Rewriting Targaryen History

Chapter 131: Chapter 131: A Private Match

The yard incident did not spread as far as Ser Curtis had likely hoped. That was the first victory, and it was not a small one.

Training yard quarrels had a habit of growing in the telling. A sharp word became a challenge. A challenge became a near duel. A near duel became proof that princes hated one another beyond repair, and by the time the story reached the kitchens, someone had usually drawn steel, spat blood, or sworn vengeance before seven witnesses who had not been present.

This time, there was little to feed it.

Too many men had seen the matter contained before it could become useful. Ser Arryk had refused without panic. Ser Erryk had stepped forward without losing control. Aemond had not played the role Curtis had prepared for him. Luke had not been frightened into accepting. Jace had not been goaded into proving courage for the pleasure of onlookers.

And I had arrived before the yard could choose its own ending. That did not stop whispers. It only made them thinner.

By late afternoon, Larys Strong had begun testing the shape of them. Grey Roach brought me word while I was in a lower passage near the armoury, watching two servants carry old practice shields toward repair.

"He asks careful questions," Grey Roach said in High Valyrian, voice low and even. "Not whether princes are cowards. Not whether Prince Lucerys fears Prince Aemond. Those words are dangerous now."

"Good," I replied. "It would be tiresome to cut tongues this early in the week."

Grey Roach did not smile, but his eyes shifted faintly. "He knows that. He asks whether royal boys are best served by teachers who prevent hard lessons. He asks whether fathers see danger where instructors see growth. He asks whether old guilt sometimes wears the face of protection."

That was Larys. Never touching the blade if he could convince someone else to test the edge.

"He is not accusing the princes," I said.

"No. He moves around them."

"And around me."

"Yes."

That was safer for him. Open defamation of Rhaenyra’s sons would not be treated as courtly gossip. Their legitimacy had been affirmed too many times by the king, by court, by blood, by dragons, and by every political line we had drawn until the lie had lost strength. The old attack could still survive in corners, but it could no longer stride openly through the Red Keep without inviting punishment.

So Larys changed the question. Not whether the boys were lesser. Whether I made them so by protecting them too closely.

It was clever because it did not need to be true. It only needed to sound like something a concerned lord might wonder after hearing that a father had refused a sparring match between princes.

"What has Curtis received?" I asked.

"Lord Commander Lorent removed him from yard instruction for three days and ordered written apology to Ser Arryk and Ser Erryk. He remains assigned to Prince Aemond outside training hours."

"A light punishment."

"Yes."

"Not unexpected."

"No."

Lorent had chosen carefully. Too harsh, and Curtis became a martyr to men eager to complain that Rhaenyra’s household silenced knights for demanding courage. Too soft, and the Cargylls looked unsupported. Three days removed from the yard was a rebuke visible enough to matter without turning the incident into a banner.

It would not satisfy me. It was not meant to.

"Anything from Alicent?" I asked.

Grey Roach inclined his head. "Queen Alicent spoke with Ser Curtis in private. He left pale but walking."

That nearly amused me. "Otto?"

"Lord Hightower has not spoken of it in open corridors. He met with Ser Curtis after the queen. Then with Prince Aemond."

There it was. Not the end of the matter. The beginning of its second life.

I found Rhaenyra in her solar, standing over petitions while a clerk read out a dispute between two minor houses over grazing rights. She listened until the clerk finished, gave instructions for Jasper to review the relevant land grants, and dismissed him with thanks.

Only when the door closed did she look at me properly. "You have that expression," she said.

"I have many expressions."

"This is the one that means someone has done something stupid, but not stupid enough to punish easily."

"Curtis has been removed from yard instruction for three days. Written apology to Arryk and Erryk. Alicent spoke with him. Otto spoke with him after."

Rhaenyra folded her hands. "Lorent chose a measured correction."

"He did."

"You dislike it."

"I dislike that it is probably the right correction."

That drew a tired breath from her. "If I press harder, it becomes a story. If I do nothing, Curtis learns the wrong lesson. If I strip him from Aemond, Alicent sees it as an attack on her son’s household, and Otto calls it fear wearing discipline."

"Larys has already begun near that."

Her face cooled. "What shape?"

"Not defamation of the boys. He is too careful for that. The new question is whether they are being overprotected. Whether their teachers refuse hard lessons. Whether I see danger where training requires discomfort."

Rhaenyra’s mouth tightened. "He wants men to question your fatherhood because he cannot safely question their blood."

"Yes."

The words sat between us, ugly because they were accurate.

She moved to the window and looked down toward the yard. It was empty now except for two squires carrying straw targets. "Luke has worked too hard to have this turned into cowardice."

"It will not be, if we are careful."

"And if we are not?"

"Then every refusal becomes proof that the boys are shielded, and every acceptance becomes a game arranged by Otto."

Rhaenyra turned back to me. "That sounds like a trap."

"It is beginning to look like one."

The trap opened the next morning.

Court was smaller than usual. Rain threatened again, so fewer petitioners had crossed the city, and half the lords present seemed more interested in watching who stood near whom than in the matters being heard.

Rhaenyra dealt with a complaint about grain storage, a dispute over unpaid carpenters, and a request from the harbour officials for clearer authority over foreign ships delaying inspection.

Otto was helpful. He advised on harbour authority with enough precision that Tyland agreed twice. He suggested wording that preserved the regent’s command while making the officers’ duties clearer. He did not mention Ser Curtis. He did not mention the yard.

That was how I knew he would. When the petitions thinned, Otto stepped forward with the mild expression of a man raising a matter reluctantly for the good of order.

"Your Highness, before the court is dismissed, there is a small concern arising from yesterday’s training yard incident. I hesitate to give it greater weight than it deserves, but small concerns become larger when not handled plainly."

Rhaenyra regarded him from the chair beneath the throne. "Speak, Lord Hand."

"A misunderstanding occurred between sworn knights during instruction of the princes. Lord Commander Lorent has already acted. Ser Curtis was corrected, and rightly so, for speaking too sharply where greater judgement was required."

That was a neat opening. He conceded the obvious so that disagreement with the rest would look unreasonable.

"Then the matter is handled," Rhaenyra said.

"Formally, yes. Yet the talk after such matters is rarely about form. Some have begun to ask whether the royal boys are being kept from useful challenge because past injury has made their guardians too cautious. I do not say this to endorse such talk. I say it because rumours are best answered before they learn to walk unaided."

There were a few shifts among the lords. Not many, but few enough to give some weight to Otto’s words.

Rhaenyra’s gaze moved once toward me, then back to Otto. "You are concerned for their training?"

"For their perception as much as their training. Princes need not prove courage every morning, but neither should the court be left to wonder whether ordinary hardship is being refused on their behalf."

The words were smooth. Too smooth to grab. Jace was not in the hall. Good. Luke was not either. Better.

I stood near Rhaenyra’s right, where I usually did. This was my moment whether I wanted it or not, and Otto had arranged it so any silence became agreement.

I stepped forward. "The court may set aside any concern that my sons are being kept from proper training," I said. "Ser Arryk and Ser Erryk have instructed them well. They drill, ride, fall, bruise, and rise again like boys learning arms should. What I objected to was not difficulty. It was a knight attempting to turn old wounds into public pressure."

Otto inclined his head slightly. "No one questions a father’s vigilance, Prince Othorion."

That was a lie built to sound gracious. I gave him a faint smile. "Many do. They merely call it concern for training when they want a cleaner cloak for it."

A few eyes lowered. Rhaenyra remained still, though I sensed her attention sharpen.

I continued before Otto could answer. "If a sparring match between princes is arranged properly, I have no objection. It should be agreed by their instructors, governed by clear rules, watched by suitable witnesses, and conducted for training rather than display. Prince Aemond is skilled and improving. Jace will benefit from meeting him in a controlled yard. Luke may as well, when Ser Erryk judges the time right."

Otto’s eyes changed. Only slightly. But I saw it. He had wanted that sentence. He had forced me toward it, and I had known he was doing it, and still I could not avoid speaking without handing him the other victory. Rhaenyra knew it too.

"Then perhaps," Otto said, "a proper match would answer the matter better than discussion. Not today. Not in public. Within the week, under Lord Commander Lorent’s supervision, with the Cargylls present and rules agreed by all instructors."

It sounded reasonable. That was the poison.

If Rhaenyra refused, Otto would not need to call the boys overprotected. Others would do it for him. If she agreed, he had arranged a match between Jace and Aemond under the cloak of fairness, and whatever happened could be shaped afterwards.

If Jace won, men would say Aemond had been humiliated because Rhaenyra’s household needed a show of strength. If Aemond won, they would call it proof that Alicent’s son had outgrown Rhaenyra’s heir. If the match was close, each side would claim what suited them. The game had no clean square.

Rhaenyra answered with care. "A private match may be considered. I will not have my sons or my brothers treated as pieces on a cyvasse board for the court’s amusement."

Otto bowed. "Nor would I ask it."

He absolutely would. The matter might have ended there, but Aemond stepped forward from near Ser Curtis and Ser Willis Fell.

He had been present the whole time, silent in dark green, one hand resting near his belt. Curtis stood several feet behind him, his face composed after discipline, though his eyes were not grateful for the restraint shown him. Aemond’s expression held none of Curtis’s heat. That made him harder to read.

"Your Highness, sister," Aemond said, bowing to Rhaenyra. "I would ask leave to speak."

Rhaenyra looked at him for a long moment. "You may."

"I did not ask Ser Curtis to press the matter yesterday. He acted poorly. But I meant what I said after. I would spar Jace, if he agrees and if the match is arranged properly. Not as a challenge made from anger. As training between princes who should not need half the court whispering over whether we can stand in a yard together."

That was well done. Too well, perhaps. Alicent’s hand was in it, or Otto’s, or Aemond had simply learned more from both than anyone wished.

Rhaenyra could not dismiss it without making Aemond seem more reasonable than her. I looked at him and saw not a boy being used, but a boy willing to use the path laid before him because it led somewhere he wanted to go. That was worse and better at once.

Rhaenyra spoke. "You understand why this is not simple."

"I do. Driftmark is not forgotten by anyone involved. That is why it should be handled under rules, not whispers."

Luke’s name had not been spoken. That was deliberate. Aemond had learned where the edge lay.

Rhaenyra nodded once. "The match will be considered after I have spoken with Prince Jacaerys, Ser Arryk, Lord Commander Lorent, and Prince Othorion. No match will be held unless all conditions are agreed."

Aemond bowed. "That is fair."

Curtis did not move. Otto’s face remained politely neutral. That was how victory looked on him. Not triumph. Reason.

Court dismissed soon after. The lords left with exactly the story Otto wanted them to carry: Ser Curtis had overstepped, yes, but the regent’s household now admitted a proper match between Aemond and Jace might be useful. No one needed to say more. The question would do its work.

Rhaenyra did not speak until we reached her solar. The door closed. Then she turned on me, though not with anger meant to wound.

"You gave him the opening."

"I know."

"You knew he wanted it."

"Yes."

"Then why say it?"

"Because the alternative was worse."

She paced once from the desk to the window. "Was it?"

"If I refused the idea entirely, Otto wins the first story. Othorion Galeris protects his sons from Aemond. Ser Arryk and Ser Erryk are soft instructors. Luke’s old fear rules the yard. Jace is not permitted to be tested unless the opponent has been chosen by his father."

Rhaenyra stopped. "And now?"

"Now Otto wins the second story. A fair match proposed. Aemond reasonable. Jace expected to accept. We choose rules, witnesses, and ground, but we do not choose whether men make meaning from the result."

She closed her eyes briefly. "So we were forced to pick the cleaner wound."

"Yes, we could not have done anything more than lessen the damage."

"I hate him."

"Otto?"

"At the moment, efficiently."

I almost smiled, but not quite. She looked at me again. "Do we allow it?"

"We may have to."

"No. Do not make this only necessity. Tell me if it is safe enough."

That was the right question.

I took my time with the answer. "A private match under Lorent’s supervision, with Arryk and Erryk present, blunted steel, agreed limits, no strikes to the head unless helmed and controlled, no fighting after yield, no crowd beyond necessary witnesses. Jace against Aemond. Not Luke. Not yet. If that is the frame, it can be safe enough."

"Safe enough is a cruel phrase."

"It is often the only honest one."

Rhaenyra sat slowly. "Jace will want it."

"Yes, he was eager for it."

"He will think refusing means failing before he begins."

"Unfortunately that is what our boy will think."

She pressed her fingers to her brow. "Parenting was simpler when the enemy was sleep."

I sat across from her. "It was never simpler. We were only more tired."

That won no smile.

A servant brought word that Lord Commander Lorent had arrived with Ser Arryk and Ser Erryk. Rhaenyra allowed them in at once. Lorent entered first, grave and controlled. The Cargylls followed, both wearing the expressions of men who had expected the day to worsen and disliked being correct.

Rhaenyra did not waste time. "You heard what was said in court."

Lorent bowed. "I did, my princess. I also understood what was not said."

"Then speak plainly here."

Lorent glanced once at me, then back to Rhaenyra. "A properly governed match may drain poison from the matter if handled well. It may also give poison a cup to sit in if handled poorly. I would permit it only under strict limit and with no court attendance."

Erryk spoke next, measured but firm. "Not Luke. Not because he lacks courage. Because Curtis shaped the first insult around him, and any match involving him now would carry that filth into the yard. Let him continue training without being made the answer to another man’s provocation."

Arryk nodded. "Jace can meet Aemond. He will want to. He is capable of it. But he must understand the purpose is training, not repayment for words."

Rhaenyra looked at me. I spread my hands slightly. "They say what I would say."

Lorent’s mouth tightened. "Then the conditions should be written and accepted before the match. One bout of agreed length, or three passes judged by the instructors. No retinue. No young lords invited to pretend they are necessary. Present should be the princes, their instructors, myself, one maester, Prince Othorion if you wish, Queen Alicent if she insists, and you, Your Highness, if you choose."

Rhaenyra considered that. "If I attend, it becomes political."

"It is already political," Lorent said. "Your absence may be read as confidence or avoidance, depending on who speaks first. Your presence ensures rules are not later misremembered."

That was sound. Rhaenyra disliked it because it was sound. She turned to Erryk. "And Luke?"

Erryk’s face softened slightly. "He should be told directly. Not as a child excluded from danger, but as a prince whose training will not be dragged behind Curtis’s mistake. He will hear the difference if we speak it honestly."

"He may not like it."

"No, my princess. But liking a decision is not the only way a boy learns to trust it."

Rhaenyra nodded.

The meeting lasted another half hour. By the end, the match had become both more controlled and more inevitable. Lorent would draft conditions. Arryk would prepare Jace. Curtis would not set the terms. Aemond’s instruction for the match would be overseen by Ser Willis Fell instead, not Curtis. That was my suggestion. Rhaenyra accepted it at once.

If Alicent objected, she would have to explain why the knight who had caused the first incident needed to stand closest to the second. She would not enjoy that.

I found Jace and Luke before supper in the smaller yard near the royal apartments, where they had been practising archery with little enthusiasm. Jace saw my face and handed his bow to a servant.

"Something has happened."

"Something has been arranged," I said. "Not finally, but likely."

Luke looked between us. "The spar?"

"Yes. Jace and Aemond, within the week, private, under rules set by Lord Commander Lorent and your instructors."

Jace drew in a breath. Not fear. Anticipation wrapped too tightly.

"I want to do it," he said.

"I know. That is why we are speaking now, before wanting outruns thinking."

Luke’s face had gone quiet. "Only Jace?"

"For now."

He nodded too quickly. "Because of Ser Curtis."

"Partly."

"And because of Driftmark."

"Yes."

Jace turned toward him. "Luke..."

Luke shook his head. "Do not comfort me before I know whether I need it."

That stopped Jace. Luke looked at me. "Tell me the truth, not the version meant to make me feel better."

I respected him for asking. "Ser Curtis tried to use you. If you spar Aemond now, the match becomes about whether you are afraid of him, whether old guilt remains, whether the yard has healed something it has no right to touch. That would not be fair training. It would be trial by gossip. Ser Erryk agrees."

Luke’s mouth tightened, but he listened. "That does not mean you will never spar him," I continued. "It means Ser Curtis does not get to decide when you do."

Luke looked down at his hands. "I hate that he matters enough to change anything."

"So do I."

Jace spoke carefully. "I am not doing it to prove you do not need to."

"I know," Luke said. "At least, I know you will try not to."

That was honest enough to sting. Jace accepted it.

I looked at my eldest son. "And you are not doing this for revenge, or to answer Curtis, or to win a story in the hall. If you enter that yard carrying all of that, Aemond will not need to beat you. You will trip over your own pride."

Jace’s cheeks coloured. "I understand."

"Not yet. You hear me. Understanding comes when you still remember it after he lands the first strike."

He looked away, then back. "Then teach me to remember."

There were days when his seriousness frightened me more than recklessness would have. "I will help Ser Arryk prepare you," I said. "But the first lesson is this. You may lose."

The words struck him. Luke watched too.

"You may lose," I repeated. "Aemond is skilled. He is hungry. He has been trained by a hard knight and shaped by a hard wound. If you lose properly, with discipline, respect, and control, you lose less than if you win like a fool."

Jace swallowed. "And if I win?"

"Then win like it cost you effort. Do not gloat. Do not look to the watchers. Offer him respect and leave the yard before anyone teaches victory to rot in your mouth."

Luke’s lips moved faintly. "That sounded like something Mother would say."

"Your mother says many useful things. I steal what I can."

That helped, a little. Not enough to make the matter easy. Nothing could.

That night, I stood alone for a time near the balcony outside our chambers, looking down at the dark bones of the Red Keep. Rhaenyra slept poorly behind me. Maelor stirred once, then settled. Somewhere below, guards changed posts. Somewhere beyond that, men were already preparing tomorrow’s version of today’s rumour.

Otto had placed the board well. If I refused the match, my sons were overprotected. If I accepted, Aemond gained a stage. If Jace won, Otto could make him look favoured by arrangement. If Jace lost, Otto could make Aemond look the sharper prince. If the match went well, Otto would claim reason had prevailed because he pressed for it. If it went badly, he would blame old wounds and my household’s inability to move past them.

There was no clean victory. Only a narrower field on which to limit the damage.

I had spent years changing battles before they arrived. Killing some early. Delaying others. Turning traps aside with dragons, gold, ships, law, or blood. Yet the worst traps were often small enough to fit inside a training yard, between boys who should have been allowed to grow without every bruise becoming a prophecy.

Behind me, Rhaenyra spoke softly. "You are thinking too loudly."

I turned. She stood in the doorway, robe wrapped around her, hair loose over one shoulder. "I thought you were asleep."

"I tried. Then I remembered we are giving Otto exactly enough rope to claim he tied the knot himself."

I leaned against the stone. "We may still choose how tight it becomes."

She came to stand beside me. "Jace will be brave."

"Yes, I have no doubt that he will be."

"That is what frightens me."

I looked out over the dark yard. "Me too."

For a while, neither of us spoke. The Red Keep slept badly around us, full of guarded rooms, old grudges, and children being taught to carry the weight adults kept placing in their hands.

Within the week, Jace and Aemond would meet in a private yard. Properly arranged. Carefully witnessed. Politically poisoned before the first blade touched.