A Short Reach Is No State for a Hand (The Storm) (I)

THE STORM

"-. 274 AC .-"

Gods below, King's Landing smelled like shit! Even after his prior visits, the stench was so overpowering that he nearly fell over as soon as they entered the harbour. Which would have been an embarrassing end to the glorious epic of his life, seeing as he was standing atop the Windproud's highest spar at the time! Fortunately, he was able to climb down the rigging without suffering anything more serious than rope burn. Not that Cressen fussed over him any less, but that was par for the course with the good maester. Honestly, that man! And he didn't have the decency to even pretend at having the same problem. Goes to show what sort of iron stomach tasting piss every morning gets you.

They arrived half-way through low tide while the bigger quays were already occupied, so the Windproud couldn't dock outright, having to instead lay anchor out in the shallows. That was all to the good though! It let him send a few men ahead of their own boat to ready horses and scout out the situation, as it were. Which they did most gallantly!

If only he could say the same about the news, but he couldn't! It wasn't gallant! It wasn't gallant at all!

One frantic dash to their new mounts and a positively unheroic charge to the Red Keep later, Steffon Baratheon barged into the Great Hall just in time to hear the tail-ends of the verdict.

"-the gall to present yourself now, after all is said and done, and claim no part! You, whose forebears all but dispossessed House Targaryen during the Dance of Dragons! You sit there professing innocence as if we should be unaware that Hightower has always played both sides whenever others sought to usurp the Seven Kingdoms and its way of life! The streets of Oldtown are red with the blood of those you silenced, and still you'd have me believe you and yours were wholly nonbelligerent! Even though your actions are the singular reason why none may make any account of the truth! And now you dare mock the Gods as well, throwing my offer of Trial by Battle in my face! But then you would, wouldn't you? You Hightowers never fight a battle you don't stack, why would you start here? I wonder, is there even anyone left that would speak for you now?"

"Forsooth!" Steffon bellowed, pushing past the last gawkers into the open. "Who cares about speaking for him, I've a mind to speak at him a spell! You!"

Lord Leyton Hightower stared at him from where he was kneeling at the foot of the throne, two Kingsguard swords crossed at his neck.

"Yes, you! What's wrong with you? Stop gawking, man! So what if everyone's a pussy and won't fight for you? Who cares if it's a Kingsguard pulling the other sword? So what if you don't think you'll win, you should still try! Oh, it's hopeless so there's no point in trying, is that it? You want to preserve some last shred of glory instead of dying ignobly, is that it? Who cares if it steals your last shred of glory!? Glory is for the soldier! For the levy, the warrior, for the writer of songs! A paltry comfort for those who need it, barely any reward at all! The shiny liquor to numb the pain of atrocity! We're high lords, we don't get to indulge this fantasy! There's just two things we get to rely on: duty and sense! Your duty to your people and your duty to the cause, whatever it is! Will you just sit there quietly, not doing your part? Your people did their duty, didn't they? They sacrificed for the cause, and then were sacrificed when they strayed from it, isn't that right? It's your turn now! If your duty is to know when that sacrifice must come, then you've already failed once, haven't you? Are you going to fail again? So much for sense! Sense isn't just about seeing all paths to victory, it's about sacrifice with clarity! Don't fall so hard for one path that you ignore the others! Or will you reject the way forward because the things that drove you to this point happen to suck balls? Only a fool is ruled by pain or emotion! Only the weak try to cut themselves off these feelings instead of controlling them! Don't numb yourself to survival or death, whether yours or anyone else's, or you're as good as dead! The dead do no good for anyone!"

The Great Hall of the Red Keep fairly shook as if beset by gale winds, as well it should! Then everyone everywhere looked at the Lord of Storm's End and Paramount of the Stormlands as if they couldn't even begin to comprehend his great wisdom, as usual. Even Tywin from up next to the throne. He even had the nerve to close his eyes as if in pain, the goldilocked shite! Never mind that he was only speaking common sense!

"…Lord Baratheon."

"My king!" Steffon beamed. "Thank the gods these pressures are not imposing on you unduly, you almost look self-possessed! I wouldn't look half as kept if I were beset by so many rats, let alone if I'd suffered so many 'losses' in my family." He took a pause after air quoting to inspect Aerys' appearance properly. When he was done, he let his public smile be replaced by his other, warmer one. "I'm glad."

Aerys seemed taken aback. By his warmth? Or maybe his honesty? Maybe he was just shocked to see him at all. He could never tell with him, Targaryens were always so dramatic!

"Steffon," Aerys sighed, slumping back on the Iron Throne only to jerk in place with a hiss as he cut himself on some blade or other. Something ugly overtook his face. "Lord Baratheon. You were not called to speak."

"I wasn't summoned to Court either, Your Grace, yet here I am."

"Yes, as my own eyes inform me." The king's tone sounded beset by some dark something Steffon didn't bother dwelling on. "And as my ears just informed me that you interrupted the King's Justice to indulge a rant in the middle of my hall. Of all the gall you've ever shown, this one overshadows them all. You'd better have a very good explanation!"

"I beg forgiveness, your grace, even if I can't promise not to do it again, this cannot be borne! Seeing a man strive for the lowest of the low is like watching people try for the middle ground, it's just silly! Nobody ever knows how to be entirely good or entirely bad, how the hell are you supposed to know what balance even is? The only thing you should ever strive towards is your best! This is nobody's best!"

For a moment the court seemed to be acting as a single being, unified in its disbelief at the balls it took to come out and say that with a straight face. Tywin in particular was looking down at him as if he doubted his sanity. Shows what they know! Long as you believe what you're saying, there's nothing easier than keeping a straight face! Now to see if Aerys took that as an attack on him, in which case he might need to-

"Treachery!" Came hollering from behind. "Treachery! Despoiler! Heresy!"

The High Septon barged into the throne room via the main entrance instead of a side door like Steffon had. His High Holiness looked windswept, dishevelled and frothing at the mouth, almost.

"Heresy! Blasphemy! Murder!"

"Oh ford Gods' sake!" Aerys slammed a fist against his armrest. Steffon was relieved when he didn't cut himself on anything. "What now?"

Right then and there, in the midst of a lord's trial in the Great Hall of the Red Keep in King's Landing, the High Septon went on a long, shrieking rant about Oldtown, House Hightower, septons being killed in the streets, and how Lord Leyton being a breath away from being burned alive could only be part of some master plan to distract from this atrocity being inflicted on the Faith of the Seven. Obviously.

Wait a second… "Septons are being killed in the streets!?"

The King's Court almost erupted in a riot if not for Ser Guayne Gaunt of the Kingsguard grabbing the spear from one of the sentries and slamming it against the marble floor. Several times.

Loudly.

"You must answer this vile butchery immediately!" The High Septon screamed at the King, proving that his ability to read the room was as skewed as the crystal crown wobbling on his head. "When King Jaehaerys the Conciliator refused to repeal Maegor the Cruel's decree that the Faith Militant be disbanded, he did so with the promise that House Targaryen take up defense of the Faith in its stead! Never has the Iron Throne failed in this charge so utterly! I demand that-!"

"YOU DO NOT MAKE DEMANDS OF YOUR KING!"

Aerys Targaryen's screech was like the scratchy bellow of a dragon having its wings torn out.

His High Holiness reared back as if struck and the crystal crown clattered to the floor. When it came to a halt at Steffon's feet, it was cracked straight through.

When the chamber was once more settled, insofar as it could after such 'excitement,' King Aerys Targaryen the Second sat back down on the monstrosity of swords, rubbed his temple and glared down at the kneeling man.

"Well? What have you to say on all this, Lord Hightower?"

"My son moves even faster than I expected," the man replied with all the fatalism of one secure in the knowledge that his end had arrived one way or another. "But I suppose I shouldn't be surprised, given the strong emotion that youth and idealism tends to engender against child-buggering shitstains."

… What.

A black cloud gathered in Steffon's stomach as the court erupted into uproar anew. He batted it away. Later. He'd deal with this new revelation later, when his current task was done.

The High Septon went to speak again, but Ser Gaunt had approached by then, sword hilt held in warning.

Lord Hightower continued with that same parody of composure. "Perhaps I was wrong to keep the knowledge from my heir for so long, but I still hoped my investigation of the Citadel's rot might turn out sufficient information to deal with this other matter more delicately. The Starry Sept couldn't be in on such things, I told myself. The Mansions of the Pious could not be entrenched with child buggering shitstains, I told myself." Four ladies of the more delicate persuasion fainted in the background. "Unfortunately, in my disbelief I disregarded the truth until it was too late. Perhaps I chose not to believe, lest other, darker suspicions prove true as well. After all, if the maesters and septons could work in lockstep to prey on the young in the Scribe's Hearth, what else might they be collaborating on?"

The High Septon's apoplectic state suddenly shifted into something closer to horror.

"Whether or not my inaction emboldened the grey rats into committing to their insane agenda, I know not. But that it allowed them the time to overstep so soundly is undeniable. And so here I am come to account for my inaction. Only for my inaction." Leyton Hightower looked up at the king with all the self-assurance of a man who'd just made it sound like his inaction was the only reason the grey rats had been exposed at all, and therefore he had done them all a favour. "If I am to get a last request, it is merely that my heir's actions receive fair judgment. In the words spoken just now by the High Septon himself, the King is the Shield of the Faith. As my son is but striving to cut out the canker eating at the foundation of our people's spiritual pillar, he is only carrying out Your Grace's will and the will of the Seven."

"You will not claim to be doing the Seven's will!" The High Septon screamed. "You-you… you butcher! Do not make claims of virtue, when your own spawn does nothing but sit back and watch the sheep set themselves upon their own shepherds!"

"Wait, what?" Steffon asked when everyone else proved too much of a pussy to speak up. "I thought you said he was the one doing the purging?"

"There is nothing to purge!" The High Septon roared before Steffon had a chance to realise how his choice of words could be taken. His High Holiness then went on a second, even longer rant about heresy, butchery, septons being lynched in the streets not by knights or guards but by smallfolk, and how House Hightower had no right to claim any moral high standing in the whole mess. "You have no right to claim to be doing the Seven's will!" The High Septon's spittle flew everywhere as he proved once and for all his determination to go down in history as House Hightower's greatest asset. "Your son does nothing but play at trying to contain the madness! All the ravens are clear!"

There was a brief moment of stillness, then the revelation sunk and the Court went in an uproar again, because of course it did. This time, though, Steffon couldn't fault them for it. It was one thing for a member of the nobility to seek retribution in blood against the Faith for whatever reason. Even for House Hightower and their ancestral ties with the Starry Sept, the common word for that was 'folly.' But for the smallfolk to be the ones lynching their spiritual shepherds in the streets… well, that spoke of vastly different things.

Steffon Baratheon watched Leyton Hightower for signs that his surprise at the sudden news was feigned. He couldn't find any. Then he watched the High Septon, wondering how such an imprudent man even got the post. Maybe he should look into the septs and septries in his own demesne too, he thought with dismay, and how their holy priests got appointed. If something so disgusting was happening in the heart of the Faith itself, how much worse would it be outside the sight of the great beacon?

When Steffon looked up at the throne, it was to see Aerys one word away from calling for everybody's heads and letting the Seven sort the mess out themselves.

"My king," Steffon called before sense lost its grip on the eye of the storm entirely. He stepped forward and put a friendly hand on the High Septon's shoulder. "Before we were interrupted, you asked me for an explanation."

"You-" His High Holiness choked off as Steffon's grip on his shoulder turned tighter. Just a tad.

"…I did indeed," Aerys ground out at length, his voice turned raspy and his fists tight on the sides of the Iron Throne. "Go ahead then. Tell me. Why are you here?"

"Because a dear friend is here and he needs me. Word reached me by wind and wave of plots most foul and grim done upon him and his by the most despicable, dastardly miscreants! I waited for word from him. I wrote him. Sent runners even. All to no avail! I know not if it was treachery or if he's decided he only deserves my friendship when things are bright and well. Either way, I could not bear it! So here I am! I've brought stout men to stand guard against further insult and injury. I've brought my healer, a man loyal and true. And I've brought myself, because with all respect to Your Grace, fair-weather friendship can go fuck itself! If my King permits, I would attend to my friend as soon as can be."

What followed was a very long something like the quiet in Storm's End's Hall of Legacy, except without the pleasant chill of the underearth. The looks had nothing on the dignified seemings of the Durrandon statues and carvings there either. The court, the High Septon, Lord Hightower, even Tywin looked upon him with nothing but incredulity. To say the absolute least. The Others bugger them all very much.

"I…" And above them all, King Aerys of House Targaryen looked like he didn't know if he should feel disbelieving or stricken. "… I-I'll allow it."

Steffon Baratheon made no mystery of his joy. If only Aerys could bear it!

He couldn't. Instead, the king stood from his throne and looked anywhere but at him. "Lord Hightower's trial will be deferred until these newest… developments can be taken into proper consideration. Court is adjourned."

"All rise!" Thundered the voice of Lord Commander Harlan Grandison. "All rise for Aerys Targaryen, the Second of His Name, by the grace of the Old Gods and New Gods, King of the Andals, the Rhoynar and the First Men, Lord of the Seven Kingdoms and Protector of the Realm."