Maybe I should have gone and rode in a carriage." I fidgeted in my saddle, trying to find that right spot that didn't make it seem like the entirety of my ass was on fire. "At this rate, I'm going to develop buns of steel and not the good kind."
Lyam let out a laugh of no mild amusement before he started chastising me. "A young, healthy king just doesn't go about riding in a carriage. What do you think people will make of your strength?"
"That I don't want to ride everywhere on a goddamn horse?" I tapped my saddle with my index finger in annoyance. "My ass has been on a horse for several days and surprise, surprise, surprise, my ass finds itself on a horse again when I thought it wouldn't need to be on a horse again."
At this particular moment in time, I didn't actually care about the image that I was trying to portray here. Fuck the image politics that the Westerosi liked to play. I didn't care for any of that nonsense, all I wanted to do was sit my ass on something comfortably.
A saddle was not comfortable over long-term use.
"I miss cars." I sighed wistfully.
Lyam made a thoughtful face. "What is a car?"
"Never mind." I replied shaking my head. "I was just mumbling, a little too loudly by the sounds of things. How far behind are we again?"
"Half a day at worst. No more, I'm sure. Lord Brandon had said as much."
I let out a sound of annoyance as I followed the road as it bent behind some trees in the distance. "I'm still curious as to why they let them go just like that."
"It was a good idea."
"Don't try to defend them. You weren't there."
The fair haired lordling raised his shoulders up and down as he shrugged. "But they explained it to me. Like I said, it is a good idea, but foolish. A lordling of good repute and standing would have been a good enough envoy for the summoning's."
And yet my wife had apparently insinuated that she go herself, to make the likelihood of Luthor declining the invitation less likely. She had charms, my wife though her charms didn't seem to be as good as he brains.
"And anyway, I wouldn't worry about it too much. They have a three-score company of knights and guardsmen with them. The roads are patrolled regularly, no harm shall come to them."
I noticed the way he held the reins of his horse, tight and his knuckles near whitening. "You say that, but look at your hands. You are just as worried about Ellyn as I am worried about Zhoe."
His eyes drifted down to his hands and he smirked softly. "It seems that I don't have a leg to stand on when it comes to lecturing you about keeping yourself calm."
"No, you do not." I agreed with a shake of the head.
We continued following the road talking amongst ourselves. Lyam was nice enough to give me a good update to events that had occurred in court whilst I had been away. Apparently, some of the sort-of minor lords wanted to petition me about something.
There were new arrivals in the royal court, one of them someone I had been looking forward to have. Frankly, I thought it was about time that Torrhen had actually sent an emissary of his own down south.
"He made a good choice." I said in appreciation "The Manderlys are about as southron as you can get in the north. They are closer to us culturally than any other bannerman he could have sent and they hold great prestige and power in the north." I paused for a moment in my thoughts. "Hm, now that I think about it, Kevan might not at all be seen as someone of good enough standing to be involved in Winterfell's court."
Lyam made a sound as he agreed. "That's true, but who would we send?"
"I'm sure that is up to your particular department. Preferably someone who won't go out of their way to insult the northerners."
"You are not making this easy for me." Lyam said with a quiet chuckle. "Though I have to say, its far more difficult to find an envoy to send to Targaryen Freehold though. Do they have to speak Valyrian? The number of lords that can speak Valyrian in our lands, I can count them in... none of my hands."
I figured as much. Westeros was insular as fuck. "Valyrian isn't really necessary." I admitted with a defeated sigh. "But it would certainly make things go easier, but nonetheless, think you would be able to find a lordling who would be willing to put in the work to learn the language?"
Lyam was quiet for a moment. "With the right incentives, yes." By incentives, I think he meant rewards.
The bend in the road slowly started to turn straight...straight into a sight as if I just walked onto a battlefield.
"By the seven!" I heard Lyam breathe out as we noticed the litter of bodies that were located all over the or beside the road. In the distance was. "Hya!" Lyam snapped his reins and kicked the sides of his horse, launching it forward.
I wasn't far behind as we raced forward towards the wheelhouse I recognized. In my haste, I don't even recall trampling over some of the bodies in my way, though I doubted they would fare better from the hooves of the horses of the knights and guardsmen that had been in our little company.
The smell of blood greeted my nose like an old friend the closer we go, my stomach squirming at the images of a bloody body belonging to someone I had come to care for deeply. Gods, at least make it so that she didn't suffer if the images were to be true.
As we got closer, I noticed that people were moving around the wheelhouse and some were standing around it, as if on guard. I let out a breath of air in relief that I didn't even know that I was holding.
"Ellyn!" Lyam cried out in worry, clearly still worried as he pulled his horse short. "Ellyn!"
He was aout to shout again until a familiar face made itself known from the side of the road. "My lord?"
Lyam snapped his head to the voice and he quickly dismounted himself. "Ellyn!" He rushed over to her as I dismounted myself. "Are you hurt, my lady?" He asked, fretting over her, looking for wounds all over her body.
She shook her head. "No, I'm fine. The guardsmen and knights protected us. Husband, I have some terrible news for you, Ser Kyle is no longer in this world I'm afraid."
A leg slid back in shock. "What?"
I ignored the two for a moment as I noticed a familiar figure standing away at the side, looking away from the carnage. Walking myself towards her, I stopped before I reached her as she had spoken.
"I suppose you must think me a fool." Her voice was quiet with a tremble to it, as if she was trying to hold back tears. Her arms rose up and hugged her sides. "That this whole venture was foolhardy. Want to tell me that I should have sent an emissary? I know. I definitely think I should have."
I was quite surprised that she had been able to recognize me without even looking to face me. "It was a good idea." I said after thinking about it for a moment. "Not the best, but it was a good idea. You were right, it would have been difficult for Luthor to deny you in person, especially so when you are quite charming." I stopped and looked around for a moment. "What the fuck happened here?"
"The Noble and Puissant Order of the Warrior's Sons is what happened."
I blinked in confusion as her words registered with me. "The Swords?"
I looked around some more, this time taking in the bodies and grimaced. Many of them were just simple smallfolk, hacked to bloody bits and stood no chance. Some I recognised wearing armor and livery of House Tully or Mooton and some I didn't recognizing, wearing silver plate and mail.
"Oh, fuck Aegon!"
I had gone to Stoney Sept in a bid to work out some sort of deal with Willas. I had made concessions with me being willing to openly support the preaching of the Faith in the kingdom, to put some of my weight on the vassals on the condition that it was none of the vassals that worshipped the old gods.
I had made concessions.
And then Westeros happened.
I walked towards her and placed a hand on her shoulder. "Are you hurt, my lady?" I asked, gently turning her around.
"Physically? No." She said as she turned, wrapping her arms around my body and I returned the action. "But I think I shall be dreaming of this day for years to come. And I won't be looking forward to those dreams."
I knew what she spoke off and I breathed in and out before I spoke. "You get used to them."
"I will?"
"You have to." I told her. I wasn't a therapist. I didn't know what to do. "It's the only way. You can't let them ruin you. Now about these Warrior's Sons?"
I felt her nod her head. "Some lout by the name of Ser Tallard came to arrest Luthor by some order from a Most Devout named Florian," Oh good, so that meant I couldn't take a blunt instrument and ram it up Willas' arse... which brought me a question of who this Florian guy was. Wait, Willas had told me that he had been able to keep things under wraps, had he been lying to me? "His followers did not agree to that."
I winced as I looked at the bodies once more. "I thought they were sworn to protect the weak. They didn't have to kill them, I see women and some boys who look like they haven't even grown their first chin hair."
She shuddered in my arms. "They hacked them down. Ser Kyle ordered them to stop, but Ser Tallard struck him with a mighty blow of his mace and then, the rest-the-." She held back a sob and I stroked her hair.
"Shhh, I hear you. Just think of Ciri and Alfie. Ciri and Alfie. Just think of them."
I heard the sounds of foot steps behind me. "Your Grace," It was Lyam. And he was angry. "This must be answered for. The Faith holds no authority in these lands to order the arrest of one of your subjects, even if he was a rabble rouser."
"I know." Speaking of said rabble rouser. "Is he dead? Luthor, I mean."
"Not yet."
I left Zhoe in the care of Lady Ellyn, having the two sequestered into the wheelhouse for now and was led towards Luthor. It had been the man that had several people surrounding him and where Lady Ellyn had been.
He wasn't what I thought he would be. Quite average and forgettable, salt and pepper hair. That was about it.
I grimaced when I realized when news of his death spread, he was most certainly not going to be forgotten anytime soon. Or at all.
He was clutching a wound to his left side and he was pale and sweaty. People around him had tears in their eyes, but he seemed brave in the face of death. "Your Grace," He spoke with laboured breathing when he saw me. "I would stand, but I currently am not able to."
"...You have been causing quite the raucous and now, in you dying, more trouble than I would like to even see."
He tried to chuckle but instead coughed. "I was only defending what I believed in. What many believed in. What many saw. What many heard."
"Your thoughts about the Faith don't interest me, even if most of them are true." That caused him to widen his eyes some.
"You believe me?"
I kneeled down beside him. "Yes and no. I'm a sceptic. It's within my nature to not believe anything until I see cold hard truth."
"What about the gods then?"
"Oh them? I believe in them strongly." Perhaps not the Seven, but everything else, but just to be safe, I'll believe in them too. Got to cover my bases and all that. "Despite all that, this is not how I expected our first meeting to be. It seems your actions pissed off quite a lot of people."
"I-I expected as much," He coughed. "I was a threat. I would have been a fool to not think some of them would want me dead."
I rose to my feet. "Your time in this world is near an end, I think I'll leave the rest of your time in the companionship of your followers. I wouldn't want to deny you of that." He nodded before I left him.
Lyam was quiet for a moment before he spoke. "I spoke to one of the guardsmen, some of the Swords were able to escape, Ser Bernard gave chase with a group, but..."
"Most like some would escape back to friendly lands?" I finished for him.
Lyam nodded. "This doesn't bode well."
"I know." I closed my eyes in thought before turning to face my cousin. "It seems, we are to be at war soon."
"With the Faith?" He asked, frowning. "I don't like our odds of winning such a war."
"There aren't any odds to such a thing. We would lose if all of the southron kingdoms rallied against us. Best we can do though, is even up the board, even if it's just a little..."
"You have a course of action then?"
"Perhaps."
Man, fuck Aegon.