Rewriting Targaryen History

Chapter 111: Chapter 111: Ser Arlan of the King’s Guard

Ser Arlan Dondarrion’s answer came three days after Jace sent the raven.

The bird arrived in the grey part of morning, rain-darkened and ill-tempered, as if it had taken personal offence at being made part of royal business. The maester brought the message to our chambers while the younger children were still at breakfast. Jace noticed the seal before anyone named it, and for all his careful training, the stillness in him changed at once.

He did not lunge for the parchment. He was too proud for that now, and too aware of how often adults measured him when they thought he was not looking. But he took it quickly enough that Rhaenyra hid a small smile behind her cup.

Jace broke the seal, unfolded the letter, and read it once in silence. His eyes returned to the beginning and moved through it again, slower the second time. Only then did his shoulders settle.

"Ser Arlan accepts the offer," he said, his voice controlled but not empty. "He thanks me for the honour and writes that the Kingsguard has protected great kings and their families for generations. He says that if His Grace accepts him, he will swear the vows with humility and serve the whole royal house faithfully."

Rhaenyra set her cup down. "That is a serious answer, and it speaks well of him. A man who answers a white cloak too eagerly may not understand what the cloak takes from him."

Jace looked at me. "Did you think he would accept when you gave me his name?"

"I thought he would weigh it properly," I said. "Ser Arlan is not the sort of man to confuse honour with ease. If he has accepted, then he has considered the cost as well as the glory."

That cost was not small.

Ser Arlan was Celeste’s brother, though he was not the heir to Blackhaven, and he had never married. The white cloak would still take a life from him. Men liked to speak of the Kingsguard as if it were pure honour, polished steel, white wool, and songs. The truth was harder. No wife. No children. No lands of his own. No household except the one he guarded. No future beyond duty unless death or dishonour ended the vow first.

It helped that he was not being torn away from an inheritance already waiting for him. It helped that he had family in the capital through Celeste, when she came with Vaeron and their children. But those were comforts around the edge of the decision, not the decision itself.

The strongest reason remained simple. I had served with Ser Arlan Dondarrion during the campaigns in the Dornish Marches.

I had seen him where tourney polish meant little. The Marches were dry ravines, hard roads, sudden arrows, poor water, and heat that stripped men down to their habits. A knight could look splendid in a yard and become useless when dust filled his mouth, and orders came through shouting.

Arlan had not been the loudest man there, nor the one most eager for songs. He had been steady. When lesser knights mistook movement for opportunity and broke formation, he held. When fear made men argue, he listened long enough to find the order that would keep them alive.

That was why I had suggested him to Jace. Not commanded. Suggested.

When I realised Viserys meant to give Jace a voice in the final white cloak, I had given him three names to consider: Ser Arlan Dondarrion, Ser Marq Mallister, and Ser Yohn Redfort. Each man had merit.

Marq Mallister came from a respected river house with steel, discipline, and the hard sense of men raised near water and war. Yohn Redfort carried the Vale’s stern patience, along with a reputation old enough to satisfy lords who preferred bloodlines to judgement. But Jace returned to Arlan because the man had stood beside me in the Dornish Marches and had proven reliable when no one had time to perform honour for a crowd.

A tourney could reveal skill. War revealed habits.

Within a month, Ser Arlan arrived in the capital.

He came without spectacle, which immediately recommended him more than any polished entrance could have done. He rode through the gates with a modest escort, travel dust on his boots and rain marks drying on his cloak.

Seeing him again brought the Marches back in fragments: pale stone under a punishing sun, horses blowing hard in the heat, Dornish arrows striking shields with short ugly cracks, and Arlan’s voice cutting through confusion with practical orders rather than heroic noise.

He found me in the outer yard, where Jace and Luke had been training under Ser Erryk’s eye. His bow was proper, but the look that followed belonged to old service rather than court ceremony.

"My prince," Arlan said, "it seems the years have brought you stranger dangers than the Dornish Marches."

"They have brought taller ones," I said. "The Marches at least had the courtesy not to fly."

"I heard the dragon is dark enough to look like night over the city. I confess I thought the tale was improved by sailors until three separate men gave the same description and disagreed only over how frightened they had been."

"Sailors are reliable when fear leaves them no room for invention."

"Then I will take the stories seriously."

"You should. Dravvaxx does not seem to care whether men believe in him before he lands."

Arlan’s mouth twitched, but when his eyes moved to Jace, the humour gave way to respect. He turned fully and bowed deeper.

"Prince Jacaerys, your letter was an honour to receive. I know what it means for a prince to place trust in a man before the court has finished judging him, and I will not treat that lightly."

Jace stood a little straighter. He had been practising this kind of moment, but practice never removed all uncertainty from the real thing.

"I did not write because I wanted a man grateful to me," Jace said. "I wrote because my father had seen you in the Dornish Marches and believed you steady under danger. The Kingsguard should not only be made of famous swords. It should be made of men who can be trusted when fear makes other men foolish."

Arlan’s expression changed slightly, not into surprise exactly, but into a sharper kind of attention. "That is a better reason than many men have for choosing a knight," he said. "If His Grace accepts my vows, I will try to prove your judgement sound."

The ceremony was held the next day before the king.

The court attended in numbers large enough to prove that ceremony was rarely only ceremony. Viserys sat the Iron Throne, pale but attentive. Rhaenyra stood near the front with Jace.

Alicent watched from the other side of the hall, composed and unreadable. Otto wore the grave expression of a man who had lost a fight and intended to remember every detail of it. Larys Strong stood where he could see nearly everyone without seeming to study anyone too closely.

Lord Commander Lorent Marbrand stood before Ser Arlan in his white cloak.

Lorent had handled command well in the weeks since his appointment. He had not strutted through the Red Keep as if a title had made him taller. He reviewed watches, spoke with each sworn brother, inspected guard rotations, and asked questions that made comfortable men uncomfortable. That was a useful habit in a Lord Commander. Honour, like steel, was easier to trust when regularly tested.

Ser Arlan knelt.

Lorent spoke the vows, and Arlan repeated them clearly. No lands. No wife. No children. No private ambition before the sworn duty of the cloak. The words were old, severe, and too often made beautiful by men who did not have to live them.

When Lorent placed the white cloak over Arlan’s shoulders, the hall shifted. Not loudly. Power rarely needed noise when everyone present understood what had changed.

Jace did not smile. That pleased me more than open delight would have done. He watched a man give up an entire possible life because of a letter he had written and a judgement he had made. That was no small lesson for a boy being shaped toward a throne.

Viserys looked down from the Iron Throne and spoke with tired warmth. "Rise, Ser Arlan Dondarrion of the Kingsguard. Serve faithfully, and may your cloak remain as honourable as the oath you have sworn."

Arlan rose. The final white cloak was filled.

The whispers began before the week was done.

I expected them, though expectation did not make them less irritating. Otto had not lost the Lord Commander’s place and then the last cloak only to accept both defeats with grace. He had Larys now, and Larys did not need to speak loudly to be useful. A rumour placed in the correct servant’s ear could reach more rooms than a proclamation, especially if it gave frightened men a sentence they already wished to believe.

The story changed shape as it travelled.

Some claimed Jace had not chosen at all, but merely repeated my preference like an obedient boy. Others said a sellsword prince had placed one of his own companions in the Kingsguard.

A harsher version travelled near the lower halls, claiming Rhaenyra’s sons were now guarded by Marcher steel and foreign ambition because true knights of the realm had been passed over.

I heard it. Rhaenyra heard it. Ser Arlan heard it as well, though he seemed more disappointed in the quality of the insult than wounded by it.

"I had expected court whispers to be more elegant," he said when we walked beside the training yard one afternoon. "In the Marches, a man who called you unworthy usually had the decency to show his face before reaching for his bow."

"Court gives cowards better walls," I said. "It also teaches them to make malice sound like concern."

Arlan watched Jace drilling with Ser Erryk. "Does the prince hear these rumours?"

"Enough of them."

"And does he believe them?"

"No, but a lie does not need to convince a boy completely to bruise him. Sometimes it only needs to be repeated until he wonders why men want it to be true."

Arlan nodded once. "Then I will give him no reason to regret sending that raven. If the court insists I am your creature, I will answer by doing the work cleanly enough that the insult becomes difficult to keep alive."

"That is the right answer. Do not chase the whispers. Make them look lazy."

"I can do that."

One could not fault Otto Hightower for using every tool available to him. I disliked him, distrusted him, and knew he would cut my family apart if he could do it legally enough to call it service, but I did not think him incompetent.

Dravvaxx had changed my standing in the city. Ser Lorent had weakened Otto’s reach over the Kingsguard. Ser Arlan made that weakness harder to repair. Otto could no longer easily place loyal men in white cloaks, nor could he rely on the Lord Commander to reshape the order in his favour.

So he turned to what remained. Whispers. Not to defeat us in a day, but to dirty the ground beneath our feet.

That evening, I spoke of it with Rhaenyra in our chambers.

The younger children had finally been taken to bed, though Aerion’s voice still carried from the corridor now and then when he attempted to debate the injustice of sleep. Aeggel was curled near the hearth, salmon-pink scales warm in the firelight, while the city beyond the windows settled into its usual uneasy noise.

"Otto has begun using Larys properly," I said. "The rumours about Arlan are not strong enough to hurt us on their own, but they are not meant to stand alone. They are being tied to the older insult."

Rhaenyra lowered the note she had been reading. "Sellsword princes."

"Yes. He cannot remove Ser Lorent or Ser Arlan, so he will try to make every appointment look like proof that our children are surrounded by my foreign influence rather than royal legitimacy."

Her face hardened, but she did not flare into anger. That was one of the ways court had changed her. She still felt deeply; she simply chose more carefully when to let others see it.

"He will use every insult that gives men permission to doubt," she said. "He will speak through others and pretend the words rose naturally. If Jace chooses a knight, he will say the choice was yours. If our sons train with your men, he will say they are being shaped by sellswords. If they ride dragons, he will say dragons do not make blood lawful."

"He will not run out of words."

"No. Men like Otto never do."

I went to the window and looked over the darkening city. Somewhere beyond the roofs and smoke, the Dragonpit sat against Rhaenys’s Hill. Dravvaxx was hidden within it, but his presence had become part of King’s Landing’s imagination. That mattered. A thing did not need to be seen every hour to change how men moved around it.

"Then we answer somewhere whispers are weaker," I said.

Rhaenyra studied me. "You have thought of something, and I can tell from your face that you expect me to dislike at least half of it."

"I would say a third."

"That was not reassuring."

"There are two tournaments within the next month or two," I said. "Lord Matthos Tyrell is holding one at Highgarden to celebrate the birth of his son, Lyonel. Lord Walys Mooton is holding another at Maidenpool for his name day. Both gatherings will draw men Otto would rather leave uncertain."

Rhaenyra stood and came nearer, though she did not interrupt. She wanted the whole shape of the thing before cutting into it.

"I take Jace to Highgarden," I continued. "Dravvaxx and Vermax together. The Reach sees him as a Targaryen prince and dragonrider before Otto’s whispers teach them to hear some smaller insult first. I enter the melee if it serves the purpose. Not because I need another song or another bruise, but because the Reach respects visible strength, and several houses there have been careful in ways that lean too closely toward Otto."

"Redwyne and Roxton," she said.

"Yes. Others as well, though those two matter."

"And Maidenpool?"

"We attend together, as a family or as near to one as sense allows. Lord Mooton may be useful in the Riverlands if the realm ever divides. Better to build courtesy before need makes it look desperate. They should see you, Jace, the children, and the shape of the future plainly, not as something described to them by men who profit from doubt."

Rhaenyra was silent for a moment.

Then she said, "You want to take our son far from the capital and place him before half the Reach while Otto’s faction has reason to resent every step he takes."

"I want to take him somewhere the realm can see him clearly. There is danger in that, but there is danger in hiding him too. A prince kept behind walls becomes whatever his enemies describe."

She looked out the window, her reflection faint in the glass. "He is still young."

"He is. That is why he should not be sent alone, and why he should not be made to perform as though he were already grown. He attends as my son and yours, not as a trained mummer of legitimacy."

Her eyes returned to me. "If you enter the melee, who guards him?"

"Ser Arryk and a hundred cavalrymen of the Dread Legion will ride ahead under Landrey. They will not arrive like conquerors. They will camp properly, pay for what they use, and keep discipline tight enough that even men looking for offence will need to work for it. Jace will also have Vermax, though I know Vermax is young and that a dragon does not replace judgement."

"That last part matters," she said. "I will not have you speak as if Vermax’s presence alone makes him safe."

"I know. Jace’s safety comes before the melee, before courtesy, and before whatever impression the Reach carries home. If anything feels wrong, we leave."

Rhaenyra watched me carefully. "You say that now because we are in a quiet room. I need to know you will remember it when lords are watching, and pride begins dressing itself as necessity."

That struck, because it was fair.

"I will remember," I said. "I will not use him as bait for admiration."

"No. You will not."

Her voice made that a command, not agreement.

For a while, neither of us spoke. Beyond the window, the city murmured on. I let the silence remain because this was not a matter to push through quickly. Rhaenyra had the right to fear anything that placed Jace before the realm. He was her son before he was her heir, and the world had already shown itself willing to use children as symbols, weapons, and excuses.

At last, she drew a slow breath.

"He may go to Highgarden with you," she said. "Ser Arryk remains beside him unless you are personally with him. Landrey answers to his safety before tourney courtesy. You will write every day, even if the letter only says that nothing has changed. If weather delays ravens, you will write anyway and send them when able. If the mood feels wrong, if any lord presses too hard, or if Jace begins believing he must prove himself to men who have not earned that from him, you leave."

"I accept every condition."

"You accepted too quickly."

"I accept them after careful inner reflection."

That earned me the smallest look of irritation, which was better than fear.

"And Maidenpool?" I asked.

"We attend together," she said. "If the realm is to see our family, then it will not be only through you in armour and Jace on dragonback. They will see me. They will see our children. They will see that we are not a rumour Otto can shape in a dark corner."

"That was my hope."

"I know. You were trying to lead me there politely, but you forget that I can see you doing it."

"I will attempt to become more mysterious."

"Please do not. You are already difficult enough."

The next morning, I told Jace.

He was in the training yard with Ser Arryk, sweat at his collar and dust across one sleeve. He had been working through a sequence that required patience, not strength, and he wore the irritated concentration of a boy who understood the lesson and disliked needing it.

Ser Arryk stepped back when I approached, far enough to give us privacy without abandoning his post.

"You are going to Highgarden," I said.

Jace stared at me, and for a brief moment all the careful princely composure vanished behind the boy. Then he caught himself. "With you?"

"With me, with Ser Erryk, and with enough conditions from your mother to make disobedience impossible without a written confession."

His face brightened before caution returned. "Why am I going?"

"Because Lord Tyrell’s tournament will draw the Reach, and because whispers have begun travelling farther than the Red Keep. Men are trying to decide what you are before they have properly seen you."

He understood at once. "They are saying sellsword prince again."

"Yes."

His mouth tightened. "Because of you."

"In part," I said. "But do not give the insult too much honesty. If I vanished tomorrow, the men who fear your mother’s claim would find another word by sunset. My blood gives them a convenient weapon. Your place in the succession gives them the reason to use it."

Jace looked down at the packed earth of the yard. "How do I answer them without looking as if I care too much?"

"You do not chase every whisper. That would make rumour your master. You answer by becoming harder to reduce to one phrase. At Highgarden, you will be seen as Jacaerys Targaryen: your mother’s heir after her, a prince of the royal house, and a dragonrider bonded to Vermax. You will be courteous, watchful, and calm. You will not beg men to believe in you. You will behave as if your place is already true, because it is."

He listened closely, and I saw the words settle. "What if they try to insult me without saying it plainly?"

"Then you learn which men are cowards as well as opponents."

That almost made him smile, but he held the question. "And if they say it plainly?"

"Then you look at them long enough to make the room hear what they said, and you answer only if the answer improves your position. Some insults are traps. Others are opportunities. The difficulty is learning which is which before your temper decides for you."

Jace nodded slowly. "Will you enter the melee?"

"If it serves the purpose."

"You mean yes."

"I mean I am considering it."

"You usually consider things right before doing them."

"That is a cruel but not entirely inaccurate observation."

This time he did smile. Then he looked toward the sky above the yard. "I want them to see Vermax."

"They will."

"I want them to see me properly."

The sentence was quiet, but there was iron forming beneath it.

I placed a hand on his shoulder. "Then make certain there is something proper to see."

Across the yard, Aerion noticed enough of Jace’s expression to become suspicious. He abandoned whatever Ser Erryk had been explaining and marched over with Rhaegar following at a more reasonable pace.

"Something has happened," Aerion declared. "Jace looks too pleased, and Father looks like he is pretending not to be pleased."

Rhaegar looked between us. "It probably involves Highgarden. I heard the word when Father came into the yard."

Aerion stared at me. "Is Jace going to Highgarden?"

"Yes," I said.

"With Vermax?"

"Yes."

The betrayal on Aerion’s face was immediate and complete. "That is unfair. Tyraxes and I should also be seen by the Reach, especially since they will need to know who the greatest rider of our generation is going to be."

"You have not taken flight yet," I said.

Aerion lifted his chin. "That is a temporary inconvenience."

Rhaegar folded his arms. "It is also the main requirement for being seen as a dragonrider."

Aerion turned on him. "When I fly, I will remember every unnecessary comment you made."

"I expect you will announce that while flying."

Before Aerion could answer, Ser Erryk arrived with the patience of a man who had learned that royal children argued best when separated from their audience.

"Prince Aerion, future greatness is often improved by finishing the drill one abandoned to complain about it."

Aerion looked as though he wished to protest before the whole realm, but after a moment he returned to the practice line, muttering about timing, injustice, and how everyone would regret doubting Tyraxes.

Preparations began before noon.

Landrey took command of the advance party. A hundred Dread Legion cavalrymen would ride under the purple banner with the white sword inside the crescent wreath. Their purpose was not to intimidate Highgarden, though armed men always carried some measure of warning with them. Their purpose was to secure the road, prepare lodging, and show the Reach discipline before any lord could pretend our presence meant disorder.

Landrey received my instructions in the yard, helm tucked beneath one arm, expression calm. "No unpaid requisition," I said. "No tavern boasting, no quarrels with Reach knights, and no comments about soft hands, soft bellies, soft fields, or soft anything else where men can hear them."

"That removes several traditional topics of cavalry conversation," Landrey said.

"They may discuss horses, weather, and how fortunate they are to be paid on time."

"Men become suspicious when forced into virtue too quickly."

"Then introduce virtue gradually. Begin with not starting fights."

He nodded. "We camp visibly, but not close enough to look like a threat."

"Exactly. We are guests, not conquerors. If Lord Tyrell’s men test the edges of our discipline, you make them feel rude for expecting less of us."

"That is harder than making them afraid."

"Yes. That is why I gave the task to you."

He accepted the compliment with a slight bow. "Then I will try not to disappoint the Reach too severely."

By evening, ravens had gone to Highgarden and Maidenpool. Ser Arryk had accepted his duty at Jace’s side with the quiet seriousness I expected from him. Rhaenyra spoke privately with Jace after supper, and when he left her chamber, some of the excitement had settled into preparation. That was her gift. I could teach him how to survive a hostile room; she could teach him how to enter one as though he had every right to stand there.

Later that night, I stood alone on the balcony and looked toward the Dragonpit.

King’s Landing muttered below. It never truly slept. It only changed which sins were loudest. Somewhere in the dark, Otto would hear of our plans. Larys might already know. Whispers would begin shaping themselves before our ravens reached their destinations.

Let them. A whisper could stain a name, but it could not fill the sky.

Soon, Jace and I would fly for Highgarden. Dravvaxx and Vermax over the Reach. Father and son. Two Targaryen princes, one already hardened by war, the other being shaped carefully toward rule.

It would not silence Otto. Nothing so simple would. But it would give the realm something stronger than rumour to carry home.

And in a kingdom built on stories, being seen clearly was sometimes the first victory.