40 Chapter 39

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xxxx

We rode out of the Red keep like a full military parade. One hundred Baratheon knights, steel plated and black-coated, their warhorses in full barding; and two of my kingsguards, Ser Lyle Crakehal and Ser Jaime Lannister, their scale armor and cloaks a brilliant white.

I rode between them, with fifty men behind and fifty in front of me. The sun was high in the centre of the sky, half-covered by snow-white clouds in a background of ocean-blue. My own cloak reflected the color of the sun, donned over my shoulders like a cloth of liquid gold, covering my night-black armor chased with silver. I left Lightbringer peeking out beneath the cloak, with a seven-colored flag tied on its scabbard. The colors of the gods.

It was a show, for the people and the nobles and the faith; one I had spent the whole morning preparing. I had remained in my rooms yesterday, as I had for the past two previous days since the attack, but I kept up with the whispers that Qyburn brought me from his informants in the city and Alyce's castle gossip every time she brought a meal.

The people hungered for me. I didn't think it was specifically Tommen of House Baratheon they wanted—the masses had barely seen me since Cersei died and I went daily to the sept. What they wanted was a savior, a messiah, someone who'd sweep all their troubles away and whisper of the promised land of ever-flowing wine and unfailing harvests.

Horse shit, all of it. But it just so happened that their king had killed an honest-to-gods demon in full view of nobles and peasant gold-cloaks alike. I had fallen into their lap, ripe for the picking, and the starving peasants were not going to pass up the chance to gobble it up.

I had known I would have to go out sooner or later, but Varys' death the night before rankled in the back of my mind, bothering me as much as the headache I got when I didn't have a hand on my ruby-hilted sword. It made me doubt everything I thought I knew of this world. "Long live the true king," he had said. Surely, he wouldn't say that to the king who was just about to murder him.

But Viserys was dead and gone; Jon Snow was a secret kept behind twenty years of Ned Stark's honor; and Daenerys was the Dragon Queen. Queen. That could only mean one thing—another player, one who'd been able to skirt by everyone's radar undetected. There was just one possibility left.

Aegon Targaryen. He who could be a son of Rhaegar as much as he could be a Blackfyre pretender. It didn't really matter which he was, a dragon of red or black; so long as people believed him—so long as some very important people believed him, he could toss his hat into the ring.

That changed everything: plans, definite allies, possible futures. All gone with nothing but a word. Varys sure knew how to go out in style.

So I had needed to do something to take my mind off my doubts. Even with the Spider gone, Qyburn's network already had a few people in place to keep myself informed. I couldn't falter and fall with every misstep.

And a messenger coming to my rooms in the early hours of the morning from Mace Tyrell—to notify me of the one million gold dragons that had just arrived for the Crown—was all the opportunity I needed.

Without missing a beat, I sent an urgent runner to Qyburn and to my grandfather. Tell the people, the note said. Send runners and heralds to every fucking corner of the city.

Tell them their king comes.

xxxx

We were surrounded the moment we crossed the gates. Throngs of people waited in the cobbled street outside, screaming and shouting and hollering. Varys wasn't lying when he said people were coming to pray for me.

I heard my name in a hundred different voices, calling out blessings and pleas. My Kingsguard squeezed closer around me, our knees bumping against each other, and the Baratheon knights closed ranks tighter on all sides.

"Make way!" I heard one of the lead knights boom. "Make way for your king!"

It was hard-work to move each step, and though the weather was chillier than usual for King's Landing, the mass of humanity crowding on all sides started baking me inside the plate armor.

We took minutes just to make it past the large open plaza outside the castle. With the way the nobles of the Seven Kingdoms were, I had no doubt some of my knights at the front of the convoy would pull out their swords and start carving a bloody path toward the Great Sept at the slightest inconvenience. I had made sure to let them know this was as much a ride around the city as it was a trip to meet the Most Devout, the Faith's highest council.

We slowly made our way down the main avenue that cut the city in half. The air was colder here, but fouler with shit and piss. Unlike the time I was showing myself as the devoted son of a recently deceased mother, I was someone else today. I was the Warrior and the Father come again, all jumbled up into one.

I sat unblinking and unmoving atop my massive ghost-white stallion, eyes staring forward, a hand on the handle of my sword. The most I gave the people was a nod, and all I got in return was awe.

When we were half-way to the Sept, with people lining the sides of the street, there was a commotion close to me. I turned to see a young woman rushing to my side. Two knights put heels on their horses and charged to intercept her, and she stopped before she could be run over. Before the knights could handle her, she revealed a bawling baby in her arms.

I quickly raised a hand to stop the knights from getting violent. "What is it, child?" I asked. No matter that she looked half a decade older than I. Despite the previous clamor in the street, all voices stopped to hear the king speak.

"Please, Yer Grace," the mother cried, "please, it's me babe. She's sick as a dog in winter. Her breathing's all rattling and weak. Please, m'lord."

"I see," I said. Time to play the Father. I smiled benevolently, making a show of it to the crowd around us, and put a gloved hand over the babe's head. "It shall be fine, my dear." I turned to the knight closest to her, and it was only luck I recognized him by name. "Ser Myles. Escort the lady back to the Keep, and have a maester care for the child."

Ser Myles nodded beneath his helm. The woman burst into tears, thanking and praising me like I'd just cured the kid myself. I motioned to the column, and we quickly rode off before all the sick of King's Landing mobbed us and I ended up getting some type of peasant plague.

We only came to a stop at the square before the Great Sept of Baelor, where not long ago, dear Ned Stark had lost his head. A crowd bigger than the one following our column was waiting for us. Thousands of people—a sea of heads young and old, male and female. Had my escort not been surrounding me three-men deep as we waded our way up the raised steps, they would've washed over me like a wave in their ecstasy.

I turned to address the mass. "My friends!" I cried, one hand up, then waited for the noise to die down like a patient father. I didn't have to wait long. This was what they were here for. "After what happened at the royal pavilion, I have been silent, it is true. I have been in deep reflection and communion with the Gods. But know that I have listened to your prayers; I have seen the candles lit at night; I have heard the songs. I now know that no king has ever had more faithful subjects. Yet I am a subject, too. What I did two nights ago, slaying that demon, was no more than my duty. I'm a servant of the Gods; the champion of the Gods! And no amount of Valyrian sorcery will bring your rightful king to his knees! That, I vow to you, my subjects!"

The cheers were deafening. I simply raised a hand again, and watched the crowd fall silent. "I have also heard… terrible things, my people. Things being done against you, in your own city, and by your own holy men." There were shouts now, then fists and kitchen knives waved in the air, all pointing at the sept behind me. And I knew that with a few words, I could topple down a religion that lasted for thousands of years. That power was intoxicating. "My heart bleeds with you—with all of you. And know that I shall not stand for it. For I know neither would the Gods. I will see this matter settled, now; and I will bring back the lost glory of the Faith and of the Crown." In a single movement, I pulled out Lightbringer, pointed it in the air, and shouted, "Baratheon!"

They screamed with me for what seemed like hours, until the chant morphed into shouts of "King Tommen! King Tommen!"

I smiled and nodded to my people. I definitely liked that one better.

I sheathed my sword back into its scabbard and gave the people a final wave, before starting back up the steps, heading toward the inner sept to meet with the Most Devout.

Words are wind, so it was said. And I doubted even one in a hundred of these people claiming eternal devotion would put themselves between myself and a drawn sword. So it was time to step up.

It was time I became the closest thing to a living god.