Going to try and regular with the updates, just uni has been taking most of my time lately, but should have more free time soon enough. Anyway, hope you enjoy this chapter.
***
It was painfully rather obvious that the prisoner had seen better days. As he walked to what was essentially his certain death, I couldn't help but notice that just not that long ago, this had been a man of terrifying physical capabilities, but here he was, being dragged towards the hangman's noose with little objection from him.
It probably had something to do with the fact that the man had only been given enough food to last him till this very day. I was more surprised that no-one had tried to slip the cook a gold dragon to put some poison in and let him suffer a painful the death. Perhaps the strangler or the tears of Lys or whatever hell poison that existed in this blasted universe.
And I just realised that gold dragons weren't actually going to be a thing for a while. Which then leads me to think that I was going to have to do something about that...actually, I don't think I have to. I'll just keep with whatever we had been using until Aegon comes by and bathes the continent in 'Fire and Blood'.
Heh.
I had been meaning to use those very words in one way or another. Although it doesn't have the bite I thought it would have, maybe because it's an internal monologue? Going to have to try and throw it out there in a sentence at some point.
Wait, I'm getting off-track here, I was in the midst of doing something. That something being that Harren Hoare was finally about to meet his end.
The ironborn tyrant had drawn quite the audience for his last performance. Lords, ladies, common men and women had come from the surrounding area. To be honest, I was rather positive that most of these people had been here with the sieging forces of the riverlords.
"Monster!"
"Tyrant!"
"Burn in all the Seven hells!"
Ah there we go.
The crowd was now definitely getting into it. I had found it rather odd that they had been rather all quiet like when Harren made his appearance. Now that he was closer to the gallows that had been erected just for him, they were now voicing their frustrations and anger and hatred at the man that had ruled over them with an iron fist for several decades.
They would probably have thrown all kinds of crap at him, and I do mean that, all kinds of crap including crap at Harren, but Harren was still a king and a certain respect had to be shown towards his station. That was one reason, another was the fact that I was trying to build an image here.
I don't know what image I wanted to build, but something along the lines that I respect people (or something along them lines), even if I wasn't the most caring or empathic of people.
General apathy to everyone and everything was my reigning philosophy in life, but I doubted that would cut it in this place. Being stuck on the fence was something that probably wasn't looked upon fondly, Walder Frey was probably an example of that, if I could actually remember anything more about the Freys apart from the fact that everybody hates them and that Walder Frey was one of the most hated people in Westeros and then some.
Harren was thinner. I had pointed that out previously. He had been a lean man of muscle before, when he had been fed regularly and properly. This time? He was still a lean man, but I doubted the muscle was still there.
His beady little eyes squinted in the bright surroundings of the outside world, out in the open, where the sun's beauty radiated all around. This was the first time the kiss of the sun was touching him in weeks. I had kept him in the darkest dungeon that we could find in Harrenhal. It hadn't been that difficult, Harren had managed to get himself a shit ton of dungeons built into his castle.
When I had seen him earlier in the day, his hair had grown long and tatty with a similar tatty and unkempt beard and moustache to accompany the ragged and gaunt look that he had come to. I had people attend to him to clean him up as best as they could and then dress him in clothes befitting a king.
A dick of a king but a king nonetheless.
You know, he didn't look half bad...in a sort of rather unhealthy sort of way, if you know what I mean.
I held up a hand to quieten down the crowd, which they did after a few moments. I turned to look at Harren. "Any last words?" The reply I got was Harren harking up a glob of spit and sending it in my direction. One of the guards that had brought him to the gallows was about to introduce his fist into his side, but a look from me stopped that from happening. "I'll take that as a resounding 'No' then." I said as I wiped the spit of my face with the sleeve of my doublet.
To be honest, I felt like punching the man for the sheer disrespect. I mean, you don't just spit on people. I have been sent off into football games because I reacted badly to people pulling that sort of shit.
Then I remembered I was stuck in the Dung Ages of Westeros, basic human decency would be in short supply going forth from here.
I motioned for the guards to lead him towards the stump where the execution would take place.
To be honest, it was all rather simple. There was nothing spectacular about it. I watched it all with a certain amount of curiosity, which, I admit, was rather fucked up. I once wanted to be a doctor when I was a kid.
I did the necessary subjects in high school and sixth form. It later turned out that I have a very squishy stomach and that I couldn't handle the sort of shit that I would need to handle to be a doctor.
The fact that I could now handle this sort of shit I had firmly put the responsibility into Edmyn's lap. This was his body. His memories. His mind. So it wouldn't be all that strange if some of the things that made 'Edmyn' Edmyn bled over into me.
And to be honest, I was rather thankful for this bleed over effect. It did wonders for me adjust as well as I have to my new surroundings.
Harren was forced onto his knees with some resistance from him, but he hadn't been fed properly and thus he was weak. He didn't put up much of a fight. The headsman stepped up with his giant-ass axe.
He raised it and lowered it.
That was the end of it. Blood squirted out from his neck for a few moments. Harren's head rolled over to where I had been standing and I made a note that there should have been a bucket or something to catch his head.
I bent down and picked it up. Somewhere from the depths of my mind, I recollected one of the Assassin's Creed Unity trailers or gameplay videos. It was an assault on a French manor, crowd of plebs outside rioting and shit and inside, the French aristocracy eating their cake among others.
The assassin's reach their target, throw him out for the crowd to deal with and he get's beheaded. Then things get freaky and we see the world from the point of view of the beheaded aristocrat. I wonder if that was happening right now? Could Harren see me? Understand what had just happened?
Or was that nothing more than gameplay theatrics?
Well, it's not like it mattered anyway now.
And I just now realising I am holding someone's head in my hand...what the hell do I do with it? Drop it or do something else with it?
I am very conflicted at this moment in time.
So I do something rather brilliant followed by something I consider rather petty but well deserved. I hefted Harren's head as high as I could for the people to see and the roar that greeted me was deafening.
Not Wembley Stadium fully packed deafening, but it was most certainly somewhere the top one hundred. I sincerely doubt there are ninety thousand people here at this very moment in time. If there was, I would eat my hat.
Then came the rather petty action of me just chugging his head into the crowd of people.
Okay, I admit, I was still slightly pissed off about Harren spitting at me. People just didn't do that.
And I suppose there went whatever image I was so very carefully trying to build.
***
I was greeted with a rather unfamiliar sight as I reached my pavilion. A weathered man, dressed in cloth-of-silver vestments and crystal coronals. His attire already set him off as someone that was well-to-do and another warning sign was the fact that he seemed to be accompanied by a man who was either one of the most well-equipped guardsman I have ever met or a knight of some kind.
The guardsman or knight wore armour of inlaid silver over a plain looking shirt, a rainbow cloak. His shield held a strange device, then again, every device I have come to see in the Riverlands was just plain strange, this one though, might as well have been normal, a shield, pitch black with a rainbow coloured sword.
The man took notice of my approach and met me half-way with a smile on his face. "Ah, your grace, it's a pleasure to finally meet you."
He held out a hand which I took and started shaking. He was more eager in the shaking than I was.
"The same, lord...?" I trailed off to get a name. I didn't recognise him from any of the lords I had already met and I was positive that I had met all of them. It was a different question all together if I could put a face to a name.
The man smiled as he shook his head. "Not a lord, your grace. I am nothing more than a humble servant of the Faith of the Seven."
I blinked. "Oh." The Faith of the Seven, in other words, this was my first contact with Westeros version of the Catholic Church. Got to make a good impression. How do I make a good impression here? Especially with the knowledge that the Faith might as well be worshipping Cthulhu or some other mind breaking dark power? "My apologies," I began with a slight lowering of the head in apology. "I've just had a busy day and my mind is all a whirl."
The man of faith smiled some more, gently as he began to lead me towards the pavilion. "It's fine, your grace. Setting up Harren's execution must have taken the planning. It was handled splendidly, despite the man's belief in a false god."
Who might be more real than whatever you lot worship. What was a Deep One again? A giant squid? I wondered how the ironborn would feel learning about that.
It would be hilarious to see at the very least.
"Although your last act to throw Harren's head to be savaged by the commons was most juvenile." The septon prattled on before his tone took one of understanding before I could come into my defence. "But it would very much be understandable. You are young and all the feelings and wrongful deaths that Harren must have visited upon your people came rushing up. Understandable indeed." He nodded sagely, like a grandfather would.
I gave the most amiable smile that I could muster. "Yes. Not my proudest moment. My feelings got the better of me then." Gotta remember to be a friendly little bastard, wouldn't wanna piss of the Faith with all the resources that they could muster. "Despite that and everything else Harren has done, he was still a king. A king deserves a proper execution and the right deference towards his station. I'm sorry to say this, but I never did get your name, septon."
The septon blinked for a moment before letting out a bark of laughter. "Of course, my apologies. I just happened to have been caught up in the moment. I am Willis. I serve the Faith and the Gods as one of their Most Devouts."
A Most Devout? Edmyn's memories helped me realise this person was right up there in the Faith hierarchy. Theoretically, just underneath the High Septon and whoever was Willis' boss in whatever function he served the Faith in.
To get a Most Devout? I was making waves. Whether that was good or bad was something I had yet to determine.
"You don't mind if I take a seat, do you, your grace? Travelling from Oldtown to Harrenhal does take a toll on these old bones of mine." The septon asked.
I waved towards a free seat in the pavilion. I even moved to draw it back from the centre of the table for him. "No, none at all. Would you like a drink as well?" Was I being too submissive here? Politics was never something I doubted I would have been good at.
Willis shook his head as he took his seat. "No, no. It's fine."
I nodded and for a while, there was a silence in the pavilion as we just stared at each other. Willis' eyes seemed to be alight with some kind of light as they studied over me as I tried to keep the most amiable look I had on my face. It's a good thing that I was something of a perpetual smiler. One way or another, I had some kind of smile on my face, even if it was a small one.
"I must say," Willis eventually broke the silence. "Many of the faithful across the Seven Realms had hoped for one day for Harren and his ilk to be stroke down from the riverlands. I have it in good faith that His Most Holiness was at work to finally be rid of the Riverlands of the depravations of the ironborn."
So the High Septon had been planning some kind of crusade or whatever the Westerosi equivalent of a crusade was against the ironborn? I don't know whether that happened in canon or not, but alright, whatever. "It's nice to know that w us riverlanders were never to far from the thoughts of His Most Holy."
Septon Willis bobbed his head up and down as he continued speaking. "You cannot begin to believe the amount of joy we felt when we learned that one of the gods own had risen up in rebellion against Harren. His Most Holy was most excited and dispatched me immediately when he heard of your successes. As a representative of the gods themselves in our world. He speaks for them and acts for them. Of course, His Most Holy is still only a man. One man and that is why we of the Faith exist. We are not bound by the borders set by mortal kings, lords or crowns, wherever the pious need salvation or guidance, we shall be there." He finished his little tirade, looking at me.
I was no political science student, but I think I got the gist of it here. The Faith was powerful and I should tread carefully to not fuck with them or upset them or something. Okay, got it.
I nodded again. "Only makes sense. It would be rather weird and confusing if the Faith that bound us all was answered to a king of the earthly realm. It would make for rather confusing loyalties."
Willis chuckled in good nature. "That is very much true, your grace. I hope you don't mind an old man asking, but what are your plans for the future?"
Plans for the future? Get Aegon to burn Oldtown to the ground and strip the Faith of any and all power that it had, like that of canon. Of course, I couldn't very well say that, so the smile that was already plastered on my face just grew a little bit wider than it was already as I answered.
"For the nonce? Get my borders in check and I try to rebuild the Riverlands from the damages that Harren visited upon us."
"Young but already thinking of the weight of the crown on your head." Most Devout Willis stood up. "I think you shall do fine as King of the Trident and Hills."
This time, I couldn't hold back the sardonic smile that crept onto my lips. "That only works if the other kingdoms play nice and keep to themselves."
"Have faith, your grace. Not all men are ruled by greed for gold or land. Some can even be guided to the right paths with the right words of wisdom counselled to them." The septon said this all as pleasant as could be, but as his words registered with me, I couldn't help but think;
How much is this going to cost me?
I sincerely doubted the right words of wisdom from sound counsel was going to come cheap.
That same old, same old smile plastered onto my face, I nodded my head. "I wouldn't mind hearing what you have to say, Most Devout."
Take a picture of the smile on the Most Devout's face and with the expression he wore and how he looked, one wouldn't think of him as anything more than a loving grandfather. Looks were deceiving, something that people learn once or twice in their life, mostly to their cost.
In my case, if I ever saw a picture of Willis posted onto a social media account, the snake emoticon would be out in a moment, cause this guy was a bloody snake and I was not amused. When Aegon burns the Faith to the ground, I was going to make sure I had front row seats.
Placing a soft hand on my shoulder, the Most Devout spoke. "Then we have much and much more to discuss."
***Kinda liking the political discussion lads about who whatever the SI's nickname is shall be marrying. I think it's going to be slightly left field when it eventually comes to mind.
And no, it's not going to be one of the Targaryens. As much as any reasonably sane man would like to have Visenya Targaryen walk all over them, Aegon isn't characterised as stupid enough as to hand off something like one of the only three dragons in the world (And second in size to Balerion I think (might be fanon or canon, can't remember) to someone who isn't even of Valyrian heritage is a bit of a hard sell.
Maybe if there was more than three dragons to share around.