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A Song of Blackjack and Hookers (chapter 12)
🕑 Added 2025-03-02 22:25:15 +0000 UTCBrienne
It was an easy thing for her to keep pace with the procession of men leaving the Red Keep, all of them northerners. Lord Stark, or the lord Hand now, had to his credit moved quickly against the naked treachery afoot in the capital.
Brienne had heard many an ill thing about King’s Landing over the years, but even that had not prepared her for what Solomon shared with her about that wicked and corrupt city, where even the High Septon listened more to the clink of coin than he did the gods.
She wanted to believe that this was the first step to setting it to rights, but she wondered if another would not just take the whoremonger’s place?
Truly there seemed to be no drought of wicked men here…
It did not help that she still feared for Solomon. She had always heard that the ironborn were pirates and bandits in all but names, and the Lady Asha Greyjoy had not done a thing to dissuade her of that.
Yet he had asked her to trust him as he had put his trust in her, and she could not have argued further for fear of making a fool of herself in front of him.
That he was as real a sorcerer as she had ever known also made her fears seem foolish.
Brienne touched her other hand to the yellow ribbon around her wrist still, for on that matter she was still conflicted. The Seven warned against the dangers of sorcery, and she believed in them truly, and yet he had shown her more kindness than a hundred knights. The Seven should have warned their flock more against false knights, she thought.
She saw the Lord Stark’s men split into a few groups as they all entered the Street of Silk, though she had stuck to the northern lord as he had asked.
When they reached the carved doors of a certain brothel, she watched as he unslung the Valyrian steel greatsword from his back still in its scabbard. Ice, she believed it was named, if what she remembered of her lessons with Maester Leoteld were true.
Inside the brothel stunk of incense and more unchivalrous things, and soon a panic started. For all they searched every room, they could not find the master of coin anywhere.
When his men returned and reported the same as the other brothels they were sent to, she saw Lord Stark’s frown deepen. “He could not have simply vanished into thin air.”
His man next to him in smoky grey plate nodded. “Shall I fetch the matron?”
He nodded, and soon his sharp eyes found her. “That he has chosen to flee tells me he is guilty. If you had not brought this to my attention, Lady Brienne, I fear we would have been all the poorer for it.”
She resisted the urge to fiddle with the ribbon again. “I only brought the letter, my lord. It was Solomon that had investigated.”
“So it was,” he agreed.
The matron had then appeared, a plump woman with hair the color of sunflowers. She had a fright to her, but she still remembered her manners and curtsied. “Lord Hand.”
“You have nothing to fear from us,” he told her. “Where has he gone?”
She licked her lips. “I am not as sure, my lord. A few hours back some of his men had come and gone and we have not heard from him since.”
“What did they want?”
“They retrieved the coin he kept here, leaving only a pittance. I dared not ask questions…”
Lord Stark sighed, not surprised. “Thank you. You can see to your charges for now.”
They were about to depart the brothel when a knight she quickly recognized as Ser Jaime Lannister stalked inside, a dozen Lannister men-at-arms at his back. His golden hair and clean shave gave him a heroic appearance, but his bright green eyes that reminded her of a cat were murderous.
“He escaped?”
Lord Stark watched him a moment before nodding. “I am afraid so.”
A breath left the Lannister kingsguard’s lips like a hiss. “What did you expect would happen with such a show? That he would think you were after anything other than his head?”
Eddard Stark’s grey eyes had turned cool and similarly dangerous. “He had already decided to leave before Lady Brienne had even warned me.”
Those vicious eyes turned on her with a look of mild distaste and then back to the Hand. “As you say, Stark. I suppose we can only wonder what had tipped him off,” he sarcastically said.
“What is it to you, Kingslayer?”
The Lannister knight’s already foul mood worsened at the words. “Anyone could have told you not to trust him. Do you know how many times he has bragged about taking your fish wife’s maidenhead? At least a dozen by my count.”
Brienne worried they would come to blows if this continued, so she stepped in. “The City Watch should know something. So many men in a hurry would have left signs as to their passing.”
She heard a snort from the knight. “The gold cloaks had been watered with Littlefinger’s coin for years.”
Lord Stark ignored him. “The barracks is not far from here. We shall see what they have seen and heard.”
She followed the northern lord and his men, and she heard the Lannister men-at-arms do the same after some moments. They must have all made for a strange sight as they marched through the city.
What met them at the barracks however had left more than her surprised.
“Lord Renly,” she heard Lord Stark greet. “We had not thought to find you here.”
She saw Ser Loras there as well, glaring down at a thickset man with a face that seemed reminiscent of a frog or a toad. His plate and golden cloak were of fine make, but they were tarnished by his blubbering like a worm.
Her liege lord did not even glance at him. “Lord Hand,” he greeted pleasantly, his merry eyes turning to her. “And Lady Brienne. I hope your time in the Reach has been kind to you.”
She nodded softly. “It has, my lord.”
His eyes went to the scowling Ser Jaime. “And the Kingslayer as well. There is potential for a jape here about our assembled company, but I suppose that should come later.” Only then did he look down at the man at his feet. “Ser Loras had found Janos Slynt here as well as a number of our former officers attempting to flee King’s Landing with as much arms and armor as they could carry.”
“Never, my lord! W-We were having it moved to another barracks, I swear it!”
Renly gave him a dull look. “Ah, yes, I must have missed when one of our barracks up and left the city. And we would never have known if not for your keen eyes.”
Lord Stark stared down at the man with the coldest eyes she had ever seen. “Where has Lord Baelish gone? I expect he is the one that encouraged you to flee the city.”
“I know not, my lord! It has been three days since I had even seen that whoremonger! P-Please, you must believe me!” When he was met with silence, he reached for Renly again. “We only thought to—”
He gave a cry as Ser Loras’s gauntleted fist struck him in the eye, sending him howling and blubbering in pain.
“Has our Lord Whoremonger vanished?” Lord Renly asked curiously.
Lord Stark nodded gravely. “I suspect he had Jon Arryn poisoned with the help of the Lady Lysa.”
That news surprised even Ser Jaime.
“I see. Robert will be furious…” her liege lord muttered quietly.
“As should we all be. Lord Arryn had placed his trust in him, even argued for his place on the small council, and Littlefinger showed his gratitude by having him swallow poison.”
“It seems to me,” the Lannister knight started, “that if there were proof then even the Lady Lysa would be hard-pressed to protect him.”
“I believe I might know where to find it,” Lord Stark muttered. “Though it’s possible that he might have already hidden his tracks.”
Renly nodded. “As for this bunch, treason, desertion, as well as all the other crimes Ser Loras has been investigating…” He turned to one of his men from Storm’s End. “Fetch a rope.”
A collective chill went through the deserters, but the northern lord seemed pensive. “They should be allowed to take the black if they so wish.”
There was a chorus of ‘the black’ from them, and Janos Slynt was among the first, a bruise already forming around his eye.
Her liege lord seemed agreeable, though Ser Jaime Lannister had other thoughts. “Send deserters to the Wall? Is this that honor I have heard so much about, Stark? They will only desert again.”
“The Night’s Watch is a sacred duty,” Lord Stark insisted. He still leveled his cold eyes at the man groveling at his feet. “But hear this, all of you. If you think you will desert the black as you did the gold, then I give you my word that I will separate your head from your shoulders myself.”
Brienne hoped they might find some shred of honor at the Wall as well.
Lords Stark and Renly left soon after with all their men, and she followed, but not before handing a letter to an exasperated Ser Jaime.
Solomon had revealed to her why the Kingslayer became such, and it softened her own thoughts of him, but only to a point. Brienne soon heard him chuckle when he saw the seal.
“I was wondering if it was him that told Stark.” He looked at her with curiosity now, but soon his attention turned to the letter, prompting her departure.
Perhaps with a Hand as Eddard Stark, she thought, the city might still be salvaged.
Arianne
Sunspear had come alive with rumor and intrigue this past fortnight, and Arianne had been drinking it all in like the finest vintage. But no more could she watch from a distance, her curiosity demanding some relief.
That was why she had gathered her friends and cousins to figure this mystery out.
“You could simply go and speak with him,” Nym suggested. As if she had not already considered it!
“And seem a fool?”
“You cannot seem more a fool than our father,” Obara argued gruffly. “Last I heard he had taken to plying the Greenblood with the sorcerer like one of the smallfolk.”
Yes, she had heard as much. Her uncle had called it rediscovering his Rhoynish roots.
“I still wish to approach the matter with some grace,” Arianne argued.
Tyene gave a smile as sweet as honey, her golden strands darker in the shade. “Even in Dorne a princess would not be looked at kindly for mucking about in the mud.”
Tyene was the favorite of her cousins for that reason, always knowing her mind. Sylva nodded as well, her freckles almost invisible where they were.
Then Arianne turned to Garin. “You would know the most of us, Garin. What have you heard?”
The darker-skinned orphan rubbed at his chin thoughtfully. “This Solomon has surprised some of us with his willingness to learn, but it is more than that…” There was a hint of something nervous in his eyes and shoulders when he continued, “I saw for myself something of his sorcery, Arianne.”
Her curiosity and that of everyone in the room was taken by his words.
“Don’t keep us in suspense,” Nym said to him, tugging at her purple silks.
“There was a looking glass silver as a Valyrian’s hair, but it showed not your reflection. Instead the glass was as black as pitch, and it in Prince Oberyn saw things, things that made him pale and laugh and cry.”
That silenced them all except for a skeptical Obara. “He might have been having a jest with you the fool.”
“I do not think so,” was all Garin said.
“What was he like?” Arianne asked instead.
“Kind, I suppose. He never looked down on us or any work he was asked to do, and even ate our poorest fare without complaint. It shamed the prince into doing the same.”
A kind and humble sorcerer? That made as much sense as a thief that gave his riches away.
“He sounds like a mummer happy for a crumb of food,” Obara bit out again.
“I think it a splendid contradiction,” Tyene softly said to her side. “Has he bed boys or girls?”
A blush took Garin’s cheeks at her words. “Neither, and some of my cousins have tried. They say he is a man of singular purpose.”
Nym snorted at that. “Somehow I doubt that. With how that Greyjoy girl was draped all over him, they have almost certainly been fucking, and often.”
Arianne swallowed the crumb of jealousy for a man she had not even met yet.
“Hmm,” she thoughtfully hummed as she thought. All she had heard of him had only made the mystery seem grander. “I suppose it can’t be helped. Garin, have you made the repairs to that painted raft of yours?”
He nodded. “A few days back.”
“Then we shall become as orphans as well for a few days. I have only ever seen the mouth of the Greenblood, and that seems a pity.”
Garin smiled at her. “I am happy to be your guide, princess.”
“I have humored this long enough,” Obara said before she stalked out. It did not surprise her.
Tyene and Sylva soon voiced that they would come with Garin and her, which only left Nym, for Drey was away with his family and Sarella was not in Dorne.
“I can only ask that you tell me the story after,” she said, a smile on her sharp lips.
Arianne felt a small bit of disappointment, but only just. She knew Nymeria was often preoccupied with her own games.
They set out the next day along still waters as green as their namesake.
“I heard they are near Godsgrace now,” Garin commented as he rowed the small raft.
Godsgrace reminded her of its bastard, Daemon Sand. She had not spoken to him in many moons, and perhaps she would get the chance to again soon.
They all played games to pass the time, and Garin had even taught them how to fish. Somehow the meat tasted sweeter when she knew she had caught it herself.
Even digging around in the mud for worms had its appeal.
They had met other orphans as well on their own carved and painted boats, and they all shared stories and food. It had a charm to it that she had come to like, even if she missed her cakes and fat oranges.
On the third day they came upon a settlement on the river with near a hundred boats of every shape and color docked there. They all looked like a rainbow on the water, a sight she was glad to commit to memory, and it was there they found them.
“If it isn’t my daughter and my niece,” her uncle greeted with smiling eyes. He seemed half a beggar with how he was dressed, but then so did all the orphans.
Finally, her eyes found the sorcerer, watching her as he wound a net. Unlike Prince Oberyn who had rags of red and orange and black around him, he favored only one, yellow.
And he was handsome, that much she could tell, with smoky eyes and a strong jaw, his dark hair swept back as if by a wind that wasn’t there. Soon he bowed, a smile just as handsome on his lips. “Princess Arianne.”
Prince Oberyn soon kissed Tyene on the cheek and then her. “Now why have you come all the way out here?” he asked.
“Can I not wish to see my father?” her cousin asked with a coy smile.
“And I my uncle?” Arianne added.
He gave them both a fond sigh. “You were curious. I know because so was I.” He took their hands into his own calloused ones. “Let us speak more inside.”
Their raft was a sight bigger than Garin’s, possessing a cabin instead of a roughspun cloth to shield from the rain, and it even had a table. There they sat and shared a meal of fish and eel, made all the more tasteful with some spices her uncle retrieved from his rags with a wink.
She found she could contain her curiosity no longer. “Is it true you have a magic mirror?” she asked Solomon.
He swallowed an eel as his brow rose. “I suppose you could call it that, yes.”
Garin gave a look of vindication as he scarfed down some meat from his fish.
“Can I see it?” she asked, gracing him with her best smile. She would grace him with more if she could.
He stared at her a moment before he smiled again, retrieving a small mirror from within all the yellow, and it was just as Garin described, silver, with a polished glass as black as sin.
No matter what way she looked at it or how the light caught on it, it reflected nothing, almost eerie in how dark it was.
“How does it work?”
“What do you wish to see, princess? Prince Oberyn had asked to see many a sight, both the wondrous and the monstrous.”
When she met her uncle’s eyes, she found him slightly melancholic, but he did not dispute his words.
“The Wall,” she whispered as she turned her eyes back upon Solomon. “I had always been curious.”
“As you wish,” he whispered back, and when his finger touched the glass, she saw.
It was high, as high as the clouds almost, and it stretched left and right as far as she could see. The wind blew so fiercely that she could almost feel their bite even in the blush of Dorne.
It had a majesty to it that was as beautiful as it was brutal.
As she tore her eyes away from it, she could not help but ask a question. “And it can show anything?”
“Not anything,” he answered.
“It has shown everything I asked for,” her uncle murmured softly. “Though still you refuse me true succor, Solomon. There are few things I would not give for it.”
The sorcerer sighed, and it seemed an old argument between them. “You do not ask to see a faraway sight, my prince. You ask to see three men dead.”
Arianne suspected she knew well who those men were as she returned the mirror. She watched Prince Oberyn stare back at the sorcerer stubbornly, until finally he seemed to sigh.
“Tywin Lannister and his dog are too stubborn to listen to a whisper on the wind, but the third… mayhaps he will.”
Ser Amory Lorch, the so-called knight that thrust a sword into Princess Rhaenys Targaryen half a hundred times while she cried and screamed. The thought of it again sickened her stomach and filled her head with a vicious rage.
Tyene shared her feelings, while Garin and Sylva listened and watched with a morbid curiosity.
“What do you need?” she heard her uncle ask, his voice hungry.
“That much blood would cripple you, Prince Oberyn. But with two more of the Martell line here…”
He had left the question on the wind as well, and she saw her uncle’s expression grow pensive for it.
“While my studies at Oldtown counted sorcery as something dead and gone, I have read and seen enough to know that blood given to a sorcerer is not something easily undone. Take mine and I shall give you as many murderers and rapists you need for the rest.”
Arianne saw the sorcerer run a hand through his hair. “I do not fault you for your worries, but you are asking me to butcher a hundred men for a wrong done to you, my prince.”
“There is no need for that,” she heard Tyene butt in. “I want to.”
A nervousness took her as well, but soon a fire drove it all away. “I will as well,” Arianne whispered. She owed this to a girl that she could never smile or laugh or play with.
There were hot tears on her cheeks as Solomon sighed, retrieving a dagger bound in cloth from his person. “If you all do agree.” He offered it and his mirror to Prince Oberyn first. “Spill your blood upon the mirror one after another and I will do the rest.”
Her uncle quietly unwound the cloth around it and soon swiped the edge across his forearm with a soft hiss. Arianne watched with wide eyes as the mirror drank it all, not a drop of it left to spill as he passed it more hesitantly to his daughter.
Finally, the knife and mirror both passed to her.
Shutting her eyes, she still could not help a small cry of pain as she cut herself open, though she still found herself staring at the mirror after some moments, wondering where it had all gone.
As she pressed a clean cloth to her wound, she watched as the sorcerer retrieved the mirror. She swore the glass seemed so much darker in that moment, almost sucking in the light.
“Come, my knight of manticores,” he whispered to the mirror like a lover. “Come and see all of Dorne’s delights.”
A sudden wind came upon the cabin, her hair caught in it, but it was gone as swiftly as it had come.
“It is done,” Solomon said. “He will find himself drawn to Dorne, my prince. Though once he is here, I make no more promises. He will not go quietly into the night.”
Prince Oberyn bore a dark smile. “It would be a pity if he did.” Then he touched a hand to the sorcerer’s arm. “Thank you.”
Arianne leaned back into her chair, a nervous sigh on her lips. What had she done…
