- 25 AC -
The dead were carried into Aegonfort and King's Landing before the sun had set.
Now that the emotions had calmed down somewhat, one had to admit that there were fewer of them than the chaos of the melee had first suggested. Men had suffered broken fingers, shattered teeth, split skin and dented armour throughout the melee, but only a very small number had died by Maegor's hand.
Unfortunately, nearly all of those few were of noble birth and could summon banners to show their grief.
The rooms where the Hightowers had taken up residence were filled with hushed voices and furtive looks. Lord Manfred's body rested upon a long table beneath the tower-and-flame banner of his House. The silent sisters had cleaned away the mud and blood as best they could, but even their skill could not disguise what Dark Sister had done to him.
His head had been cut open. They had tried to close it somewhat, but that hadn't worked out as well as they had hoped. A white cloth covered his face, and another hid the wound in his chest.
Martyn Hightower stood beside the table, still wearing the clothes in which he had spent the entire day, not bothering to change them.
Up to this point, he had not cried. He feared that if he started, he would not be able to stop. And no matter what happened to him, now that he was the new Lord of House Hightower, he had to hold himself with the dignity that their name demanded.
His younger brother Morgan had no such problem. His eyes were red and wet. He paced up and down the room like a caged animal, one hand never leaving the pommel of his sword, as if it gave him strength.
Their sister sat near the cold hearth, behind them.
Lady Ceryse Hightower had watched her betrothed drive a sword through her father's chest and then cut through his skull in the next breath as if it were nothing. She might have reached 20 and 3, but she had never witnessed that before.
And yet, she had not screamed, and she had not fainted. She just sat there in the stands, frozen as Maegor moved on to his next victim, like he was on a hunt. The disregard for her father's life, the man she had loved so dearly, had staggered her more than the act itself, she thought.
She was unable to look away from his corpse now. To look at that form, hidden underneath the cloth. But her eyes looked through the room, as if she could stare through the veil that separated the world of the living and see her father in the arms of the Seven.
"The betrothal is broken," Martyn said at last, pulling her from her thoughts.
Ceryse's eyes slowly moved to him as she processed what he said. Despite being the middle child and a woman, she had been well taught by the Maester at Oldtown and by her father. Among the three siblings, she was actually the cleverest and most politically savvy.
"Is it?" she asked.
"He murdered Father."
"Yes, I saw."
Her voice sounded weak. Normally, she was the strong one. The one who smiled through her brothers' petulant fits and anger. The one who brought them back to the ground and told them what truly mattered.
Morgan stopped pacing.
"You will not go near that animal. I would sooner carry you back to Oldtown myself," the angry brother spat.
"Our Uncle brought this to His Grace's attention and proposed the marriage, and the King himself arranged it. What will we do if the King commands it be carried out?" Ceryse asked the important question.
"Then let the King marry him," Morgan spat again.
"Mind your tongue, brother. Remember where we are," Martyn warned.
"Why? So the dragons do not kill us for no good reason again? They have already killed Father. They wouldn't dare, lest they fear repercussions from the realm."
Both Ceryse and Martyn realised that Morgan wasn't talking with the logical part of his brain. He was angry and distraught, so he spoke whatever came to mind.
"And they still have three grown dragons which they can fly to Oldtown," Martyn said. "Balerion the Black is large enough to swallow the Hightower's upper galleries. Rage will not make that untrue, but it will give us more grief. So control yourself, at least here."
Morgan turned on him.
"So we do nothing?"
"I did not say that," Martyn replied.
"You did not need to."
Martyn crossed the chamber in two steps and struck his brother across the face. Morgan staggered, more from shock than pain, as that was the intention. Martyn breathed heavily.
"I became Lord Hightower with Father's blood still warm on my hands. Do not mistake my refusal to throw away the rest of our family for cowardice! We shall have our due... that I promise."
The doors opened before Morgan could say anything.
The High Septon entered with a Most Devout and half a dozen knights bearing the rainbow-coloured sword on their shields. They were the Warrior's Sons, an order of Westerosi knights sworn to the Faith of the Seven. They were part of the Faith Militant and were also referred to simply as the 'Swords'.
The crystal crown upon the High Septon's head caught the candlelight, scattering little fragments of colour across the chamber. The holy man's usual serenity was gone now. He revealed some of the calculating, greedy man he was underneath the mask.
He crossed the room, placed a hand upon the white cloth covering Manfred's chest and lowered his head. The High Septon was the brother of Manfred Hightower's wife, which meant he had no blood relation to the man. However, they were close and had risen to power together.
Manfred was naturally the son of Lord Addam Hightower, but with the High Septon's help, he had grown his House's wealth and power over the years with good deals and pilgrims.
And now, he was gone.
"The Father will judge him justly," he murmured. "The Mother will receive him with mercy, and the Warrior will remember the manner of his death and avenge him."
Morgan looked toward the Warrior's Sons standing guard at the door. For the first time since leaving the field, something other than helpless fury appeared in his eyes. A potential idea was born inside his mind.
"What will the King do?" Martyn asked.
The High Septon straightened and looked at the new Lord Hightower.
"What he must. The Prince will have to answer for murder, sacrilege and defiance of the Crown. I will demand public penance before the Seven, the surrender of Dark Sister and great amounts of compensation."
"And if His Grace refuses?" Ceryse asked.
"He shan't do that. He can't do that, lest he appear weak and a hypocrite in the eyes of the realm. If he doesn't punish that creature, the smallfolk will see him as a weak king and someone who does what he wants, whenever he wants. And in the eyes of those who are faithful to the Seven who are one, that would be a grave mistake."
Ceryse looked directly at her uncle. She knew the man quite a bit and had far less of her father's naivety towards him. She knew that the man was an opportunist and a normal 'mortal' like every other.
"You believed you could marry me to Maegor and use our marriage to temper him and give our House advantages and even higher political standing. The Tyrells would have wept, as our father said. But today he killed our father in front of the realm, slaughtered several other nobles, knocked down the Kingsguard, spitting into the King's face and then walked away untouched."
"..."
"Are you still certain you understand what he will and will not do... High Septon?"
The High Septon's jaw tightened as he heard the biting sarcasm in her voice. He almost lost his composure right there. There was nothing he hated more than to have anyone dare scratch his pride.
"No prince stands above the Gods, above the masses and most importantly, above the King's will."
"Perhaps not," Ceryse said. "But Maegor stands above most men right now, and it is men who must carry out the Gods' judgment down here, where the real world is cruel and dirty."
Morgan stared at his sister as if she had blasphemed. Her older brother, Martyn, did not. He knew where his sister was coming from and naturally realised her emotions.
He had reached the same conclusion today.
Their father had entered the melee because he had overheard the Prince insult him. Manfred Hightower had believed his title, his noble birth, wealth and connection to the Faith and the King would protect him.
And to some degree, he had been right.
Sure, usually no one entered a melee intending to kill someone. But death and injuries weren't uncommon, and some melees could be so violent that they were barely any different from real battles.
But no ordinary knight or even any of the noble lords would have dared strike the Lord of Oldtown down with lethal intent and then kill him the way Maegor did. It had been a blatant execution.
Maegor, to his credit and surprising social understanding, had understood Manfred Hightower's belief and used it against him.
That was the part Martyn could not stop thinking about—that planning.
His father's death had not been the result of blind rage. Maegor had wanted him on the field. He had goaded him into entering, by wounding his pride with a few carefully placed words, crossed half the melee ground to reach him and killed him before he could take a second swing or surrender.
Any of Martyn's confidence he might have had inherited from his father's that rank could shield him from monsters had evaporated today.
"We will demand justice," Martyn said. "But House Hightower will not call its banners, and no sermon will call the people of Oldtown into the streets without my leave. No matter what we feel right now, a war would be folly if we stand alone."
The High Septon's expression changed.
"You would place worldly caution before the honour of your father?"
"I would prevent sparks of his funeral pyre from igniting an even greater fire throughout Oldtown," Martyn said.
The words silenced the High Septon, and he nodded. The lad was right, he thought. But they had the moral high ground, though. He wanted to use that.
Martyn looked at his sister.
"You will not be forced to marry him. Not by me, and if you wish, I shall go to Aegonfort and demand the betrothal to be broken, no matter the consequences."
Ceryse's fingers tightened around the folds of her gown.
For years, she had known that her marriage would be made for the glory and benefit of House Hightower rather than for herself or her feelings. When her uncle proposed her as a match for the Prince to the King, her father had celebrated. A dragon prince for his daughter, royal grandchildren carrying Hightower blood, influence over the line of succession itself and greater political power than even the Wardens of the Reach, House Tyrell.
She was 20 and 3 now, and had long surpassed the age of marriage for any woman in Westeros. But this had been done intentionally, since her father and the High Septon had planned to marry her to either Aenys or Maegor.
Now that same Prince had murdered her father right in front of her. Every part of Ceryse that was merely a daughter wanted to flee to Oldtown, to see him suffer and beg for mercy and never look upon Maegor again.
But she was not only a daughter and woman. She was a Lady of House Hightower, and as such, she had a duty to her House.
"What good will come of that if we break the betrothal now? What happens?" she asked.
"You come home," Morgan said immediately.
"And then?" she pressed, already knowing the answer.
Morgan had no answer, so Ceryse supplied it for him.
"This was his plan all along. He opposed the match from the start and asked the King to break it off years ago. But that hadn't worked out. So instead, he arranged this to have Father die. If we break the betrothal ourselves, the Prince wins his freedom from the marriage. Father would have died in the mud for nothing; our House loses the royal union he spent years securing, all the benefits that come from it, the realm would laugh and mock us, and the court would remember that Maegor Targaryen managed to frighten the Hightowers away and kill his way through all rules and traditions."
"Sister! You cannot mean to marry him after this," Morgan exclaimed.
Ceryse looked toward the covered body.
"I do not want to, and I despise him with the bottom of my heart, but we now hold a great advantage, despite how morbid that sounds. We could ask almost anything of the King, I am certain. For our House, I am willing to make this sacrifice. Maegor Targaryen shall not win this."
Martyn nodded his head, and the High Septon smiled greedily and happily.
"You are right, sister. We shall do it as you say. But this wasn't the last word spoken of this. We shall have our due, that I swear," Martyn said.