothered Myrcella since, though he still tried his level best to humiliate and aggravate Harry. And because Joffrey was heir to the throne, he had suffered naught for his transgression. At least, that was how Harry understood it. He had been forced to write lines.
Myrcella had sat with him during his punishment, and with a little concentration he had been able to magic the quill to write on its own. With Myrcella's help, his jailor for that evening, Septa Aglantine, a woman with a face as ugly as her name, had been none the wiser. She had, in fact, been quite impressed by his handwriting.
"It has been a while since you went into the city," Jaime said, interrupting his thoughts. "But are you willing to risk it? Your mother certainly won't be happy."
"Only if she finds out. Swear you will tell no one," Harry demanded.
Jaime put a hand over his heart. "I so swear," he said. "But only if you take an escort. Wouldn't want a repeat of the whipping now, would we?"
"Not you," Harry said. "You're too bright."
"And you're too dark," Ser Jaime returned.
Harry left his uncle on the first floor of the holdfast and climbed the steps to his apartments. The halls were near empty, save for the occasional guardsman posted at the junctions at the ends of the corridors. His rooms were on the third level, along with Myrcella's and Joffrey's.
Flickering fire light warmed his face when he entered his chambers. Torchers were ensconced along each wall, casting a soft orange glow across the worn stone. A flight of stairs curved up behind the far wall, leading up to his solar. He cross the room and took the steps two at a time, and was greeted by the sight of his servant, Meron the Mute, a gangly red-haired boy almost five years his senior. He was sitting at the table in the center of the room with a tray of bread and soup before him, still steaming. Meron wasn't a true mute, but he spoke so rarely it seemed as if he was.
Harry's solar was more a library than anything. He had collected a great number of books over his short life, some from the Grand Maester's library, the rest copies of the tomes he was unwilling to part with. Centuries worth of legends and histories were right here in his grasp. He hadn't read even half of them yet, but he hoped to find some sort of reasoning for his dreams and abilities in one of them. And to learn, of course, from all that had come before.
Hermione would be proud. From what he had glimpsed of her in his dreams, she had been quite fond of books and learning.
Harry dropped down into a seat at the table with a dull thud. It was a rickety old thing, stained with ink and covered in parchment. The scent of garlic and lamb wafted up to his nose. His stomach rumbled; he hadn't even realized he was hungry until now. Trust Meron to know. "I am going into the city." Meron nodded. Harry broke off a chunk of bread and dunked it in the soup. Outside the window, a bird cawed. "Help yourself," he said as he bit into the bread. The taste was exquisite. "And save some for the boot-boy, when he comes. He deserves it. My boots have never shined so bright."
Meron nodded again, smiling, and helped himself to a small chunk of bread.
"If anyone asks where I am, tell them I've gone to the Godswood. Hopefully no one will come looking." Another nod. "I shan't be gone long. A couple hours should do." Harry snatched another piece of bread before he left. He decided not to bathe - after all, the smallfolk didn't - and instead changed into the oldest clothes he could find; a pair of tan, worn breeches, and a frayed beige tunic.
Meron came down as Harry was changing. He fussed in his silent way, his intent to help Harry dress, as was his duty. Harry would have none of it - he could very well dress himself - and instead bid Meron to rummage amongst the garderobe and gather his finery for the tourney. "That's a much better use of your time," Harry told him.
Alone now, he found one of Meron's tattered brown cloaks, threw it across his shoulders, and pulled up the hood, bathing his face in shadow. Not quite a disguise, but it should do. He was tall and broad enough to pass as a small man, and slim enough to pass as a particularly flat-chested woman. He slid a dagger into his belt, then tucked his coin purse behind it. On a whim, he decided to take one of his failed wands. He could do better without it, but there was a certain comfort in carrying the gnarled stick.
There were secret passageways all over the Keep, and thanks to Maegor, Harry was familiar with all of them. There was only one in Maegor's Holdfast, hidden in an alcove on the uppermost floor, seemingly random in its placement and completely and utterly disguised from the eye. Maegor told him that no one else knew of it. "Not even the fat spider," he had said.
Harry climbed the steps and reached the alcove unseen. He pressed down on a particular section of the wall, then another, and a third and a fourth. At the end of the sequence the stone began to shudder and groan as old iron gears in the stonework came to life, and the wall slid to the side. The revealed tunnel was just wide enough for a man to squeeze through. It reminded him of the entrance to the Chamber of Secrets, the steep decline that descended into darkness, and he gave a whoop of delight as the sheer drop curved and he slid down the chute to the tunnel below the holdfast.
There was no basilisk at the end of this tunnel, however. There was darkness, and the whispers of the dead, and beyond that, freedom.
The tunnel took him to a junction that split in twain, each path barred by thick iron doors with rusty padlocks. Locks were nothing to Harry. His magic grasped and twisted, and the appropriate door popped open. The tunnel that was revealed took him out to a granary in the outer bailey. From there, he ducked into another tunnel beneath the rookery, that took him deep beneath Aegon's High Hill and out to a small, skinny postern set in the north wall of the keep, low to the ground and hidden by thick, winding vines. It opened out to a narrow alley behind some lord's manse. The alley took him out into the city proper. The smell was awful, but the sheer vibrancy of the city, the sights and the sounds, more than made up for the stench.
The streets were as busy as ever, peppered with writhing swarms of lowborn and highborn alike. Beneath the beating sun, he weaved through the thick throngs of men and women that perused the stores and stalls along the Street of Looms. He saw a group of lordlings prancing about like jackanapes, their finery patterned with golden whorls. He stopped at one of the more crowded stores and peered through its stained windows to the gowns and doublets and jackets and cloaks contained within. A massive, square-faced ser was showing off his newly purchased bearskin vest to a group of his fellows, while a slim woman draped in bright fabrics argued vehemently with a merchant over the price of a slip of silk lace, her powerful voice belying her small stature. Her child, a little wisp of a girl, snatched a length of cloth from the wall while her mother gestured and shouted, the vendor none the wiser.
He passed pot-shops and worse when he strolled down Pisswater Bend. Haggard, hard-eyed men stood before the storefronts with massive pots that were filled with the infamous bowls o' brown. And where there was a pot-shop, there was a butcher nearby. Harry spotted one in an alley between buildings, sneering as he sharpened his knives, fresh red blood and old brown blood staining his apron. The boiling stews didn't smell as bad as Harry had thought they would, but he had heard rumors that the meat used in the stew could range from horse to fish to even human, the flavors masked with onions and barley and carrots. He wasn't of a mind to discover if the rumors held any truth.
People didn't smile so much in Flea Bottom, and he couldn't blame them. They were the lowest of the commons, though not quite so low as the gutter rats in the hovels on the banks of the Blackwater. There was never so much shit on the ground as there was in Flea Bottom. Maybe that's how Pisswater Bend earned its name, he thought, from the brown tinged piss water bending and curving between the sloping cobbles. In his pity, he began to drop coins in his wake, safe in the knowledge that the currency was sorely needed by whomever might find it. It wasn't much, but a little help was better than no help at all.
Pisswater Bend flowed down into the Street of Flour. He sampled a number of cakes and pastries, but found himself drawn, as if by magic, to the fat woman selling blueberry tarts in the fore of a bakery. The delightful pastries lasted him the trek to Rhaenys's Hill, at the top of which stood the mighty Dragon Pit. The sun had started to slink down to the horizon now, fat and heavy as it fell to the west, and the shadows that fell across the street were long and thin.
The Dragonpit loomed over the slums like a giant specter, but what might have once been a majestic sight was soured by destruction and disrepair. The domed roofed had long since collapsed, the bronze doors were tarnished, and the splintering stone walls were covered in intricate, winding webs of weeds and vines. The Dragon Pit was one of the three pillars of King's Landing, but it had been abandoned long before his time, when the last of the dragons died out. Now it was little more than a vast, empty building, crumbling ever so slowly.
A shame what happened to the dragons... would that I could bring them back... He rolled his wand around in his palm. He had tried a simple transformation spell the other day and instead of changing his boots into a tea kettle, he had set fire to them. Without a true core for his wand he feared he would never be able to use magic as he once had, as he dreamed he had, and he was sure the power was necessary. Why else would he have memories of his past life? He had been reborn with a purpose, a fate, and given his last tangle with destiny, he was sure he would need every sword in his armory for whatever horrors that lied ahead in the future.
As he came upon the ruined Dragon Pit he heard a voice call out from behind him, and then feet pattering on the street. He turned to see what it was, a curse on his lips, but it was only a child, his age if not younger. The boy was short and barefoot, draped in roughspun tunic and trousers, with shaggy brown hair that framed a round, filthy face. Beneath the filth, though, his eyes were sharp.
Harry looked to either side of the road. Three more children appeared out of the shadows between the houses and buildings that lined the street. The first was tall and thin with a shining bald head, and he had a monstrous, mountainous nose that was so large it overshadowed the rest of his face. Harry had to stare for a moment to even see past it. The boy carried a long shaft of tan wood whittled to a sharp point, and had a net tied to his waist.
The second was a short, fair haired boy with fat, wormy lips and a dull, plain face. He bore some resemblance to the first waif, and was clad in similarly filthy clothing.
The third was a girl, at least as tall as Harry, with milk-white skin, full lips, dirtied silvery blonde hair and slanted eyes as dark as midnight. She was beautiful, even with her face marred by dirt, her features sharp and exotic, very different from most anyone Harry had ever seen. Her cloak was of decent make, and the tip of a bow peaked out from over her shoulder.
"Give us yer' coin," the tall one said. "Don't try nothin' neither," chimed the fat-lipped boy. "Or else."
Harry smiled. These four were no cause for worry. They were children, and half-starved besides, other than the girl. His smile grew into a laugh. That made them angry.
"Oi, we ain't playin'!" said the tall boy. He waved his stick as emphasis while the sharp-eyed boy voiced his agreement. The girl was silent, but her scowl grew sharper and sharper as the seconds passed.
"Of course you are," said Harry. "Else you'd have that spear of yours buried in my neck by now."
"It'll be there soon enough," the girl threatened. "Now hand over your coin, and be quick about it, or you'll die slow."
The tall boy puffed out his thin chest and brandished his spear. Harry slipped his wand back into his belt and palmed his dagger, something like excitement shaking itself awake in his chest. This is adventure enough, he thought. Felling the foul child thieves in the shadow of the Dragonpit. "Come on then," he said, waving the boy on. "Let's see if you're any good with your stick."
The fat-lipped boy yelled, "Stick em', Jerryd!" and the girl said, "Do it! Do it now!"
Jerryd sprinted at Harry with a shrill battle cry, his steps clumsy and awkward and so very slow. Harry leaned aside his first thrust and slapped the spear down and away, then drew his dagger from his belt. With a quick step, he brought its edge up to Jerryd's throat. A red line opened on the boy's neck, thinner than a wisp of hair. So this is what it's like to fight someone who isn't a knight. There was no comparison.
"You aren't very good with a spear, are you?" He looked askance at the others, watching for movement. The fat-lipped boy looked absolutely mystified, but it was the girl who held his attention. She had an arrow in her hand, and was reaching for her bow. "I wouldn't do that if I were you," he warned her. "This will go worse for you if I am dead. You'll die screaming in a dark, dank dungeon with naught but rats for company."
"There are no witnesses here," she replied, incensed. He noticed though, that she'd stopped reaching for the bow. "No one is going to see me kill you, and they," she waved to her friends, "won't tell." The boys looked queasy at the mention of the justice that awaited them, though. Jerryd started to sweat, his chest rising and falling rapidly.
Harry tutted and shook his head. A bluff for a bluff, then. "If you touch that bow, I will slit his throat." The boy in hand let out a little mewl, and tears swelled in his eyes. Harry had heard of the child thieves in Flea Bottom, scoundrels that scrapped and scraped for food and clothes and warm places to sleep, but these four weren't quite what he had expected given the stories. The girl especially.
Just as he expected, the girl dropped her hand, and a hint of petulance crept into her ever present scowl. She's as young as the rest, he surmised. He wasn't sure how young though; her cloak only revealed the barest hint of curves.
"Fine," she said. "Now let him go."
"After he answers my question," Harry returned. He glanced back at the frightened Jerryd. "What if I had been less... amicable? What if I had killed you? What then?"
"I - I didn't - I don't!" His eyes were wide and panicked.
"You didn't you don't what?"
"It was Aeryn's idea!" he cried, pointing at the girl. "She's mad! I just wanted to go to the docks!"
"Coward!" Aeryn exclaimed. "You're about to piss yourself, aren't you? You really think that little lordling is gonna kill you?"
"He's a lord?" the fat-lipped boy gasped. "How d'ya know?" He turned curious eyes upon Harry. Even Jerryd, frightened as he was, paused in his whimpering to look Harry over.
"His boots," the sharp-eyed boy said. He had been mostly silent until now. "That be fine leather, there."
"His trousers too," Aeryn added. "And you see how his belt tilts? That's on account of how fat his coin purse is."
Harry looked down at his pants. They looked rather dingy to him.
"He's not no lord," she continued, "but I bet his father is." Her eyes found Harry's. "Isn't he? From the Crownlands, no doubt, or nearby in the Riverlands. His father is a fat, stupid lord with more gold than he can count and bastards by the dozen. All lords are fat," she said matter-of-factly.
"Nuh uh," disagreed the fat lipped boy, shaking his head. "I saw a lord before, at a tourney. He wasn't fat! I seen Lord Beltish too. He's skinny as Jerryd!"
"Sorry to interrupt," Jerryd squeaked. "Do ya' mind?" He glanced down at the dagger still pressed to his throat.
Listening to Aeryn, Harry had almost forgotten about the knife. "Oh. My apologies... Jerryd, was it?" He let the boy go and passed him a gold dragon - a colossal sum for a boy of Flea Bottom. For any commoner, in truth. A man could live well off only a couple of dragons a year. "For your efforts," he said as he slid his dagger back into his belt.
"Th-thanks, m'lord!" Jerryd's voice trembled as he pocketed the coin, one hand reaching up to wipe at the blood on his neck. He patted his pocket as he walked over to his friends, as if to reaffirm the coin's existence. He had probably never even seen a dragon before - coppers were the coin of choice in Flea Bottom. "Fat Lip, Mumbles, how would you two like some real food? No more bowls o' brown for us." From their wide, grinning faces, they were all for it. "Aeryn, since she's so tough," he spat, "can fend for herself."
Aeryn stared into his eyes and said, "Fuck you, you craven little cunt. Did the lordling cut off your balls while we wasn't looking?" Jerryd bristled, jaw clenched and quivering, but he looked away first.
Harry admired Aeryn's fire, but he couldn't help but be annoyed by her attitude. The boys were nice enough, he supposed, and Fat Lip was aptly named. They were misguided for sure, but this girl... she was all sour. "Who are you?" he asked. "No way you came from the same slums as this lot. Not with that face. Not with that hair." Silvery blond hair was not common to Westeros. Not since the Targaryen dynasty was toppled by his father's warhammer and his uncle's sword.
"She's a bastard," the boy called Fat Lip said. "Her mum's a whore at Chataya's -" Aeryn took two quick steps and slapped him hard across his head. "Ow!" He crossed his arms over his head and braced for another blow.
"Shut your fat lips, Fat Lip, or I'll make em' even fatter! That cow you call a mother is more whore than mine. She'll take man to bed for a few coppers!"
Fat Lip, he decided, was quite young, because his eyes teared up and his fat lips quivered at the insult. The boy shuddered, either from anger or holding back his tears, Harry couldn't tell. "An expensive whore then," he whimpered, voice quavering.
"Your temper is even worse than mine," Harry told the girl. "Why don't you like lords? Don't get me wrong, I don't like most of them myself, but," he shrugged, "I can't imagine that you have much experience with them." He didn't mean to sound condescending, but from the look on her face, that was how she took his words.
"My mother is a courtesan," she said, eyes daring him to speak. "Lords visit her every other day, if they've the coin. And my father was a lord, so I think I know enough." She folded her arms over her chest.
Harry considered her words. "So your name is Waters, then?"
"No. My father didn't bother with that. Just dumped his seed in my mother and sailed back to Driftmark." Harry could almost taste her bitterness.
Driftmark...that's the seat of House Velaryon. His eyes fell again across her features, the hair, the eyes, the skin. The beauty.
She intrigued him. Harry had learned the histories of most every noble houses of the Crownlands; Rosby, Rykker, Thorne, Hollard, Blount, the houses sworn to Dragonstone, and all the lesser houses as well, the Boggs, the Brunes, the Caves, the Crabbs. None of them, nor any of the Great Houses, save a very small few, could claim any link to old Valyria and the ancient Valyrian Freehold empire.
The Velaryons could. The Celtigars too. History said that both had originally been lesser families of the old Freehold, sworn to the Targaryens, and long since bereft of dragons, even before the Doom. They had followed the dragonlords west in exile centuries ago.
"We're the Nameless!" Fat Lip piped up, his woes forgotten. Harry was starting to like the younger boy. Fat Lip seemed to have a good disposition, despite having tried to steal his coin. "Since none o' us got surnames. I know me mum and dad both, though. Me and Mumbles live wit' em' in Flea Bottom. Me dad's a cook -"
"He makes bowls o' brown," Jerryd cut in.
"- and me mum is a servin' wench at the Smokin' Hog," Fat Lip finished. He scowled at the older boy before turning to Aeryn. "Since we ain't takin' his stuff, can he come sailing wit' us?"
Sailing? Harry wondered what sort of boat they had. It couldn't be anything more than a skiff. He wondered how old the boy was, to so quickly shift between feelings. "How old are you, Fat Lip?"
"Er..." Fat Lip paused in thought. "Eight?"
"He's seven," Mumbles said. He jabbed a thumb into his chest. "I'm eight."
"And I just turned fourteen," Jerryd said. "Almost a man grown. Aeryn is a year younger, but she still bosses us around like she's the oldest." He sounded put out about it. "How old-"
"What's your name?" Aeryn asked Harry, cutting across Jerryd. The thin boy frowned at her, but said nothing.
"My name is Harrold," Harry replied, a smug smile spread wide across his face. "But I prefer Harry."
"You know what I mean," she growled, stalking closer.
Harry sighed. He could have lied, but what purpose would it serve? Everything would be fine so long as they kept quiet - he didn't want this getting back to his mother, for she abhorred his dealings with the smallfolk, to say nothing of his violating his punishment. And who would believe them besides?
"Baratheon," he said. "Harrold Baratheon." He gave a mocking bow. "At your service." He was met with shocked silence.
"What-" Aeryn reached over and pulled down his hood. Her eyes searched his face almost frantically, and she let out a yelp when she recognized him. "Green eyes," she gasped. "Black hair..." She had seen him before, Harry surmised. Those features alone weren't enough to know his identity. She stepped away and her whole demeanor changed. Her eyes were wide with shock, mouth agape, jaw hanging. Her anger was gone. "The prince...he's...he's the prince! He's the pri -" Harry clapped a hand over mouth.
"You're too loud," he whispered fiercely. She stared back at him, and close up, Harry saw that her eyes were indigo, not dark blue. "I am going to move my hand now, and you aren't going to say a word, alright?" He nodded slowly as he spoke, goading her into doing the same.
People were watching them now, their attention drawn by Aeryn's outburst, but they didn't seem to have understood her words. He dropped his hand from her mouth. Her dragon blood is strong, he thought, now that he could see the true color of her eyes. "Your eyes... they're more purple than blue," he said. "Where is your mother from?"
Aeryn's gaze was dull and clouded. "I - what?"
"Your eyes," he said again. "They're purple. A rather dark purple, but purple nonetheless. It's a Valyrian trait," he explained. "Purple eyes aren't so common in Westeros, and I was wondering if you inherited your coloring from your father or your mother or both."
"Oh," she muttered. Her confidence seemed to have abandoned her, replaced instead with confusion. She didn't seem as distressed though, and for that, Harry was glad. She had been almost hysterical at first. "My mother is from Lys," she said finally, voice soft. "She's dyed her hair blue for so long, I can't remember what color it used to be, but her eyes are more blue than mine." She shrugged. "My father supposedly has hair like mine too, but I never inquired as to the color of his eyes."
Harry didn't know much about Lys, save that it was one of the Free Cities, their pleasure houses were world renowned, and the blood of the old Freehold was strong there.
"You're in trouble now, Aeryn," Jerryd taunted, laughter in his voice. Then he remembered that he had attacked a prince of Westeros and his face fell. "Oh!" he exclaimed. "S-so-s-sorry for attacking you. I didn't know who you was, an-and-and -"
Harry waved him off, and Jerryd fell silent. "Don't worry about it," he said. "Just don't do it again."
"Aeryn, you shouldn't be so mean," Fat Lip said. "Or it's to the black cells fer' you!" He laughed.
"It's fine," Harry said. "No harm, no foul."
Aeryn maintained her silence. When before she'd stared boldly into his face, now she averted her gaze, seemingly afraid to look him in the eyes. She was nervous, he realized. And oddly flushed. Embarrassed, probably, he thought. "Say, Jerryd," he said, turning to the lad. "What did you want to do down at the docks?"
"The usual," the boy said, leaning against his spear. "Take me raft up the river, see if I can't catch nothing. Fat Lip and Mumbles are good hand-fishers, so I take'em with me. Bowls o' brown ain't so bad when you know what kind o' meat's in it. Aeryn's our captain, but I'm the best fisher by far."
At this the girl seemed to become herself again, and her pretty face fell into a frown. "I'm the best," she said, scowling mightily.
"Is that all you do?" Harry asked.
"What?" she said, defensive. "Is what all I do?"
"Scowl," he replied. "You've done nothing but scowl this entire time. You're comely enough. You should smile a little."
Her flush deepened, spreading down her cheeks to the gentle slope her neck. She turned away. "Come on you lot. There'll be fishing boats all over the harbor and up the river by this time of day. We'll either have to head further upriver or deep out in the bay if we want to catch anything." She started to walk away, but none of the others turned to follow her.
"Will you come, Your Grace?" Fat Lip asked hopefully.
Aeryn slapped him again, gentler this time. "The king is His Grace, the prince is just the prince," she said.
"Oh. Well, will you come Prince 'arrold?" He wasn't the least bit affected.
"Don't call me Prince Harrold," Harry said with a laugh. "Just Harry is fine." His mother would definitely not approve of these scoundrels, nor their familiarity, and after Pate, he could imagine her ordering him to beat one of these four, if she ever found out. "And speak naught of me to anyone," he added. He pulled up his hood as he fell into step with them. "Neither mother nor father; not even your friends." Just in case.
"No worries," Jerryd assured him. 'Nobody'd believe me if I did." Fat Lip and Mumbles hastily agreed. Aeryn said nothing, but he noticed her constant glancing at him, her hesitance clear as a summer sky.
"Aeryn?"
She sighed, but agreed to his terms. Harry wondered why she was so reluctant.
"We won't tell a soul," Fat Lip vowed.
A flock of birds rose into the air at his words, wings beating with the wind.
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