Chapter 52

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We handed the horses to the stable-boys at the first inner yard after the barbican, dismounting in a jump. Horsemanship was never something I'd tried before becoming Tommen, but life as a medieval king had a way of teaching you one way or another. Nobody would ever award me a winner's laurel in a tourney joust, but I had been practicing mounted fighting as much as with my two feet beneath me.

Unless they'd been taken down, you won't see a nobleman fighting on foot with the rest of the smallfolk. Not only is it unseemly, it's also fucking dangerous.

It was still the early hours of the afternoon, Margaery having dragged me to the sept at an ungodly hour to start the rehearsal. The redstones that gave my castle its name shimmered in the heat, and unless you were an armored guard or a king trying to maintain a larger than life image, a simple shirt and breeches were the way to go for the men toiling under the sun. The cold breath of winter had yet to arrive in King's Landing.

Ser Lyle Crakehall stayed by my side while the other Baratheon men-at-arms that had gone out with me went back to their regular duties in the Keep. He was sweating heavily under his scale armor and white-cloak, and a scowl marred his weather-worn face.

He was a war veteran, so I knew the heat was the least of his reasons. "I take this wasn't everything you'd hoped for, Ser Lyle?" I asked.

The Strongboar didn't even bother looking abashed. "Aye, Your Grace, if you don't mind me saying. It's a whole lot of walking around and bloody standing still as a statue."

I laughed. What did he expect? This was the secret service, not the navy seals. Still, I saw his point. I was missing some action myself. "Perhaps you've spent too long listening to stories of Aemon the Dragonknight, ser. If it makes you feel any better, you'll be the first one I call if I ever end up in a hanging cage surrounded by vipers in Dorne."

He blanched, a strange expression in the usually boisterous man. "Uhr, I'd rather not, Your Grace. The bloody things terrify me. Too much slithering about for me."

"Well, in any event, it's a shame you missed the shadow-demon attack. There was plenty of steel-bearing that night."

"Oh, but I've heard the stories alright, Your Grace," he said. "You can still catch it going around the watchfires in the Keep at night. The men revere you, like a hero in the songs. They say it was a grander duel then Ser Gwayne Corbray and Daemon Blackfyre's valyrian steel clash, or Ser Barristan and Maelys the Monstrous in the War of the Ninepenny Kings."

I was pretty sure any of those men would butcher me as easy as they would a toddler with a stick at this point, but no one needed to know that "My brother had a statue made of him standing over the Stark direwolf, and he never even saw a man in mail and furs, much less traded blows with him. Perhaps it's time a have one of my own,

The Strongboar boomed in laughter. "I'd give it an hour before the men and women of the Keep started praying to it."

I paused mid-step. That… wasn't a bad idea at all. A cult of personality had to start somewhere, no? But first, I had to secure my position as the only possible king. And it just so happened that I'd overheard that a ship from Oldtown had made port here the day before.

Ser Lyle had stopped with me. "Where to now, Your Grace?"

Oh, he wasn't going to like this. I turned and started walking the opposite way from the main castle, passing by the stables into another courtyard. "I have to see about some reading, ser."

Ser Lyle groaned, but followed me either way. Such was the life of a white-cloak.

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I left the rookery as soon as I had the parcel in hand. Grand Maester Pycelle tried to make conversation thrice about this or that matter—and I did make sure to be less of dick to him this time—but his rumbling grand-fatherly voice still tickled me the wrong way. As soon as Tywin was gone I'd see him permanently removed.

Twenty years ago the Grand Maester was already an old man. No one would look in askance if he slipped and fell headfirst into a grave. One Lannister spy in my small council was more than enough, and I was sure Kevan would do the job to perfection.

Besides, his usefulness had more than expired now that I had the book. I carried it casually with me through the castle halls, nodding and exchanging quick words with any one, noble or servant, who stopped to bow my way. There was no reason to act shifty and get the attention of others to it.

When we finally reached my rooms, and Ser Lyle stayed outside to guard my door, I locked myself inside my solar and opened the parcel. The book inside showed its age; the white vellum of the pages had turned yellow at the fringes, and cracks ran through the black leather that bound them all together.

I leafed through it carefully, inching toward the final pages… and there it was.

Spring 283

Prince Rhaegar came to me as the final days of winter thawed into spring. It was foolishness, I knew, on his part and on the Stark girl's. And on mine, as well, for going through with it. But the Prince commanded it. What choice did I have, in the end? First, I issued the annulment of his marriage to the Princess Elia of Dorne. When they found the Northerners were looking for her, we fled south, deeper into the Reach, then further into Dorne. I married them in front of an accursed Heart trees, as per the girl's wishes, in a secret ceremony where only I and the Kingsguards, Ser Osmund Whent and Ser Arthur Dayne, stood to witness.

I set the diary back down on the table and leaned back, considering. I'd always intended to simply toss the book into my lit hearth and watch it take to flames. The threat of another Targaryen princeling dying in fire was poetic, in my mind.

But Jon had been suddenly bumped down my list of priorities with Varys' revelation, and on the line of succession as well. As far as I knew, even with their marriage annulled, Elia's male child still stood first to inherit the Iron Throne. But many lords in the Reach and the Stormlands—even the ones who still held Targaryen sympathies—hated the Dornish more than they loved the Dragonlords.

Perhaps the diary, and the succession-crisis-in-the-making within, could see a better use than simply turning to kindling. I flipped the book closed and put it together with my collection of diaries and journals, from maesters to hands and princes of the realm.

It would sit there, as just another of the many I kept in the small library by my desk. Waiting for the dragon's coming.