Chapter 40: Chapter 40: Terms of Courtesy
Permission did not feel like victory once the doors of the throne room closed behind us.
It followed us through the corridors as a thing half granted and half withheld, wrapped in royal words and watched by men who bowed too deeply to be trusted. The Red Keep received us with polished stone, painted beams, servants who kept their eyes lowered, and guards posted so politely that no one could accuse them of making prisoners of honoured guests. Hospitality, I was learning, could wear a sword without ever touching the hilt.
Rhaenyra walked beside me in silence until we reached the apartments assigned to her. They were familiar enough to her that no servant needed to explain them, yet the presence of two Kingsguard outside the door made the welcome feel less like return and more like containment. One of those white cloaks was Ser Criston Cole.
He bowed when she approached. "Princess."
"Ser Criston."
There was nothing improper in the exchange. That was what made it uncomfortable. He stood exactly where duty placed him, armoured in white, eyes forward, face composed, and yet the air between him and Rhaenyra was too careful to be empty. A man could hide anger, longing, and humiliation behind discipline, but he could not make absence look so full.
I felt Rhaenyra stiffen beside me, only slightly.
Criston did not look at me at first. When he did, his gaze touched my face, my sword, and the space between Rhaenyra and me before returning to the corridor ahead. He said nothing. His silence had begun to feel less like restraint and more like a wound sealed too tightly.
"His Grace has assigned Ser Criston to your person while you remain in the capital," one of the household stewards said, smiling as if the arrangement were an honour rather than a problem.
Rhaenyra’s expression did not change. "How considerate of my father."
Criston’s jaw moved once. No one else seemed to notice.
Inside the chamber, the door closed behind us and left only Rhaenyra, Vaeron, and me with the muffled life of the Red Keep beyond the walls. The room had been prepared beautifully, with fresh rushes, warmed wine, polished cups, and windows looking out toward the city. It still felt like a cage, because cages built for princesses had better furniture than most.
Rhaenyra crossed to the window and stood with her back to us.
For a moment, neither Vaeron nor I spoke. He remained near the table, silent now that silence had purpose, watching the door as if expecting paper to slide beneath it with teeth attached. I watched Rhaenyra instead and thought of Viserys on the Iron Throne, granting permission with the face of a man who had given his daughter something he feared she would one day bleed for.
"I imagine half the realm despises this marriage," she said.
"Yes, unfortunately"
"I know what I said to father at court wounded him. He may have allowed this marriage, but I feel as if I broke a piece of him with what I said."
"I know, but you can not dwell on it for too long. It won’t remove the pain you felt while doing it."
She turned then, and the restraint she had worn before the court had begun to fray at the edges. "That does not make it lighter."
"No," I said. "It rarely does."
Rhaenyra looked at me for a long moment. "He gave permission because he could not bear the look of refusing me."
"I know. We must be grateful for that. It could be the only kindness he grants us."
"And Otto Hightower will try to turn every condition into a chain."
Vaeron finally spoke. "He has likely already begun."
That was not cynicism. That was timing.
A servant knocked before the hour was done, bringing notice that my own chambers had been prepared nearby and that my escort would be lodged with honour under royal supervision.
The phrase had appeared so often since the throne room that it had become almost comical. Honour meant they would be fed, watched, and prevented from moving too freely. Supervision meant no one wanted to admit they were afraid of ten foreign veterans in a castle filled with guards.
I asked about the Unsullied at the quay. The servant blinked. "They remain where they were placed, my lord."
"Placed," I repeated.
Vaeron’s eyes narrowed. Rhaenyra looked from me to him. "Go."
"I should remain."
"You should make sure your men are not being treated as furniture left near the harbour," she said. "I will be here, guarded by every white cloak my father can spare and one he should perhaps have chosen more carefully."
The sharpness in her voice told me not to argue. I bowed my head, not deeply enough to become performance, and left with Vaeron before concern could turn into a visible weakness the corridor might carry to Otto. Criston stood outside the door when we emerged, motionless as carved marble.
"Ser Criston," I said.
"Captain."
His voice was correct. Nothing more. Vaeron and I walked away under royal escort, and only when the corridor bent out of sight did Vaeron speak quietly enough that no guard could claim certainty of what he heard.
"That one is not finished with her."
"No, he certainly is not."
"Or with you."
"I am aware. It was hard not to notice"
"Good," he said. "Continue being aware. If you wish to survive in this place, you must begin to notice every little thing happening around you."
The trip back to the harbour took longer than I liked. The city had already begun digesting the court’s decision, and the streets near the Red Keep felt changed from the climb earlier that day. People stared more boldly now.
The story had outrun us again, carried through kitchens, guardrooms, stables, taverns, and noble chambers until we passed through a city that had already decided several different versions of who I was.
By the time we reached the quay, the sun had lowered, and the river smell had thickened with evening.
The Unsullied were still there.
One hundred men stood in perfect order where they had been left, spears upright, shields held, faces still beneath black leather helmets. Gold cloaks kept a wide distance around them, not close enough to offer direction and not far enough to pretend indifference. Dockworkers worked around the formation as if around a shrine to something they did not worship but feared to offend.
No tents had been raised. No proper meal had been issued. A few water barrels sat nearby, untouched until ordered. The sight made something cold settle in my stomach.
Their officer, a man whose old Astapori designation had been replaced in our records by the chosen name Talor, saluted when I approached. His movements were perfect, and I hated that perfection more than I had in Astapor because now I knew how easily a man could be left standing forever if no one remembered to command him otherwise.
"Report," I said.
"Position held. No disturbance. No movement beyond assigned line. No hostile action taken."
"Food?"
"None ordered."
"Water?"
"Provided. Not ordered for consumption."
Vaeron swore under his breath. I looked at the barrels. "And rest?"
Talor’s eyes remained forward. "No orders were given for rest."
The Gold Cloak captain nearby shifted uncomfortably. "We were told they were to remain here, my lord. No one said they required billeting."
"They are soldiers," I said. "Not spears stacked in a rack."
The man flushed. "No insult was meant."
"I know."
That was almost worse. I turned back to Talor and let my voice carry to every Unsullied in the formation. "Hear this order. You will eat, drink, sit, and sleep in rotation. No man stands through the night to prove obedience to me. Ten remain on watch at a time, no more unless danger requires it."
Talor blinked once. Only once. "Yes, Captain."
The order moved through the ranks. Stillness broke, not into disorder, but into controlled motion that looked almost unnatural because rest had to be commanded like a drill. Men took water when told, sat when assigned, and accepted food only after Vaeron had bullied the nearest quay officials into producing what had apparently been waiting in storage while everyone argued over who had authority to release it.
Vaeron turned his anger into paperwork with frightening speed.
He rented a warehouse within sight of the quay before the hour ended, paid in coin, demanded three copies of the agreement, made the Gold Cloak captain mark the location as temporary military lodging under royal knowledge, and found two local cooks willing to work once he guaranteed payment in advance.
He also wrote down the name of every man who had delayed responsibility and every man who had helped fix it, because Vaeron believed memory became more useful once sharpened into records.
The city watched all of it.
A child asked whether the Unsullied were allowed to speak, and his mother hushed him so quickly that the question seemed to echo anyway. A drunk shouted something about foreign statues until one of his friends dragged him away before he could discover whether silence meant harmlessness. A dockworker offered a seated Unsullied half a heel of bread, then looked terrified when the man accepted it with a nod.
Small things. Necessary things.
By the time night covered the quay, the one hundred Unsullied had shelter, food, water, latrine access, watch rotations, written authority, and a record of every coin spent. It should not have felt like an achievement. The fact that it did told me too much about how easily men could become symbols in a city and stop being treated as men.
Vaeron stood beside me outside the warehouse while Talor organised the final rotation. "This is what Otto wants," he said.
"Them left standing?"
"Them seen as a problem no one knows how to handle," Vaeron replied. "If they frighten the city, they become proof. If they are mistreated and react, they become proof. If they are forgotten, they become less human, and then anything done to them becomes easier to justify."
I looked toward the warehouse door. "Then we do not forget them."
"No," he said. "We do not."
When we returned to the Red Keep, Otto’s first draft of the terms was waiting. The document sat on the table in my assigned chamber as if it had every right to be there. It bore formal language, careful phrasing, and the scent of a man who had lost the first public battle and immediately chosen a battlefield made of ink. Rhaenyra arrived soon after with Criston outside her door and anger held too tightly behind her eyes.
Vaeron read the draft first. That was wise, because if I had read it first, I might have laughed in the wrong place.
"The Dread Legion and associated forces may remain on Dragonstone only under royal sufferance," Vaeron said, voice flat. "Captain Galeris may not take service from, accept payment from, correspond militarily with, or contract with any lord, landed knight, city, port, or royal office within Westeros without direct permission granted in advance by the Hand of the King."
Rhaenyra’s eyes went cold. "By the Hand?"
"Not the Crown," Vaeron said. "The Hand."
I sat back slowly. "That is not a condition. That is a leash."
"That is generous," Vaeron replied. "A leash allows walking."
Rhaenyra held out her hand, and he passed her the parchment. She read quickly, her expression darkening with each line. "He means to starve the company," she said.
"Yes," Vaeron replied. "Forbid contracts, trap the army on Dragonstone, make it too expensive to maintain, then call any attempt to earn coin disobedience."
"And if we disband?"
"Then your strength vanishes while his caution is praised."
I looked at the document. "He has overreached."
"He did," Vaeron said. "That makes it easier to strike, but not harmless. Some of these terms are reasonable enough to hide among the absurd ones."
Rhaenyra placed the parchment on the table. "My father will not accept this."
"No," I said. "But Otto did not write it only for your father. He wrote it so the first shape of the argument would be his."
Vaeron nodded once. "Precisely."
We slept little.
The next morning, we were summoned to a smaller chamber rather than the throne room. That itself was a mercy and a warning. No packed court waited to turn every breath into spectacle, but absence of audience did not mean absence of danger.
Viserys sat at the head of the table, dressed less formally than the day before, though still unmistakably king. Otto stood to his right with papers arranged before him, Alicent sat nearby in quiet composure, and Rhaenyra entered with Criston Cole two paces behind her.
Too close. Correctly close. Unavoidably close.
I saw her feel it before she mastered herself. Criston took his post near the wall and said nothing, but his silence filled the space behind her shoulder. It was an elegant cruelty, whether Viserys intended it or not.
Vaeron stood beside me with the revised notes tucked beneath one arm. He did not speak as we entered, and I knew he would not unless asked. Yesterday had belonged to public answers. Today belonged to terms, and he looked like a man perfectly willing to let others discover the traps before he named them.
Viserys did not waste time. "I have read Lord Otto’s proposed conditions," he said.
"So have we," Rhaenyra replied.
Otto inclined his head. "The terms are cautious because the circumstances demand caution."
"They are ridiculous," Viserys said.
The room went still. Otto’s expression did not break, but something behind his eyes sharpened. Alicent looked at Viserys with mild surprise, and Rhaenyra’s gaze flicked to me for the briefest moment. I kept my face still.
Viserys lifted the draft. "You would forbid the company from taking any service in Westeros from any lord, port, or office without your direct permission?"
"Your Grace, a private army moving between great houses without oversight could create instability."
"A private army unable to work becomes a hungry army," Viserys said. "Hungry armies create instability faster than paid ones."
Otto bowed his head. "Then perhaps royal permission rather than mine alone."
"Perhaps," Viserys said dryly.
The King turned a page. "This clause is struck."
Otto accepted the blow with perfect grace, which made me trust him less.
Viserys continued. "The host on Dragonstone will remain there unless under contract, royal command, direct threat to the island, or movement approved by the Crown. Any contract taken in Westeros will be recorded and delivered to the Crown before the company marches, unless immediate danger makes delay impossible."
Vaeron’s eyes moved once over the draft. Not approval, perhaps, but acceptance.
"No more than three hundred members of Captain Galeris’s forces may enter King’s Landing at one time without royal permission," Viserys continued. "The one hundred Unsullied presently lodged near the quay will remain under strict order and depart with Captain Galeris unless further leave is granted."
"That is acceptable," I said.
Otto glanced at me. "How reassuring."
Viserys looked at him. Otto fell silent.
The King turned to me. "You will provide numbers, officer names, camp locations, supply arrangements, and the terms under which the Unsullied now serve. Men from the Crown may inspect Dragonstone’s camps with notice."
"With notice," Rhaenyra said.
Viserys looked at her. "With notice."
Alicent spoke then, softly but clearly. "And the Princess herself?"
The room changed. Viserys’s eyes moved to his wife. Otto looked pleased that she had asked what he could not press too eagerly after yesterday. Rhaenyra’s face cooled, while Criston’s gaze lowered just enough to look dutiful rather than interested.
Alicent continued. "If the concern is influence, then the terms must address more than soldiers."
Viserys sat back. "They will."
He looked at me, and the father in him was gone for the moment. This was the King, and perhaps the man who had heard Rhaenyra’s words yesterday and understood he could not protect her by pretending trust was enough.
"Any attempt to command, confine, coerce, or control Princess Rhaenyra through marriage, army, coin, household, or threat will be treated as treason against the Crown," Viserys said.
The words struck the room with quiet force.
Rhaenyra turned toward him, and something complicated moved across her face. Gratitude, irritation, pride, and resentment all fought for space. She did not want to be treated as a helpless daughter in need of clauses, but neither could she fail to understand what the King had just done. He had given permission, but he had also drawn a line around her person and dared me to cross it.
"I accept," I said.
Otto watched closely. "So readily?"
"Yes, my Lord Hand."
"Most men would object to being threatened with treason in the terms of their own marriage."
"Most men intending to control their wives would object more strongly."
Rhaenyra looked down at the table. Not quickly enough to hide the faint smile. Viserys saw it too, and for one moment the tiredness in him softened. Then he returned to the parchment.
"You will swear publicly that you claim no authority over Rhaenyra’s rights, titles, or succession by marriage," he said. "If children come from this union, their place will be determined according to law, royal recognition, and such arrangements as are proper for heirs of my line."
Otto’s face gave away nothing, which meant that clause mattered. Rhaenyra heard it as well. Children. The word sat in the chamber like a future neither of us had yet learned how to hold. It made the marriage more real than court speeches had. A husband could be argued over. A future child became law, blood, succession, and danger given a cradle.
Viserys let the silence pass. "The wedding will take place in two months," he said.
Rhaenyra’s eyes lifted. "Two months?"
"In King’s Landing," Viserys said. "Under royal authority, before the court, with the realm given proper notice. If this match is to happen, it will not happen like something smuggled through a side door."
Otto did not like that.
Alicent did not either, though for different reasons. A royal wedding made the match visible, legitimate, and harder to whisper away as a reckless arrangement born in foreign heat. It also gave Otto two months to poison every cup of opinion in the capital.
Rhaenyra held her father’s gaze. "You would honour it publicly?"
"I said I did not like the match," Viserys replied. "I did not say I would have my daughter married as if I were ashamed of her."
That struck her. It struck me too. For all his weakness, for all his avoidance and his willingness to let Otto stand too close to power, Viserys still loved her. Not cleanly, not always wisely, and not enough to save her from every wound, but truly. The tragedy was that love alone had never taught a king how to rule strongly.
"Thank you, father," Rhaenyra said.
Viserys nodded, then looked away before the moment could become too tender in front of Otto.
The rest of the meeting became ink. Terms were amended, clauses struck, phrases softened, and dangerous words replaced with safer ones that meant nearly the same thing. Vaeron spoke only when Viserys asked him directly about records, numbers, and supply, and even then he answered with such restrained precision that Otto could find no open insolence to punish. I almost admired the effort it took him.
By the time we left, the shape of the cage had changed. It was wider than Otto wanted, yet it was still a cage.
Criston followed Rhaenyra from the chamber, silent in white, close enough to remind everyone that the Red Keep had eyes even when it offered rooms. His gaze did not linger on me this time, which made the effort more obvious. Rhaenyra walked as if she did not feel him behind her, but I knew better.
Vaeron waited until we were back in my chamber with the door closed and two Dread Legion veterans outside before placing the final notes on the table.
"It could have been worse," he said.
"That is not comforting."
"It was not meant to be. It was classification."
Rhaenyra stood near the window, looking out over King’s Landing. "Two months."
"Yes," I said.
"Two months for Otto to scheme, Alicent to fear, Criston to stand outside my door, my father to regret his own mercy, and the court to decide whether you are romantic, dangerous, absurd, or all three."
Vaeron considered that. "All three is likely."
I looked at him. He did not apologise.
Despite herself, Rhaenyra laughed once, though the sound faded quickly. The city stretched beneath us, loud and restless beyond the walls, while somewhere near the quay one hundred Unsullied slept in rotation because someone had finally ordered them to rest. Across the Blackwater, Dragonstone held the rest of the army under stone, suspicion, and terms still drying in ink.
A little over a year ago, I had entered King’s Landing as Daemon’s prize. In two months, I would stand before the realm as Rhaenyra’s husband.
Otto Hightower had failed to stop the match.
He had only been given sixty days to poison it.
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