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A Song of Blackjack and Hookers (chapter 1)
🕑 Added 2024-11-13 04:45:33 +0000 UTCThe Fisherman’s Daughter
Tugging at her roughspun dress nervously, Danika looked out from the window at the stranger Papa had fished out of the sea. He was still lying back on the sand, staring at the clouds despite his fine clothes having their fill of seawater.
Papa had told her such fine clothes meant he must be a lord, and to look after him in hopes he would reward them. She only hoped he wouldn’t take the watered down ale against them.
Making her way back down to the beach with a cup, she approached him carefully.
“Milord,” she broached, “I brought you something to wet your throat with.”
His dark eyes caught hers, and he slowly pushed himself up to sit. When he reached out to take the cup from her, she noticed a hole in his finery over where his heart should be.
His clothes were even stranger than she had thought at first. They were all a deep black, even his shoes, and almost shone under the sun, all except for his too-thin doublet that was an unblemished white.
“Thank you,” he husked out.
Danika sat down on the sand opposite him as she watched him take a sip from the cup. It didn’t agree with him, as she feared, though it didn’t stop him from drinking it dry.
“Your father,” he continued in a smoother voice, “he said we weren’t far from King’s Landing?”
“Yes, milord. It’s about an hour’s travel along the Rosby road,” she squeaked out, staring down at her fingers. “Papa takes his catch there every evening to sell.”
He seemed to find something humorous in that. “Right. And who sits the Iron Throne?”
Her brows furrowed at the question. “His Grace, King Robert Baratheon, ever since he ended the Mad King’s reign and chased the last of his get away across the sea,” she boasted. She quickly blushed at her boldness. “Or that is what the septa says…”
The more the stranger had spoken, the more Danika noticed that he sounded funny, not even like the highborn she had seen in King’s Landing.
“Might I know your name, milord?” she asked him. “Are you from Essos?” She chewed on her bottom lip as she thought the worst. “You’re not a slaver, are you? I’ve always heard stories…”
He didn’t answer immediately, watching the waves for a time.
“No, not Essos,” he finally said. “Further and farther. It has a few names, but most just call it America.” There was something mirthful in his dark eyes as he turned them back on her. “There men know me as Solomon the Magnificent.”
The names were a stranger to her ears, and she had heard of places as far as Karth and Yee Tee.
“Sol-oh-mon,” she mouthed, her curiosity making her bolder.
“Close enough. Though I imagine you are wondering how I’m so magnificent.” His voice was richer now, like a bard’s. “But first, what’s your name?”
She felt her cheeks heat up at the question. Why would he care to know her name?
“Danika,’ she squeaked out again.
“How much do you know of magic, Danika?” He had a handsome smile on his lips as he stared into her eyes.
Furrowing her brows again, she tried to remember Septa Rivienne’s words. The stranger had in the meantime retrieved something from one of his pockets, turning it over between his fingers.
Danika gasped as the top of it clinked open and a flame appeared. It didn’t spread, but it did sway with the wind.
The sight helped her remember the septa’s words. “Septa Rivienne says sorcery is a sword without a hilt, and that we are well rid of it with the dragons gone.”
The sorcerer was staring into his own flame when she dared to peek at his eyes again, something hungry there. It was the kind of look she had seen men give her sometimes. As if he could tell, he caught her eyes again, the flame vanishing after another clink.
“And who’s to say they won’t return one day?” There was a knowing look there.
If she wanted to sate her curiosity, she had to be brave. “How long had you been adrift at sea, milord? If you don’t mind my asking…” She was tugging at her dress again, a nervous habit of hers. “Papa had seen men shipwrecked before, but there weren’t any signs of such he had said.”
Danika feared she had overstepped when the sorcerer sighed, but his eyes had returned to the sea. “And if I said I hadn’t come by boat at all?”
“You couldn’t have swam here,” she argued.
“Yeah, probably not,” he agreed with a chuckle. “Though I’m still not sure this isn’t some fever dream…”
“Milord?” she whispered.
The handsome smile was back on his lips. “Just thinking out loud.” He made to stand after, offering her a hand.
Danika eyed it for a moment before taking it, though she only reached his shoulders. “What will you do now?” she couldn't help but ask him.
“I think I’ll go to King’s Landing. I don’t wish to burden you and your father more than I already have.”
She tugged on her bottom lip with her teeth, thinking. “And when will you be leaving?”
“You mentioned your father travels there in the evenings.” He peeked at the sun. “It shouldn’t be long now. I think I’ll join him.”
Danika tried not to show too much relief. Papa would have grumbled about ungrateful highborn lords if Sol-oh-mon had taken his leave without even a word of gratitude.
“Have you been to King’s Landing, Danika?” she heard, drawing her from her thoughts.
“Yes, milord,” she answered quickly. “A few times to visit Aunt Lenda.”
He clapped his hands together. “Wonderful. Could you tell me about it while we wait?”
She returned his smile and bid him to follow her back to the house. There she prepared both of them some salt cod with a dash of vinegar. “All we’ve plenty of is cod,” she informed him as she warded off embarrassment.
It wasn’t hard to like the sorcerer, she decided. He hadn’t treated her with disdain or leered at her even once. Even now he didn’t turn up his nose at the poor fare, finishing it all in a few quick bites.
“So, King’s Landing?” he prompted.
She nodded her head, trying to find the words. “Down the Rosby road you’ll see the Iron Gate, manned by the gold cloaks. You’ll see Flea Bottom past it, where my Aunt Lenda lives. It’s a hard place, but that’s only the least of it, milord.”
Danika absently took a bite of salt cod as she imagined it in her mind’s eye.
“You can’t miss the Red Keep and its seven towers, standing high above the city on Aegon’s High Hill. It is most beautiful in the sunlight, I have found, shining a pale red.” Danika envied the high lords sometimes, to live in such a place and look down upon them all.
“I’ve heard of it,” Sol-oh-mon spoke, some mischief showing in his eyes again. “Tales of the Iron Throne have reached even us. But do continue.”
Danika nodded again. “Somewhere past it is Fishmonger’s Square and the Mud Gate. Papa sails there sometimes when Flea Bottom is troubled or the fish have been biting well.”
The sorcerer was drinking all her words in greedily, though Danika wasn’t sure what more she could tell him.
“And, uhm, you’ll find the Great Sept of Baelor to the west. I’ve only been there once, years ago, when the High Septon was named. I remember the walls being the purest white…”
Septa Rivienne had been encouraging her to say a septa’s vows recently, praising her keen mind, but Danika wasn’t as certain. She was true to the Seven, yes, but she didn’t know if she wanted to devote her entire life to Them.
“It all paints quite a picture. Thank you, Danika.”
She felt her cheeks heat up again. “S’no no worry, milord…”
“Why don’t I tell you something of back home? Interested?”
His dark eyes drew her in again as she nodded eagerly, almost forgetting about her fish as she listened to him speak of a city of lights, as bright at night as it was during the day. There were towers there, as high as the clouds, and every person had a thinking box in their pockets.
It all sounded like half a dream to her ears, and she had pouted when Papa returned, pawing at his greying beard as the sorcerer told him his plan. They had made for King’s Landing not long after.
Danika gave a sigh as she watched. In the end, she was only a lowborn girl, thinking of things beyond her station.
A smile still managed to find its way onto her lips, looking down at the funny coin Sol-oh-mon had dropped in her hands when Papa wasn’t looking. He had given her a wink and told her it was lucky.
She held it closer, hoping it was true.
Cersei
Cersei crumbled the ball of parchment in her hand even tighter as she paced the length of her chambers, her skirts trailing after her messily.
She felt like a young girl again, staring into Maggy’s ugly yellow eyes. Gold shall be their crowns and gold their shrouds, she had whispered to her. Cersei had almost lost her wits in front of her own guard when those same words had been delivered to her, courtesy of a strange man in stranger dress.
They were just words, she had told herself, and bid the guard to return with him.
He would tell her how he knew, or he would never see the light of day again, the rats gnawing on his flesh until there was nothing left. Despite the vicious satisfaction her thoughts gave her, her worries were not so easily quelled. All those who were there had perished except for her, so the question remained. How?
A knock sounded on the door soon enough, and her nails bit deep into her palm as she forced herself to calm. She could not let them see her in such distress. She had to be strong. Like her lord father.
“Enter,” her voice rang out, bold and true.
The man who entered her chambers was as strange as he had been described, flanked by two of her red cloaks. He was tall, a shade taller than Jaime perhaps, though he didn’t tower over her like her drunken lout of a husband, nor was he near as wide. His skin was as fair as his hair and eyes were dark, almost black.
His clothes were of fine make, she could tell, to the point that she couldn’t see the stitching.
“Your Grace,” he said with a short bow, his voice pleasant to the ears. The lack of any proper deference in his tone did much to ruin it, but she was accustomed to it from men.
“Wait outside unless I call for you,” she told her guards, watching as they hurried to carry out her orders.
The man didn’t seem relieved or eager at being left alone with her, so she thought to spur a rise out of him.
“What led you to believe these words meant anything to me?” Cersei allowed the crumbled ball of parchment to fall to the floor, making nary a sound against the stones.
A small smile was the only reaction her words spurred. “Why else would I be here? I think those words haunt you,” he whispered, sweeping closer to her as her throat went dry, “and every day they get more true, don’t they? I know it was Maggy the Frog who spoke them to you, and I also know that you watched your friend drown, for she had heard them too.”
“How?” she croaked out. “How could you know?”
He hummed thoughtfully. “How to explain…” His eyes trailed down her neck, as if he was searching for something. “There’s a curse that hangs over you, an angry, malevolent thing that yearns to choke the life from you, easy to see if you have the eyes to see it.”
Her hands went to her delicate throat, imagining an ugly thing wrapping around it, kin to her deformed and monstrous brother. Cersei had always known that it would be him.
Strength, she reminded herself. You must be strong. Without weakness.
“Who are you?” she asked, doing all she could to keep her voice level.
“Solomon the Magnificent, they call me,” he confessed easily. “Though I wouldn’t worry too much, Your Grace. I doubt there are any in these lands who can see as I see.”
These lands, he had said. Cersei had already known as much after seeing his strange clothes and stranger way of speaking. “And where do you hail from, Solomon?” she sounded out carefully.
“Far and away across the Sunset Sea,” he answered simply, as if it wasn’t a farcical thing to say.
Even if it were true, why would he come all this way to mention Maggy the Frog to her?
As he continued, it was as if he had read her thoughts. “My being here was not by choice.” One of his hands moved to his chest, drawing her eyes to the tear in the uniform fabric. For a moment she had thought it was from a sword before she deemed it too small to be that. “An unhappy accident, let’s say.”
Cersei crossed her arms over her full breasts. “Unhappy accident?”
“I imagine you wish to escape your fate?” he asked as if he hadn’t heard. “You have already tried, no doubt. But no matter how much your brother beds you, it won’t take?”
Her blood went cold. “H-How dare you,” she hissed under her breath. “I could have you killed with but a word for speaking such lies.”
If she hoped to frighten him, it had only seemed to amuse him instead.
“Even if you succeeded, you would still be doomed to a most bleak fate. You would die as Maggy had told you you would, after you had watched all your children be taken from you, one by one.”
Despite the dark words, he still smiled at her hauntingly. It all rendered her mute, her limbs feeling as if turned to stone. If he could know all this, what else could he do?
Instead she watched as he offered his hand.
“I didn’t come here to taunt you, Cersei,” he continued in a whisper that pulled her closer. “After all, a curse done can be undone.”
Hope bloomed in her heart as his words registered. “How?” she whispered back.
“I might have suggested that you ask your seven gods to intercede on your behalf, but after all your transgressions against them, it might be wiser not to.” He shrugged his shoulders irreverently. “If the new gods won’t listen, why not the old?”
Memories of her mother reading to her under a weirwood surfaced, its roots gnarled and twisted. “Why would the cold and distant gods of the northmen help me?”
“It rather depends on how you ask them,” he said, the smile more inviting now. “You can leave that part to me.”
Cersei eyed the flagon of Arbor gold on the table before stalking over and pouring herself a generous amount into a goblet. “How would this work?” she asked after, its rich taste calming her nerves slightly.
“A dash of sorcery should weaken the curse, and once you give birth again, I am confident that it will fall apart completely.”
He followed her to the table, plucking the goblet out of her hand and taking a sip as she stared. She swallowed her anger as he smacked his lips, returning it to her hands.
“Mmm, I only wonder why I should,” he continued. “Not only would I be cuckolding a king but your beloved brother also. It seems a sticky situation.”
“You mean to spill your seed in me?” she asked incredulously.
“I asked you to convince me, Cersei,” he said instead. “Though you are of course free to continue as you have. I expect you’ll have a few more years until it claims all you hold dear.”
The sheer gall of this man—or perhaps sorcerer—stupefied her. That he would ask her to sweeten the deal on top of it?
She took another swallow of the Arbor gold, thinking carefully. No charlatan could have known the things he knew, and it was just as he said. After Tommen’s birth, Jaime’s seed just wouldn’t take whatever they tried.
Cersei returned her eyes to the sorcerer, swallowing her anger again. “What would you have of me? Riches? A lordship?”
“I admit I am interested in learning more about Westeros and Essos,” he commented, as if neither lands nor coin meant anything to him. “Access to the Grand Maester’s library for a start, I think. And leave to acquire more, whether it be through Lannister coin or a few words from you, Your Grace.”
“Done,” she said happily. A lordship would have been considerably more difficult.
He neared even closer, tucking her golden curls behind her ear in an intimate gesture. “You are as clever as I hoped you would be.” Cersei let out a soft breath as she watched him. He was handsome, yes, but it was more than that.
He could be of use to her, a sorcerer at her beck and call. The thought alone had her rubbing her thighs together as she smiled up at him, seeing the lust in his eyes.
Already he was falling for her. He had chosen her, had he not? He had come to her.
“And what will you tell your brother?” he suddenly asked, plucking her from her thoughts.
“Jaime…” she started uncertainly, “Jaime will understand.”
Her twin had always followed her lead, and he would follow her lead in this also. Glancing over the sorcerer’s features, she could simply say that Robert’s seed had taken despite her best wishes. Jaime would be furious, though not so furious that he would act.
Cersei leaned in to kiss him, only to watch him retreat, a smirk dancing on his lips.
“Ah, ah. Not here. We will need a weirwood, and I don’t believe the godswood here has one.”
Her brows furrowed again, but she didn’t argue. “W-Where then?”
“Storm’s End,” he said after a moment. “Tell your husband you want your children to see their ancestral seat, or tell him whatever you like. I don’t expect it will take much to convince him.”
“I suppose not,” she admitted. The Hand would be more skeptical, but she had handled him thus far.
“There you have it.” After a thoughtful moment, he seemed to reverse course, leaning closer again. “Though perhaps it wouldn’t hurt for us to grow more comfortable with one another.”
Cersei shivered slightly as his palm touched her cheek, his thumb pushing against her lips. His mood kept shifting as a storm would, making it hard for her to predict what he would do. She had thought him smitten with her, and now again…
After some moments, he kissed her, though it was a playful thing, not as heated as she would have liked, and she groaned in her throat with some slight disappointment.
His other hand had been toying with her grown when he retreated again. “These walls have eyes, more than you know. I’m not the only one who knows more than he should.”
Cersei knew to avoid certain rooms, but she had searched her chambers extensively, finding nothing out of place.
“Who?” she asked.
“They will know if you suspect them, but fear not. They wouldn’t have expected me today.”
Her frown deepened as she thought. If any of them knew, why would they not have used it against her?
“Now, for all my many tricks, I have not yet found a way to get the stink of the ocean off of me without a bath.”
He did have the scent of the sea on him, but it hadn’t been an unpleasant one. “I’ll find apartments for you, and servants.”
“Kind of you. I think I’ll pay a visit to the library in the meantime,” he said after a hum. “Mind if I borrow one of your fine guards out there to escort me?”
She quietly nodded, staring at his back as she finished the last of the Arbor gold in her goblet. A sorcerer though he may be, he was still a man, and a man had his appetites.
As she heard two pairs of footsteps depart after another nod from her, she smiled.
In time he would be eating out of the palm of her hand.
