Chapter 8

  Resting against a stone column large enough five men couldn’t wrap their arms around it, I sipped on a chalice of mulled wine, watching as noblemen and noblewomen from across the land danced to a jaunty tune in the marbled main hall of the Rock. I’d been there with them for the past hour, making raucous conversation with lordlings and charming ladies with witty remarks and quick, dancing feet.

  It was fun for the first few minutes, though I couldn’t comprehend how so many rich and powerful nobles could live off a life of unending drinking and feasting. Though necessary, there was no thrill in this inane sort of politicking. No physical strife to overcome. It was so incredibly dull and repetitive.

  Or perhaps that was the inherent struggle of the whole thing?

  I shook myself, eased the frown that had knotted my brow and took another sip. Boredom often brought out the dumb philosopher in me. Besides, even in a situation like this, I knew there were always ways to make life interesting. And what I wanted to start tonight would certainly—and hopefully—make the next few decades of my life endlessly entertaining, if nothing else.

  I scanned the hall again, looking for a certain head of yellow-hair. We were well past dinner at this point, though it wasn’t late enough that propriety had begun to slip away. The dancing was still mainly choreographed and well-organized; Tywin and the King still sat at their places on the high-table, observing the proceedings with the casual disinterest typical of the overly-powerful, and children as young as eight years old still zig-zagged like tireless ants around the adults’ legs.

  That boded well for me, and I soon spotted the blonde I was looking for on the other side of the hall by a clump of Westerland ladies. She sat down after dancing with a young boy dressed in a copper-colored surcoat stitched with a purple unicorn. She dismissed him with a picture-perfect and station-appropriate curtsy, though the half sneer that flashed across her face belied her mood.

  Even as a ten-year-old, Cersei Lannister had already mastered the art of arrogance. I wondered if that was an inheritable Lannister trait. Did they cry when they were born like everyone else, or did they all pop out of their mothers with a scoff and a middle-finger to the midwife?

  Still, her disposition worked all the best for my designs. I pushed off the column and snaked my way to where she sat, skirting the chaotic dance floor and dodging a serving maid with a full tray of ale mugs balanced precariously but skillfully on her hands. I wouldn’t want to be the cause of a servant making a mess in Tywin Lannister’s hall. I didn’t want their blood on my hands.

  Cersei’s ladies noticed my approach before she did. I stopped in front of them, my best smile drawing giggles and hushed whispers behind gloved hands. “Lady Cersei,” I said, offering up my hand. “Would you do me the honor of accompanying me for a dance?”

  Her hand twitched as if to grasp mine, but she stopped herself. Cersei’s eyes flitted to the quartered sun and moon of House Tarth on my jacket, and she frowned. “And who might you be, ser?” she asked. Her voice was that of a child straining to sound like a grown up.

  It was adorable, like a toddler imitating her parents, and I had to remind myself this was Cersei Lannister, who even at this age would not hesitate to throw her friend down a well after a visit to a woods’ witch. I had kept an eye on Melara Hetherspoon during the tournament, and seeing as she stood not five feet from me now, the girl was still very much alive.

  “Not a knight yet, I’m afraid. Hopefully soon.” I tilted my head slightly. “My name is Galadon Tarth, my lady, from the Stormlands. We’re a small island in Shipbreaker Bay, known for its sapphire waters and its abundance of sheep.”

  I gave her another charming grin even as I knew my description of Tarth would only sour her view of me. Her green eyes narrowed, and I could see the moment any prospect of dancing with me died a gruesome death in her mind.

  Her tone was decidedly less cordial when she spoke now. “Perhaps on another occasion, Tarth, I’m feeling quite indisposed right now.”

  I didn’t miss a beat and bowed slightly. “Of course, I would not wish to impose any hardship on your ladyship.”

  Naturally, she was already turning away with her nose up, dismissing me with a mere wave of the hand. And as if to add insult to injury, she went up to a boy slightly younger than me, one of her father’s bannerman, and pulled him to the dance floor.

  Some of the ladies around her chuckled behind their hands, while others gave me looks of pity, like I was a cute dog being left by the side of the road. That would’ve ruined any young heir’s night had it not been my preferred outcome. And not completely unexpected either.

  I had the right looks for it, I knew, and the reaction of most of her ladies as I was coming up, who were closer to my age than to her, was positive enough. But blood and rank still ruled here, and in Cersei’s world, a boy who lorded over sheep could never be an appropriate dancing partner to a lioness of Lannister.

  My back straight and chin up, I left the dancing floor behind me with the little dignity I had left. No doubt, with what I knew of her character even at this early age, Cersei would have enjoyed humiliating some small-time lord, at least for a while, but she would forget it soon enough if nothing else came of it.

  But when I won the tourney in a couple of days, Cersei would be expected to dance with me as the daughter of the hosting lord, and if my meeting went right with her father went as I wanted, and I played my trump card right, I expected she would even be glad to be my dancing partner then.

  Granted, Tarth wasn’t exactly as insignificant a lordship as I made it out to be, but the girl likely only heard of our island in some boring lesson about the principal houses of the stormlands. It was nothing to concern the daughter of Tywin Lannister.

  In her mind, I would be the boy she once spurned, only to turn out to be the mystery knight that swept the greatest tourney ever hosted in Lannister lands. And not so small-time of a lord after all, it would turn out.

  It wasn’t much. But making an impression on who would one day be the queen of the seven kingdoms could not be a bad thing, and I didn’t expect to have any interaction with her again for many years. I had to use the chances I could get, even for the smallest things.

  Weaving my way through the hall and the dozens of nobles, I went out to get some air, playing my part as the poor, refused lordling. My family had already retired for the evening, with Arianne having never been much of a social girl, especially with big gatherings.

  I tried not to worry too much about her, but I feared her night terrors were a sign of something more serious than simple nightmares. Sometimes at night, as she slept, she would murmur incoherent words in languages I knew she could not speak like High Valyrian and Ghiscari. Words I myself did not recognize until I casually asked the maester about it as if simply curious about Essos.

  And then there was coming here. She almost had a seizure on the first day of the tourney when we came into the hall, and throughout tonight I could see her struggling with herself, her face scrunched up as if, not quite in pain, but overwhelmed by something.

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  It could be a simple case of a young girl’s anxiety flaring up, but Arianne had never seemed to struggle with anything like this back home besides the night terrors, and I knew well this was not the same kind of world as my previous one. Something might be happening with my sister, and I needed to sit down with her when we arrived back on Tarth to figure it out.

  Skirting a small group of knights loudly arguing over who would win the tourney, I came upon a tall, arching opening on the rock wall on one side of the cavernous room that made the main hall of Casterly Rock. The raucous sounds of the feast almost seemed to cut off once I stepped outside, a gentle breeze rolling through to tousle my hair.

  The balcony jutted out the side of the mountain facing the ocean, running the length of the great hall. A smattering of lords and ladies were already here, sipping on chalices and enjoying the quiet atmosphere. Well-dressed servants flitted between the groups expertly refilling cups and offering up tiny cakes and pastries on platters.

  Walking up to the edge, I took in the fresh air with a deep breath, smelling the distant ocean and the flowers and vines that hung from the balustrades lining the balcony. The lapping waters below looked like an endless mass of darkness frothing with the waves. To one side, Lannisport was a collection of thousands of orange dots, a constellation of torches and braziers right there on the ground. Above, the cloudless night sky seemed close enough to touch, filled with its own stars.

  At that moment, I could better understand Cersei’s sense of superiority if you grew up knowing all of this, as far as the eye could see, from this mountain itself with its endless riches, to the city below and all the land beyond, belonged to your family. And if that was the case for the Lannisters, what would it be like for the Targaryens of old, then, who flew on the back of their dragons? Why wouldn’t they think of themselves as gods?

  One of the servants came up to me then, offering a glass of mulled wine that I didn’t refuse. The night wasn’t exactly cold, but the wind had a bite to it so high up we were, and the wine was warm and watered enough I wouldn’t lose my wits.

  I looked down at the cup after taking a sip, relishing the strong taste of cinnamon and the faint aftertaste of ginger. Alcoholic drinks were something I thought I could bring over and make some gold out of it, even if the idea of the whole undertaking seemed like a huge chore to me.

  This world had made me more like Robert Baratheon than I wanted, sometimes. I’d catch myself thinking why go through the whole trouble of creating an industry to make some coin when I could mount a horse, knock some man down on their arses, and come out thousands of gold richer for it?

  Still, I’d been to enough brewery tours to know how whiskey and vodka were done. Granted, the whole point of the tours were the tastings so that knowledge had been filtered through an unsobered mind, but I knew the basics of it, and knew the general shape and purpose of the copper instruments we’d need to get proper distillation going.

  In reality, I’d need to get some maesters in on it, or at least some learned men, to help me get the details right. But while I trusted our own maester to be loyal to our house in most things, as he’d been for decades already, I didn’t trust that he wouldn’t send the knowledge of the distillation process back to the Citadel for their own study.

  That was the maesters' whole thing, gathering and hoarding knowledge, but I needed every advantage I could get, including a few months or years heads up before the other houses and powers-that-be figured it out on their own.

  The whole thing would still take years and a lot of startup gold to get it going. I let out a heavy sigh. I needed to put someone I could trust on it, throw some gold at them, and see what they could scrounge out of it.

  I thought about that for a second, feeling the wine warm up my insides. Maybe Grey could do it. He was smart enough to figure things out by himself after I pointed him in the right direction, and I knew the little details of stuff like fractional distillation that could set us up for success.

  Approaching footsteps pulled me from my musings. When I looked up, Lord Steffon Baratheon had already sidled up beside me, watching me with striking blue eyes the same color as his son.

  “That was a heavy sigh for such a young man,” he said.

  I was quick to sketch a bow. “Lord Baratheon,” I said. We’d met before the few times I followed my father to Storm’s End, and here again when we first arrived at Casterly Rock, but the proper etiquettes had to be followed. “Forgive me, I did not see you on the balcony earlier.”

  “Lord Steffon is fine, Galladon.” He laughed and clasped me on the shoulder with a hand as heavy as a mallet. “Your father is an old friend. Now tell me, what ails you so?”

  That was a leading question if I’d ever heard one. So instead of mentioning my stint as a mystery knight, a secret I knew we both shared, I just told him the truth.

  “Delegation, my lord.”

  An eyebrow rose. “Delegation?”

  “Aye. I’m not sure how I’m supposed to trust someone for an important task instead of handling it myself, a task I know needs to be done—but it's one among many other tasks, which also means I know my time might be better allocated elsewhere. It’s just… overwhelming, at times.”

  He was quiet for a moment after I spoke, then he barked out a laugh. “Perhaps your father was right to trust you with meeting the Lannisters by yourself.” He shook his head. “Delegation? When I was your age, all I could think about was fucking girls and cracking skulls. Especially during feasts like these. Plenty of pretty serving wenches and more than enough dimwit lordlings in need of a good cracking.”

  I gave him a sideways smile. “I think about that too, my lord, I just try to do so out of sight from my mother. That woman can pluck a bad thought out of my head from thirty yards out.”

  “Smart man,” Lord Steffon said, smiling too. He leaned on the balustrade next to me, watching the flow of people on the great hall through the opening on the rock.

  The lord of the Stormlands was a tall man, taller than me by more than a few inches, and he was still in his prime, no more than thirty despite already having teenage sons. In the flickering torchlight of the balcony, I could not see a single strand of white hair marring the black.

  “You want some advice on your delegation issue, Galladon?” He said after a while. I could only nod. His eyes met mine as if to hold my attention firm. “Do not be quick to dole out trust, but do not be miserly with it either. Both can ruin your life. And when that trust is lost with someone, never allow it to return. Do not give them an inch more.”

  I forced down a surprised expression, a bit taken aback. My respect for the man my family was sworn to rose. Given how Stannis turned out, I should’ve known not every Baratheon was a meathead like Robert and Renly—the latter being an entirely different kind of meathead than his brother.

  “Thank you for the advice, my lord.” I bowed again.

  “And,” he continued, “if they try to worm their way into your confidence again, you crack their skulls with your warhammer, of course.” Lord Baratheon grinned something fierce.

  There it was. I smiled back at him.

  He looked me up and down. “You do favor the warhammer, yes?”

  My smile lost some of its confidence. There was a romance to wielding the sword that I could not escape from. It felt right in my hand, like an extension of my body, a sentiment I didn’t get from anything else. Mind you, Ser Goodwin, the master-at-arms at Evenfall Hall, had me practice with all kinds of weapons until my knuckles bled, so I knew my way around a warhammer. I just wouldn’t lie to my liege lord for such a banal reason.

  “Sword,” I simply said.

  I could see a sliver of him die inside. He grunted, “More’s the pity,” then turned around to stare at the ocean below.

  Fuck. I should’ve definitely lied to him.

  “What about you, my lord?” I tried. He looked back at me, so I carried on. “I imagine anyone who came outside by their lonesome came to do some thinking. I don’t think I can give as good an advice as you, but I can try.”

  He seemed to consider me for a second, then Steffon Baratheon favored me with a fond smile. He might have said something, even if I didn’t think the bloody lord of the stormlands would somehow confide some state secrets to me, but there was a commotion inside the great hall that sucked the air out of the entire room.

  We heard gasps, fierce whispering, and not even a minute later an attendant wearing Baratheon livery came scurrying onto the balcony to whisper something into Steffon’s ear. His eyes went wide as the man spoke, and his broad shoulders sagged as if a great weight had suddenly saddled him.

  “Oh, Aerys,” Lord Baratheon murmured low enough he thought I wouldn’t hear, before he excused himself.

  I wouldn’t have to wait to find out what happened.

  Aerys Targaryen had spat on Lord Tywin Lannister’s offer of marriage between Prince Rhaegar and his daughter Cersei, calling him and his family servants not fit to marry royalty in front of the whole noble assembly. An insult Tywin would never forget.

  The last piece of my plan to squeeze out a bit more out of this tourney than just the prize money had just slotted into place.