Prince Aemond Targaryen

  The wedding feast in the Great Hall was in full swing and, by all appearances, he would have to endure roughly as long as he had already sat. Slipping away from the wedding feast quietly, as Aemond had first hoped, did not work out: Cole stood like a stony overseer behind the backs of his and Heena's chairs, and besides, Mother gnced back at them with wearying regurity, having expressed quite clearly that they would have to wait for the bedding ceremony. It was pleasing at least that he was allowed to sit with his own brothers and sister—he was already fed up with the company of his cousins.

  Alyssa, who had become his sister-in-w today, was at times more of a man than the effeminate Jaehaerys. Baelon dispyed miracles of truly phenomenal stupidity, both at the tilt-yard and in the maester's lessons, though he had already turned twelve, like Daeron. Aemma could only talk about her wonderful Arrax; as if there were anything to be proud of—that runt almost fell into the sea on the way to the capital. Daemon the Younger and Viserys were, in essence, still children, and rarely annoying ones at that: Sister Rhaenyra had not managed to introduce them to the concepts of personal boundaries, decencies, and rules of conduct. Of their younger sisters, there was nothing to say at all; girls were girls.

  The celebration had already flowed from the decorous tasting of viands and the procmation of toasts to the young couple into conversations of everyone with everyone, interspersed with dances, vulgar songs, and even more vulgar jokes-advice to Aegon. One might think his brother needed advice—Aemond would not have been surprised if he were told that the Prince of Dragonstone had managed to father a bastard. This seemed to worry no one at all, except Mother.

  Having danced the requisite three dances, the newlyweds were now resting in their pces at the head of the table, gncing askance at each other, but mostly occupied each with themselves: Aegon was more interested in the contents of his goblet, Alyssa in the contents of her pte. Their father and uncle enjoyed the wedding most of all: with a goblet in hand, the King was now animatedly telling something to the Pentoshi heir apparent, the bride's cousin, now ughing at Rhaenyra's story either about his grandson-namesake or about one of the younger granddaughters, and she herself could not suppress her ughter and kept saying:

  "No, but listen!.."

  That his sister was a hypocritical bitch Aemond had understood long ago, but watching her fawn over Father as if nothing had happened, while in her pace behind the Bck Verge she did not mince words about him, was disgusting. The King would clearly not have liked to learn that his own daughter called him a "weakling" and "henpecked," but tattling was the lot of Viserys the Younger, who ratted out not only his uncle but also his own brothers and sisters to his parents. On one of his visits home, Aemond had somewhat confusedly and awkwardly retold his mother some of the expressions overheard in the Archon's Pace, but she only looked at him sternly and said she did not wish her son to repeat vile words and lies. Evidently, her stepdaughter's behavior was not news to her.

  Drums beat again, heralding the beginning of a new dance. Uncle Gwayne, after a benevolent wave from the King, graciously offered Mother his hand; passing their pces, she lingered slightly and, leaning towards his shoulder, whispered as if anyone could eavesdrop on them in such a hubbub:

  "Why are you sitting?!"

  "I already danced with Hel!"

  "But you should have with Princess Rhaena! Invite her, quickly!"

  Truth be told, he himself thought it would probably be more correct to dance with his future fiancée, but he did not want to go to the other end of the table.

  "Come on, Aemond," his smiling uncle encouraged him. "She is surely waiting for just that. Besides, Heena already has a partner."

  Indeed, Prince Aemon was already rising from his seat; surely, his parents were egging him on too.

  "And don't you dare get conceited," the Queen reminded him when he began to rise from his seat.

  "Big deal—you pummeled each other at the tilt-yard. After tournaments, I go around all of Oldtown with my rivals," his uncle chimed in.

  In honor of Aegon's wedding, Father had arranged a great tournament in which lords and knights from all Seven Kingdoms took part: even the seal-Manderlys had sailed from their chilly waters. Aegon and Jaehaerys, although they were knocked out of the lists in the middle of the contest, received knighthood from the Lord Commander of the Kingsguard. However, the true reasons why Criston Cole's sword y on both their shoulders concerned politics rather than martial skill: the future king could not be some squire at his own wedding, and the ruler of Tyrosh did not wish his son to yield to his cousin in anything.

  For squires who did not count on receiving spurs this year, a tournament had also been arranged two days ago, in which both Aemond and Aemon took part. The heir to Dragon's Heart was a year younger than him, but did not yield in height at all, and was even slightly broader in the shoulders and, as Father noted, threatened to take after their common grandfather, Baelon the Brave, in build.

  Naturally, it pleased the Warrior that the cousins should meet in a duel—it simply could not be otherwise. To Aemond himself, it seemed the fight sted an eternity, although Aegon ter swore it took only a few minutes. His cousin proved a strong opponent, and he took not only by strength but also by dexterity, quite unexpected from the ward of some sworn shield. They fought with heavy blunted swords—no better than clubs—and Aemond nearly broke his arms when his cousin tried to disarm him and knock out the bde. However, this did not help the White Dragon's son—he lost the fight, and marks remained on him: Aemond managed to knock the helmet off his cousin, and now he sported a cut brow and an abrasion on his cheekbone. Daemon, instead of praise for a worthy fight, and one ending in victory at that, only dropped discontentedly that his squire could have tried harder and smashed the opponent's nose.

  Drawing level with the Prince, his cousin grinned foolishly, evidently thinking of his opponent at the tilt-yard just as Uncle Gwayne did, and pronounced, trying to drown out the din of the feasters:

  "Still, we cshed gloriously the day before yesterday!"

  "Yes," Aemond nodded. Mother had ordered him not to get conceited, but he did not intend to be overly friendly with Aemon either.

  "We should try again sometime. What say you?"

  "Yes, perhaps."

  "You are not returning to Tyrosh tomorrow anyway, are you?"

  When his mentor would take it into his head to return to Tyrosh, Aemond had not the slightest idea. Perhaps Daemon would now stick around the Red Keep again and look after his daughter? In any case, he told his squire about his pns only when they directly concerned him and Aemond directly needed to do something or go somewhere. Such demonstrative neglect and distrust was generally understandable, but could not fail to infuriate. Even more annoying was that the Prince depended on this man and could not give a clear answer to such a simple question.

  "I do not know," he was forced to admit. "As Prince Daemon decides."

  More precisely, as Rhaenyra decides. That his sister twisted her husband as she wished, Aemond had been convinced long ago: in Tyrosh and the Stepstones, there was no affair into which she had not managed to stick her nose, no question in which she did not fancy herself an archmaester, no day she did not advise Daemon to act thus and so. The entire Archon's Pace was soaked with her intrigues, secrets, and omissions behind a mask of false smiles. She always said only the most necessary, receiving in return exactly what she required. In recent months, the Prince noticed that his sister, as if by chance, seated him at the table next to Aemma, sent her to watch his training and strainedly admire his successes, lie in wait in the corridors and gardens of the pace... It was not difficult to put two and two together—they were trying to bring them together, make them fall in love, and force the dissolution of the betrothal with the Whites. Aemond harbored no feelings for his future fiancée, but better to marry at the direction of Father and Mother than to be an obedient puppet in Rhaenyra's hands.

  "I do not think Uncle will rush off somewhere after such a celebration," Aemon continued meanwhile. "In any case..."

  "Yes, yes, of course."

  So many words for the sake of one simple question; the cousin clearly took after his father in verbosity. Leaving his opponent behind, Aemond approached his family's pces. Prince Aegon the Clubfoot, as always all in white, portrayed a sembnce of a benevolent smile and tilted his head slightly to the right in a dragon-like manner, where Rhaena sat, naturally understanding why his nephew had come. Green eyes fshed, and as if echoing them, a pair of amber csps on his uncle's cloak fshed—it was not the first time the youth caught himself thinking that the famous Dragon's Eyes seemed alive to him. Rhaenyra bestowed the same curiously condescending look, filled with deceit, upon him as soon as he appeared before her eyes, and enduring such was humiliating. Gathering his courage, Aemond blurted out:

  "Will Princess Rhaena do me the honor and..."

  A good formal beginning stumbled over its own ornateness. "...and dance with me"? "...and partner me for the coming dance"? Or for "this dance"? Meanwhile, the small hitch turned into an increasingly awkward pause, and Rhaena, evidently wishing to help him, hastened to answer:

  "Yes, Cousin, of course! Only if..."

  And why interrupt? Now everyone will think he cannot string two words together. His cousin looked back at her father; he smiled a little wider—that accursed look again!—and nodded graciously.

  "I am no great dancer, so you, Nephew, will have to take the rap for me."

  "But you wanted to py something, didn't you?" Rhaena asked.

  "Maybe ter. Go, or you will be te."

  Clenching his jaw, the Prince offered his hand to his future fiancée and led her to the dancers already lined up in rows in the rge aisle before the royal dais. Passing Mother, Aemond felt her strict and demanding gaze on the back of his head and, obeying an unspoken order, paid his cousin a compliment:

  "This dress suits you very well."

  Truth be told, he only just examined it. A dress like any other, nothing special. Pearl-white with a high colr and full skirts and bck-and-red scales on the bodice. Her sister had exactly the same, only bck, embroidered with silver thread and small garnets. However, Rhaena cast down her eyes in embarrassment and murmured some words of gratitude, drowned in the noise of conversations and another rumble of drums.

  Finding a free pce in one of the rows of dancers, they took their positions, and just in time: one of the drums boomed once, another, a third, and the musicians in the upper gallery broke loose. Rising on tiptoe and bowing to his cousin, Aemond thought that Uncle Aegon had surely distributed the sheet music to them, just as he had taught the choir of the Queen's Sept to sing.

  If Daemon is right in anything, it is in his opinion of the Master of Dragons and his rotten nature. Half-maester, half-minstrel, and a cripple besides—and yet the rider of the Bronze Fury! All this learning would not have been wasted, as it was not wasted in Archmaester Vaegon, but his uncle did not want to take vows, and now considered it his inalienable right and sacred duty to interfere in every matter and decide the fates of the realm in the Small Council, poisoning everything around with his speeches as surely as with poisoned daggers. But it is immediately clear who was involved in Rhaenyra's upbringing—the same inveterate intriguer, smiling sweetly but hiding a bde in a harmless cane; except that their uncle was smarter, more experienced, more sophisticated, and therefore much more dangerous.

  "I confess, I did not think I would worry so much during your duel with Aemon," his cousin admitted when, holding hands, they circled around each other.

  "The swords were blunt," Aemond answered dryly, counting to himself so as not to lose the rhythm. His cousin seemed not to need this.

  "I know, but still..."

  They parted, and the conversation was interrupted. For a moment, the crowd parted, and Aemond saw the hulk of the Iron Throne towering above everyone, and beneath it the royal dais and Father at the table. King Viserys, when not speaking to anyone, looked tired, slightly bloated, which gave his appearance a slovenliness even in royal robes; his face was grey, as if he were tormented by indigestion. The Prince smiled encouragingly at him, though he understood that he was unlikely to discern him among the revelers.

  The dancers changed pces again, and Aemond's gaze glided over his mother with Uncle Gwayne before picking out Heena and Aemon from the general mass. His cousin, with the same foolish expression on his face marked by the Prince, was telling his sister something, and she was smiling. The barely regained mood immediately left Aemond, giving way to sticky jealousy: when it was his turn to dance with Hel, she only looked somewhere over his shoulder. Aemon was her betrothed, of course, but the Prince wanted to measure strength with him again right now.

  In the end, he was too distracted and, losing his step after all, stepped on the hem of one of his partner's numerous skirts. A short tearing sound was heard, barely distinguishable over the music, but outrageously loud for the two of them.

  "Forgive me," Aemond muttered.

  "It is nothing," Rhaena smiled, but it seemed to him that she did not sound very sincere. "I will fix it ter."

  They changed hands, the Prince helped his cousin turn around her axis, and stood on the right, embracing her waist.

  "I confess, I am gd you won," she returned to the tournament again.

  "Aemon is simply younger; he needs to train more," it sounded as if he were not fourteen, but forty, and Lord Commander of the Kingsguard, no less.

  "Ser Dennis told him just that."

  That was the st straw, for his opinion to be compared with the opinion of a sworn shield.

  The music accelerated, and they galloped more briskly in a circle. Looking at one's feet was not allowed, so it was not easy to make sure not to step on the dress again. Despite the annoying misunderstanding, Rhaena still smiled at him, but Aemond could not find the strength for a responding smile.

  The bride was beautiful, of course, but her beauty was vulgarized by Jaehaerys's banal verses trying to praise the beauty of her twin sister, and he did not want to liken himself to his cousin-nephew. The bride was nice to him, but this coquetry seemed just as much a formality and necessity as the address "my lord" or "my dy"; Father had agreed with Uncle Aegon on their marriage—it was not necessary for them to love each other, and Aemond, hand on heart, did not believe his cousin was sincere. What sincerity can be expected from a marriage of convenience? His brother expected nothing of the sort, and advised him not to.

  Finally, the flutes shrieked for the st time and fell silent. The dancing couples stopped, bowed ceremoniously to each other, and began to disperse. Aemond took his cousin by the arm and led her back to her family's table.

  "Thank you for the dance," she thanked him.

  "It seems I ruined your dress."

  The Prince lowered his gaze for the first time and tried to find among the numerous snow-white ruffles the one unlucky enough to fall under his boot. Some were slightly more crumpled than others, but he could not identify the victim among them.

  "I told you: it is nothing. Mother once said that if a dress is not torn anywhere after a feast, then the feast was boring and passed in vain. For some reason, Bae likes this phrase very much."

  How vulgar, Aemond thought and barely refrained from rolling his eyes. The contrast between Uncle Aegon's schorship and his wife's reckless character was surprising; by all appearances, they were both quite satisfied with each other and their own marriage, but this was exactly what amazed him.

  "A very strange criterion," the youth remarked dryly.

  "It always seemed so to me too," Rhaena giggled. "When Father heard about it, he crified that someone else must tear the dress, and if a dy tore it herself, it does not count. So one can say we correspond to this after all."

  Aemond shook his head, which could be interpreted as silent agreement if desired. The Prince did not wish to continue the conversation with his cousin, which the further it went, the more it resembled bawdy conversations with his elder brother.

  Fortunately, the Whites' table allowed avoiding awkwardness, but gave birth to another instead.

  "You dance beautifully, Prince," a pleased Lady Laena remarked.

  Something courteous should have been answered to this, and Aemond found nothing better than to say:

  "I had to match my cousin's grace," gods, what nonsense is he spouting?!

  She positively bloomed at these words, and the Prince was surprised again at how women react even to the most foolish compliment.

  "I see my namesake nephew is enjoying his wedding feast," Uncle Aegon remarked with a slight smile and malice in his voice. Aemond looked back to see his brother—he had just set aside his goblet and began to torment the contents of his pte with the obsession of a hungry beggar.

  "It's for courage," the Prince tried to justify the groom.

  "'For courage' was three goblets ago," the Master of Dragon's Heart snorted.

  "I do not think Princess Alyssa can frighten him with anything," Lady Laena remarked.

  "Or surprise."

  "Perhaps," Aemond preferred to agree with them.

  With what a woman is capable of giving a man, his brother was already familiar, and quite intimately. Aegon truly did not need this wedding, and he cared nothing for the bride: he married by the will of his father and uncles, and had Heena, Bae, Rhaena, or any other dy of the Seven Kingdoms been in Alyssa's pce, he would have behaved the same.

  Meanwhile, out of the corner of his eye, the Prince noticed that Jaehaerys and Bae, who had missed the st dance, were returning to the Whites' seats. Unlike himself, his cousin-nephew was already head over heels in love with his fiancée, adding another reason for annoyance to his father and Aemond, and to his brothers—for endless and invariably stupid jokes. In Tyrosh, when Uncle Daemon did not hear, Jace allowed himself to dream of their own wedding, which was to be the second in the series of their family betrothals. On the first day of the tournament, he stopped before the royal box and asked his fiancée for permission to wear her favor, and she very willingly allowed him to do so; with her white ribbon on his coal-bck nce, Jace unhorsed seven opponents.

  Now they too looked so much like a perfect pair of lovers that they could pass for a miniature for some foolish knightly romance that Mother sometimes read, naturally, with the adjustment that both were dragon riders. Aemond was not envious, no, but he did not wish to tolerate other people's mawkishness either. Jace annoyed him considerably with his "correctness" as it was, and here he would have to portray peaceful retions before Uncle Aegon. In due time, the heir to Tyrosh would receive the richest and vastest fief, and Aemond would remain a hanger-on if not with his brother, then with his uncle. Certain consotion was given by the fact that the Prince wielded a sword better than his cousin, which even Daemon admitted, and Vhagar chose him as her rider, not someone else, but sometimes this was not enough.

  Daemon did everything so that no competitor to his sons would come out of him, so that he could not ter challenge the right to Dark Sister. Instead of teaching real combat, he was forced to swing a training sword or spear, practicing the same simplest lunge or elementary defense for endless hours. Again and again, the King of Tyrosh found a fw in the simplest actions of his squire and forced him to practice them anew, without really expining what the mistake was. At the same time, Jaehaerys was expined in detail both combat technique, and others' mistakes, and, more importantly, his own, and combat was conducted with him regurly and often—in short, he was taught, unlike Aemond, who was still considered "unready" for a new level of training.

  Any miss or mistake of his was ruthlessly ridiculed, repeatedly retold and dispyed before the garrison of the Bck Verge training at the same tilt-yard, and baseborn rabble, sons of Tyroshi shopkeepers and beggar seventh sons of ndless knights, neighed at a Prince of the Seven Kingdoms as if he were a mummer at a festival. It was useless to be indignant, as well as to quarrel with Daemon or ask Father about it:

  "The more you hate me, the more you will learn," was all he said in response, but even that did not help. Aemond hated, but it did not help; every achievement had to be gnawed out with teeth, every skill was born in torments no one dreamed of, and which would not have existed had his mentor treated the training of a squire responsibly, as befits a knight.

  Muttering apologies to Uncle Aegon, his dy wife, and daughter, Aemond hastened to move further away from the tables. The dancers were in no hurry to return to the tables, and it proved easy to merge with the crowd. He did not want to sit next to the silent Heena again, and he retreated to the side aisles, where it was not so crowded. The youth stopped in one of the high window niches, leaning his forehead against the multicolored gss: a purple dragon spreading its wings on the stained gss soared up the red heavens, and a fresh evening breeze penetrated through the lower ajar shutters, seeming sweeter to him than any wine.

  The noise of a thousand speaking mouths was in his ears, his legs and back buzzed—he had not thought he managed to get so exhausted. As if echoing his thoughts, a deep voice sounded nearby:

  "Andal weddings are quite tiresome, aren't they?"

  Aemond reluctantly turned around, already prepared for a new flight from an unwanted interlocutor, but the words stuck in his throat. Beside him stood Lady Viserra Ilyleon. The Prince was acquainted with Lord Jaegaer's sister, but she appeared rarely in the Archon's Pace; at first, it seemed to Aemond that she was not invited on purpose, but once his sister let slip that their second cousin herself did not wish to burden herself with court conventions.

  In all the five years he spent as a squire to Uncle Daemon, they had not exchanged a dozen phrases, but every meeting with her inevitably remained in memory: at her age, Lady Viserra was incredibly, almost divinely beautiful. Compared to her, other women, even his sister with Lady Laena, looked like painted cooks. Whatever she was dressed in, she always attracted the gazes of all men around her, because any of her numerous outfits, none of which was worn twice, emphasized a magnificent figure, full high breasts, a thin, almost girlish waist, and rounded buttocks that were tightened by fabric with every movement of Viserra. Unlike Rhaenyra, who preferred amethysts and Valyrian steel, Lady Viserra always wore only white gold and diamonds, making her look like a star descended from the night sky.

  The dy arrived at the celebration with her brother, mother, and nephews, and was dressed in a sky-blue gown, and numerous gold bracelets with dragon heads climbed up her bare arms with boiling-white skin from wrist to elbow. Aemond swallowed deafeningly loudly and forced himself to raise his eyes from the deep neckline to the face of the involuntary interlocutor.

  "My dy," he somehow managed to squeeze out a greeting.

  "In Vontis, everything is quite different," Lady Viserra continued. "The wedding begins closer to evening, and guests, like hosts, can calmly have fun even until morning, even until dinner, if they wish, but here... Started in the morning, and with the most boring part at that, and by sunset everyone is already drunk enough to see nothing but the goblet."

  "The wedding ceremony is a mandatory rite..."

  "Ah, leave this nonsense for your mother, boy," she waved away his weak objections. "One can invite septons, red priests, priestesses of the Panther to the feast—essentially, they all need to say only a couple of words that do not differ much from each other. But no, my great cousin wants a real, proper wedding for his son. I am sure our sweet king would have managed with less."

  She called Father "great cousin," and apparently not without irony, and Daemon "sweet king." For a moment, resentment and anger rose in Aemond's soul: the slip of the tongue was characteristic of Tyroshi—they usually called his uncle "king," and his elder brother-liege only with some crification, and not always complimentary,—but for some reason, from Viserra's lips it sounded most offensive of all. Evidently, this managed to reflect on his face, because she ughed melodiously, and touched his elbow soothingly:

  "I hope I haven't offended you? I still can't get used to two of my cousins wearing crowns."

  A spark seemed to run up his arm to his shoulder, and all anger flew out the window slit.

  "No," the Prince shook his head. "Not at all. It is strange to me myself... That Uncle Daemon wears a crown."

  "But agree, it suits him."

  "Yes..." sensing the topic had exhausted itself, Aemond tried to start a small talk. Uncle Gwayne always managed this easily and naturally, and, as he said, one always had to start with some insignificant nonsense. "You have been to the Red Keep before, haven't you?"

  "Yes, several years ago," Lady Viserra remarked absently, and elegantly sipped from the goblet she had been twirling in her hands before. "I don't like it here."

  "Is Tyrosh so much better?"

  "Of course. It looks more like Vontis, although against its background it looks like a big vilge."

  "But Vontis is also just a shadow of the City of Valyria."

  "Probably," she shrugged. Apparently, the simirity of the New and Old Freehold did not bother her at all.

  "How are your... establishments?" scarcely had the question slipped from his tongue than Aemond nearly spped himself. To ask a noble dy about such things—one had to think of that!

  "Mother has no time to look after her girls and boys, so she dumped everything on me. It was always more interesting for her to py big, and against the background of the whole Tyrosh, some brothels are too small."

  Princess Saera, despite the venerable age of fifty-nine, held a post with the loud name "Lady Chancellor" and served Uncle Daemon as a link with southeastern Essos: even though almost twenty years had passed since her flight from the banks of the Rhoyne, her connections, knowledge, and experience were still in demand.

  "And would you not like to sit in the Council with Uncle yourself?"

  "One Ilyleon there is more than enough," she chuckled. "Wiping royal asses is terribly tiresome; let brother take the rap for me. I don't need other people's cares and troubles. Truth be told, were Jaegaer not silver-haired, he would have been sporting grey hair long ago."

  "Uncle Daemon dumps a lot on him," Aemond agreed.

  "Jaegaer allows a lot to be dumped on him. That is not the same thing, so it is his own fault. Rest assured, even now his thoughts are not here, but in the Bloodstone Tower or in his Verge, or at sea, or somewhere on the border... He looks at a pig with an apple in its mouth, but sees a Vontene galley."

  Lord Viceroy Jaegaer was Hand in Tyrosh in all but name, and his duties were so vast that sometimes the Prince was surprised how their kinsman managed anything at all and remembered. The ships of Lord Admiral Rogar Veryon, the army of Lord Marshal Tygett Lanny in the Disputed Lands, the mint of Lord Treasurer Raagio Velgaris, ravens and letters of Maester Gerardys seemed to occupy the thoughts of the Viceroy of Tyrosh constantly and simultaneously, and could be presented to Uncle Daemon at any moment, should he suddenly take it into his head to inquire about affairs in his kingdom.

  In recent months, his advisors were mainly occupied with one question: would Vontis decide to demand a revision of the new treaty with Tyrosh. Princess Saera's old acquaintances warned in their letters that the Old Blood considered the new duty regime established by Uncle Daemon after the revision of the first agreement between the Kingdom of the Stepstones and the New Freehold too "predatory." Allegedly, the new articles turned Vontis, the First Daughter of Valyria, into a junior partner of the isnd kingdom of the Targaryens. In fairness, the fee for passage through the Stepstones had indeed turned from reasonable and fair into completely unconscionable exactions. The offended eyks, not satisfied with battles on paper ships in a sea of ink, were preparing for a real war, gathering an army, equipping a fleet, building new wonder-scorpions—in short, doing everything to ensure success or at least hope for success in a war in which dragons would participate.

  The Lord Treasurer, however, believed all this was empty saber-rattling, and a small bird in the hand of the triarchs should outweigh a dragon in the sky. The Princess and her son-viceroy believed the risk should not be dismissed so simply. Daemon himself shared Velgaris's position, but still ordered him to allocate funds to strengthen the city's defense, and his vassals—to be ready to call the banners, and against the background of all these preparations, calmly prepared for his daughter's wedding. To all warnings of "trembling souls," as he called panic-mongers, the ruler of Tyrosh advised looking into the restored dragon pit at the pace and looking at his Blood Wyrm. It wouldn't hurt the Old Blood themselves to do this: Caraxes' neighbor was Vhagar, and the mere sight of the old she-dragon would clearly discourage the arrogant Vontenes, who did not imagine the true power of these beasts, from starting a war.

  "Do you think there will be a war?" Aemond asked.

  "I have no idea," Lady Viserra shrugged again. "I don't care: people will fuck regardless of whether there is a war or not. Although, it's a pity for Vontis. My sweet cousin will surely burn not only their fleet but also the port, and the New City up to the Bck Walls. And maybe the Bck Walls themselves, who knows what will come into his head."

  "Only my sister knows that," the Prince grimaced.

  "Really?" the question was asked in such a tone that the youth felt like the st of fools.

  While he was figuring out where exactly he had blundered and how it could be fixed, Lady Viserra drank the rest of the wine in one gulp and looked into the empty goblet with regret. Pursing her full lips discontentedly, she said after a little thought:

  "Need to find more. Will you keep me company?"

  "Of course..." he had not finished speaking when the dy already took him by the elbow and confidently led him back to the tables.

  The woman's side, to which he was possessively pressed, seemed as hot as Vhagar's fnk if touched without a glove. Pulse beat in his head, his neck burned for some reason, the velvet doublet and breeches seemed ugly compared to the magnificent silk dress, uncomfortable and tight.

  Numerous guests turned to look at them, followed them with interested gnces, only to discuss it with neighbors immediately, but Aemond perceived all this as if through thick Myrish gss. How comical they must have looked from the side! A tall beauty and a young squire (not even a knight!) fit to be her son. Lady Viserra apparently knew how to read minds, because as soon as he thought about it, she squeezed his elbow a little tighter and said in an undertone:

  "The Queen will be furious, won't she?"

  "Maybe."

  "Not maybe, but definitely," the dy smirked. "I don't favor her, and she despises me. Remember, boy, hatred is the only mutual feeling."

  Aemond did not have time to react to this philosophical passage. Viserra nodded toward the royal dais and giggled:

  "We've been noticed."

  Raising his eyes, the Prince met his mother's icy gaze, which boded nothing good. According to her, his father's cousin was worse than any fallen woman because she gave her "avaibility" to almost anyone, without even taking money for it. This was not the whole truth, but the Queen did not wish to know it, and Aemond, having once run into a severe rebuke, no longer tried to open his mother's eyes. Lady Viserra indeed kept several elite brothels, arranged or bought out by Princess Saera once, but did not sell herself, and to get into the number of her lovers, one had to pass a strict selection, and the thickness of the purse was by no means the determining criterion.

  "I don't care," the word escaped him before he had time to realize it.

  "Only fourteen, and already spitting on your own mother?" undisguised amusement was heard in Lady Viserra's voice. "My brother and I started the same way in our time. Tell me better, why does a Rhoynar serve her?"

  Beside the Queen, with a decanter of wine in her hand, stood a dark-skinned girl in a bck-and-green dress amazingly unsuited to her, worn by his mother's chambermaids and maids. Her bck hair was pulled back at the nape into a simple knot, and she wore no jewelry at all.

  "That is Nettle... That is, Lady Crissa Sand," the Prince expined. "She is Mother's cupbearer. Uncle Daemon's bastard."

  "Ah, that one... So, your mother decided to show miracles of holiness and tolerance? Not only is she Dornish, but a bastard too."

  "In childhood she was a companion to Hel... Heena, and then Mother took her into service out of charity."

  "You know her mother abandoned her? Preferred to be a nurse to my sweet nephews rather than raise her own baseborn daughter—so she tells everyone, but I, boy, know the truth," Lady Viserra leaned towards him, and goosebumps ran down his body from her hot breath tickling his ear. "She missed your uncle's cock. Yes, yes, the true reason is in this."

  The dy straightened up, ughed melodiously again, and looked at the royal dais with a perky smile.

  "Unfortunately for her, Daemon has forgotten about Cora, however much she tries to fawn over him. Your sister holds our sweet king too tightly by the cock."

  "Yes, I noticed."

  "Really?!" it seemed his comment amused her considerably. "Well, commendable observation."

  While Aemond burned with shame, for his words seemed to have been taken as if he were peeping at his sister, Lady Viserra caught a passing cupbearer by the sleeve and shoved the goblet under his nose. The servant obediently filled it, but the dy said strictly:

  "Are you blind? Don't see the edges?" and the poor fellow had to pour more.

  Halving the goblet in a single gulp, Viserra moved leisurely down the aisle, and guests parted before her as other dragons parted before Vhagar.

  "So, you pyed with this Rhoynar in childhood?"

  "Only Hel. Although Aegon boasted that he managed to kiss her."

  "I'd give my head to be cut off, he didn't only kiss her," his interlocutor smirked.

  "Most likely," Aemond nodded. He did not doubt in the slightest that his elder brother had managed to form a much closer acquaintance with his mother's cupbearer.

  "Well, and you?"

  "What about me?"

  "Did you kiss her?"

  "N-no!"

  "Why, brother didn't want to share? or don't want to pick up after him?"

  "No, I... I generally..."

  "So, a completely innocent little mb," Lady Viserra drawled with a condescending smile.

  Aemond did not even have time to be indignant, let alone answer, when suddenly someone barked right behind his back:

  "To bed!"

  "To bed, to bed! Bedding! Time for bed!" immediately rang out from all sides. The drum boomed again, the musicians struck up the appropriate song, which numerous drunken guests joyfully picked up.

  "I'll go see what they'll use to fuck our future queen," Viserra chuckled. "Don't be bored, sweetie."

  Saying this, she swayed her hips and dissolved into the cmoring crowd rushing toward the newlyweds' table, leaving Aemond in complete confusion of feelings, with a neck burning with shame and a wildly beating heart.

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