312Disclaimer: I do not own A Song of Ice and Fire.
The Ghost of the North
Chapter 2: Aenys I
"Talking"
"Thinking"
(Location: Red Keep)
He coughed into his hand and when he pulled it away, he could see that there was blood on it. Reaching for a nearby cloth, he wiped the blood off and threw the cloth into the nearby fire. He watched with small satisfaction as it burned to ashes. The damned sickness had been tearing through him for the better part of four months and it was winning the fight. The Grand Maester had already told him. He was going to die.
But that wasn't the biggest problem he had right now. "What should I do?" He often asked himself in silence. When he had become king, the Faith Militant had revolted, claiming that since he was born of incest, he was no true king. And as much as he hated to admit it, they were right. But they had the wrong reason.
Aenys wasn't a strong king, he knew that. Quite frankly, everyone knew that. Everyone would rather have his brother, Maegor, be king, even their father, Aegon the Conqueror. But he had been the firstborn, so he had become the heir to the Iron Throne. But when the Faith Militant revolted, he didn't know what to do. He had been indecisive and that had only made things worse. The one thing he had done right (as so many had told him) was to appoint Maegor to be his Hand and let him deal with the revolt.
A knock on the door drew his attention away from the fire. "Your pardon, your Grace, but Lord Snow is here." One of the Kingsguard outside his rooms said.
He stood up from the chair he was in, trembling slightly as he did. "Send him in." He called out. The door opened and Brandon Snow, his Master of Whispers, came in. "Lord Snow." He greeted the Northman. "You bring news?"
"I do, your Grace." Brandon replied. "Your brother, Lord Maegor, is riding in from the war. He has capture one of the leaders of the Warrior's Sons and is bringing him in for questioning. Also, my nephew seems to be riding with them."
Aenys, whose attention had wandered slightly when he heard his brother's name, refocused on him when he heard the second name. "Jon's riding in?" He asked.
"I do not believe I have any other nephew, my king." His Master of Whispers replied. "Not unless my brother got married without my knowing. And I doubt that would actually happen."
The king hadn't heard the rest of his words. "Thank you, Lord Snow. Please tell your nephew to attend me in the small council room." He commanded.
Brandon bowed his head. "As you wish, your Grace." With that said, the Northman walked out of the room. Aenys quickly pulled on a set of robes before heading out of the room himself. The Kingsguard who guarded his door filed in behind him. As he walked through the hallways, the builders and workers that filled the Red Keep went past him. His father, Aegon the Conqueror, had ordered the Red Keep to be built, yet it was still being constructed when he died. It was still being constructed, five years later. Thankfully, some of the rooms had been completed, enough for people to actually start living in them.
When he got to the small council room, he already saw that Jon was already waiting inside. "Your Grace." The heir to Winterfell said, turning to face the king and bowing his head.
Aenys waved the bow off, smiling at the Northman. "It's good to see you again, Jon." He said. The son of Torrhen Stark was something the king considered to be rare: an actual friend to both him and Maegor. When the two of them had been growing up, Jon had come down to King's Landing and became a surrogate older brother to the two of them.
"It's good to see you too, my king." Jon replied, still being formal.
The king of Westeros sat in his chair and seemed to sink slightly into it. "Jon, please, there's no one else here. My Kingsguard are outside. Can you please just speak to me like we're children again, not as a king and a lord?" He asked.
At that, the Northman smiled. "I'm not a lord, Aenys. My father is still the Warden of the North."
"Aye, I know." Before he could say anything else, the doors to the room opened again and Maegor walked in. The Hand of the King walked straight to the king himself, stopping just in front of his chair. The two brothers just stared at each other for the longest time, until the elder looked away. "Hello, Maegor." He said.
"You look like shit." Maegor told him bluntly.
He couldn't help but flinch at those words. "I know." It was the only thing he could think to say. Ever since they were children, he had been afraid of Maegor. And it didn't help the fact that they were completely different. While they might both be taller, his brother was the taller of them. Where he was slender, Maegor was bulky. Where he was soft, Maegor was hard. Where his hair was long, Maegor's was short. And where he was weak, Maegor was strong.
But Jon stepped in at that point and diffused the tension that was growing between the two. He was the only one who could do it by himself. "Maegor, I've forgotten to ask. How is your wife? Is the baby doing well?" He asked the Hand.
Maegor did something everyone who knew him considered to be rare, if not virtually nonexistent. He smiled. "She's to be due in the next month or so. I will be a father soon." If there was one thing that Maegor the Cruel shared with his mother, it was that they had a soft spot for children (even though they would never admit it publically).
"I'm glad to see you like this." Aenys told his brother. "I hope that I will have a nephew soon."
Maegor shook his head. "I won't have a son. I will have a daughter." He stated, making it sound like he was absolutely certain of it.
"Ah, so that was the choice he gave you, wasn't it?" Jon asked him, somehow knowing what he was talking about.
But the king was at a loss. He knew the story (everyone knew the story). Maegor kept marrying, but his wives could never produce a child for him, which had usually led to him beheading them. After his fifth wife had died like that, Jon had suggested that he should try to find a woman who was just as strong as he was. So the two of them went north of the Wall and when Maegor came back south, he had brought a wilding woman for a wife back with him. "Tell me about the man you've captured." He ordered his Hand.
Maegor gave him a hard look (or at least, what he thought was a hard look), making him look away. He did not turn his head. He just didn't hold his brother's gaze. "He's currently in the black cells. Give him a few days and he will tell us all we need to know." Maegor told him.
"Don't torture him too much." He tried to order his brother, which only got him a glare in return. His Hand left the room, slamming the door behind him. "Why do I keep trying to order him around?" The king asked himself.
"Because you are the king and he is your Hand." Jon said in answer.
"And yet, everyone at court wants him to be the king." He replied. He knew that they would gladly see him dead so his brother would sit his ass on the Iron Throne.
"You're a good king, Aenys." His friend from the North assured him.
"I'm a weak king, Jon." He said to him. "You and I both know that I would rather be enjoying the life at court rather than trying to make decisions for the kingdoms. Watching mummers do their acts, sponsoring a talented young singer or musician, or reading poetry." He enjoyed doing those things. A cough tore through him and he spat blood onto the table. He felt weak as the cough faded away.
The Northman just stared at him and the blood on the table. "How long have you been sick?" He asked the king.
Aenys didn't say anything at first. He just cleaned the blood from his mouth with another piece of cloth. "…A few weeks after Quicksilver had been killed." He finally said, taking the cloth away from him. Its former white color was now blood red, his blood. As he put the cloth down on the table, he thought back to when his dragon died. It was almost ironic. The one time he tried to show some backbone and follow Maegor into the battlefield, they ended up being ambushed. When he saw Quicksilver die, he went into shock and his brother had to carry him away (or so he had been told).
"Can't the Grand Maester do something to cure your sickness?" Jon asked. It was no secret that the Grand Maester on the small council could practically cure anything.
The king shook his head. "He was the one who confirmed it. I only have weeks, if not days, left to live. And when I die, Maegor is sure to take the throne from my son. I just hope he will be kind enough to let Jaehaerys live."
Before Jon could say anything, a crow flew in through the window and landed on the small council, in front of Aenys. The Targaryen king looked at the crow and saw that above its beak and centered perfectly between its two eyes was a scar. It was a particular scar. If he looked closely enough, it almost looked like a closed eye. But before he could look at it any further, it cawed at him, making him flinch away. It then pecked a spot on the table just in front of him before taking flight and leaving the room through the same window it came in from.
While he was mystified by what had just happened, Jon had become solemn and serious. "Aenys, go to the godswood." He told the king. "Go alone."
Aenys thought what his friend was odd. "Are you japing, Jon?" He asked his friend. "What are you—?"
"Go, Aenys! Now!" thundered the Northman, making him almost leap out of his chair. Never had he heard his friend speak like that to him. He had never heard him speak like that to anyone. He was always the calm one who was friendly to everyone he met. But now, looking at him, he looked like a true man of the North, stern and fierce.
Seeing his friend like that and being scared by it, the king rose from his chair and went for the door. He opened it and walked through into the hall. He heard the Kingsguard fall in behind him as he went through the halls. "I am going to the godswood." He told the Lord Commander. "Stand guard at the entrance. I wish to be alone in there."
"As you command, your Grace." The Lord Commander replied. They walked through the halls, both built and being built, in silence. When they reached the entrance to the godswood, the Kingsguard stopped. But the king kept walking.
He had always found comfort in the godswood of the Red Keep. It always seemed like a place where he wasn't a king when he was there. He knew the different types of trees he walked under, elm, alder, and black cottonwood to name a few. He felt comforted by these trees as he knew they would not judge him. As he walked a familiar path, he came up the only weirwood tree in the godswood. From what he had learned, this tree had come to King's Landing in the form of a seed taken from the great heart tree of Winterfell, carried by Aegon the Conqueror. His father had planted the seed and always tended to it. And since he had become king, it had been his duty to tend to it as well.
But as he approached the weirwood, he saw that someone was sitting beneath it. The person was cloaked and the hood was pulled up over his head. The cloak itself wasn't clean. It was covered in dirt and other things, giving the person an overall dirty appearance. "Are you lost, my good man?" Aenys asked the person (he assumed it was a man beneath the cloak).
The cloaked person looked up at the king. "I am where I want to be, boy." He said. His voice was a rusty growl.
"I am not a boy. I am a man and the king of Westeros!" The head of House Targaryen protested almost immediately, offended by what the man said.
The man just snorted and spat off to the side. "A king would never let such a problem engulf his kingdom. And a man would accept the consequences of the mistakes he's made. But instead of dealing with your problem, you force it on your brother. So, I will call you boy as many times as I like."
"Who are you to say such things to me!?" He demanded, his voice rising. But instead of becoming a roar like Maegor had, it became a squeak. It was not something he was proud of.
"The person who your father was smart enough to fear and respect," The cloaked man answered him. "Or did he not tell you what happened when he and his sisters feasted at Winterfell?"
Somehow, he ended sitting on the ground (he wasn't sure how and at that point, he didn't care), staring at the man in shock. His parents had, in fact, told him and his siblings what had happened at Winterfell that night. They described it as the most terrifying night in their lives, for their dragons had almost been taken from them. And it was all because of one person. "You're the Ghost of the North?" He asked. "What are you doing in the south?"
"You believe that since they say I am from the North, that I should stay in the North?" The Ghost asked him. He then looked at the weirwood tree he sat beneath. "I see you still haven't craved a face into the tree."
"Oh…were we supposed to do that?" Aenys asked him. He didn't know why, but those were the only words that could come out of his mouth at that time. "I thought that…well…"
"You thought that the children of the forest would come in the dead of night and carved the face for you." The Ghost said, cutting the king off before he could even say anything.
His face burned with embarrassment. That was exactly what he had been thinking. He wondered if the cloaked man before could read his mind. But before he could say anything else, he started coughing rather violently. Blood flew from his mouth, landing on the ground and the hem of the Ghost's cloak. "I…apologize…" Aenys said with a weak breath, on his knees. In that moment, he felt like truly was dying.
The Ghost of the North wasn't impressed by what he saw. "Stop being melodramatic and get up." He ordered the king of Westeros, who did as he was told. "So, you just plan to die quietly, is that it?" He asked the man struggling to sit up back up.
"What else can I do?" The head of House Targaryen asked back. "I'm a craven who was unfortunate to be the firstborn and heir to the Iron Throne. Now I'm dying from a sickness and the realm is in open revolt against the crown."
"Even a cornered and weakened animal will snarl to warn away those who would gladly prey on it." The cloaked man said cryptically to him. "And you, a craven? You're about as craven as your father was."
Those words were not ones he had expected to hear. In all of his life, no one had ever compared him to Aegon the Conqueror. "How can you compare me to my father?" He asked the Ghost. "He was strong. I'm not."
The Ghost snorted in derision and spat off to the side. "If strength was all your father had, he would've been a brute. And a brute, despite of how many dragons he might have, would never been able to successfully conquer most of Westeros." He looked at the king. "He had his strength, but he also had his mind and his creativity. If your brother got your father's strength, what do you think you got?"
"Nothing, absolutely nothing," Aenys lamented. He had inherited nothing from his father.
"You got his mind and creativity, boy!" The Ghost snapped at the king, startling him and making him yelp in surprise. "The only reason you think you got nothing is because you've never used them. And now, you are willing to die before trying to use what your father gave you." Disgust was evident in his rust-filled voice as he spoke.
"How am I supposed to use them when it's possible for me to draw my last breath at any moment?" The king asked the cloaked man. He had been all but certain that last coughing fit could've killed him.
"Have you gone deaf as well? I had just told you that a weakened animal will snarl at those who would prey on it. The same thing goes for a dying animal as well."
"I hardly think I am an animal." He retorted. A small sneer appeared on his face as he said those words.
"Then why do you and your family keep saying that you are the blood of the dragon?" The Ghost of the North asked him. "Saying that you're of the blood would imply that you yourself are a dragon. And if you are the head of House Targaryen, then you are the dragon."
"So you would just have me snarl at people before I finally die?" Aenys asked, unsure of what he was talking about.
"If your family stays on the throne, then the dragon never dies. Death is a change, nothing more. And if you snarl, what will your successor do?" He asked back.
The king would've said something, but an idea began to take root in his mind. As he thought it over, it began to appeal more and more to him. It was a perfect way to quell the Faith and it would put his worries to rest. And it all had to start with him. When he turned to ask the Ghost if what he said was true, he saw that the man had vanished, like a ghost.
Two days later, Aenys sat on the Iron Throne with the entire court there. While he tried to look dignified outwardly, inwardly he was brimming with nervousness. His idea and plan hinged on how what would happen this day. He would've prayed to the gods for strength, but the Faith of the Seven would not let his prayer pass and he felt that the old gods would not answer. He would do this alone. "Being in the prisoner," He called out for all to hear.
The doors to the Great Hall opened. Maegor and Jon walked in with a guard detail behind them. Between the two was the prisoner. If he had to guess, he would say the prisoner hailed from the Reach. He wore no armor and his hands were chained together. But he held his head high and proud. When he looked upon the king, his proud face turned into one of disgust. Aenys could see that the Warrior's Son hated him and felt a little relieved. That would make things easier for him.
"You stand before Aenys, the First of His Name—" The court herald began to say, only to have the prisoner interrupt him.
"I stand before a product of incest and a weakling!" He shouted for all those to hear. No one said a word in response, allowing the man to continue. "If any of you noble lords and ladies are pious and follow the Seven, you would overpower these men who hold me captive and take that man off of that throne!"
No one said a word in response. Instead, all eyes turned to the man sitting on the throne. He sat there, staring at the supposed righteous knight. "We find your lack of etiquette mildly insult, ser." He said to the prisoner. "Did your lady mother forget to teach you how to bend the knee to your king?"
The knight spat at the throne, the sound echoing in the Great Hall. "I do not and will bend the knee to bastard born of incest. Kill me already, 'your Grace'." He commanded, making those last two words sound like they were absolutely foul to say. "I will join the gods and they will reward me for my righteousness."
Everyone's eyes were riveted to the king, waiting to see what he would do. Normally, this would be where he would falter and his brother, the Hand, would take command. But instead, they saw him rise from the Iron Throne. "If that is your wish, we will grant it." He looked to the rest of his court. "We will go to the godswood." Everyone, with the exception of Jon, had not expected that. But when the king commanded, they obeyed.
The left the Great Hall and made their way to the godswood, looking like a small migration was happening in the Red Keep. When they arrived at the godswood, Aenys did not stop. He walked into the godswood and the rest followed. Finally, the king stopped before the weirwood tree and the entire court did the same.
"What is this?" The prisoner demanded as he saw the block sitting beneath the weirwood tree.
"You wished to be sent to the gods, ser." Aenys told him. "We are simply granting you your wish. Jon, if you would?" The Northman forced the knight to his knees and placed his head on the block. The knight began to squirm, trying to break free. The king knew that this wasn't what he had been expecting. Mostly, he had been expecting to die by hanging or locked away forever, but not this. "Now comes the hard part." Aenys thought to himself, turning to his brother. "Maegor, give me Blackfyre." He commanded.
Had that been any other time, he would've laughed at the surprised look on his brother's face. But he didn't. Instead, he held out his hand, waiting to be given the family sword. The surprise on Maegor's face disappeared as he unbuckled Blackfyre, sheath and all, from his side and held it hilt-first to his older brother. Aenys drew the sword his father wielded when he conquered Westeros and placed the tip of its blade in the ground. "Gods, it's heavy." He thought to himself. When he briefly held aloft, his arms began to scream in protest. He knew that they would scream again, but it had to be done. "I, Aenys, the First of my Name, King of the Andals and the First Men, and Protector of the Realm, accuse you of treason against the crown and sentence you to die." He told the Warrior's Son. He raised Blackfyre up, his arms screaming their protests again. But when he swung down, they stopped.
Every member of the court watched in stunned silence as their king beheaded a leader of the Warrior's Sons. They had never seen him do anything like this before. They could only as the blood from the dead knight's neck fly up into an arc and splatter against the weirwood tree. As the head rolled away on the ground, the king took Blackfyre and gave it back to his brother. Neither of them said a word as it happened. When the king left the godswood, his brother on his left and their friend on his right, everyone else followed, leaving the body to be cleaned up later.
As the sun began to set in the sky, Aenys was abed. What he had done that day drained him, drained him more than he would've thought. Before he had even gotten back to the Great Hall, a coughing fit tore through him. Blood was spat onto the ground and he had fallen to the ground. The last thing he remembered before fainting was his brother grabbing hold of him with a, surprisingly, gentle grasp.
The door to his room was opened by Maegor, who was followed by Jaehaerys, who was barely an adult. The king was not surprised by this visit. He had been the one to send for the both of them. "Come and sit." He told them. "We have much to discuss."
"What is there to discuss, father?" His son asked as he and his uncle sat down by the bed.
"The future," He answered simply enough. He turned his head to look at his brother. "Maegor, would you ever harm Jaehaerys after I die?"
"How could you even think of such a thing?" Maegor demanded, looking at his king with fury in his eyes. "He is my nephew."
Aenys smiled weakly at that. "Forgive me, brother. But I had to be sure." He looked at the both of them. "My son, when I die, your uncle will become the next king." He could see that both of them were surprised by those words. "You are much like me, Jaehaerys. You are a peaceful man, but not a warrior. Right now, the crown needs to be worn by a warrior." He explained. "Maegor, when you take the throne, I want you to bend the Faith Militant to their lowest. But do not break, only bend." He ordered his brother.
"Why?" Maegor asked him.
"When it comes for you to pass the crown to Jaehaerys, he will be the one to end the revolt. But he will end it peacefully. You must do this." He urged them. "It is the only way to crush the Faith Militant and ensure our family continues to rule Westeros."
His son wasn't sure of what he said, but he could see that his brother did. "Alright, Aenys," Maegor said to him. "If that's what you want to happen, it will happen." He smiled slightly. "I guess you got something from our father after all. You're not as weak as everyone believed." Those words of praise made the king feel proud. He had never heard them come from his brother.
End
Author's note: Thank you for all the reviews you've sent me.
From what I've read on the wiki, Aenys was a sickly person until he bonded with his dragon. So, it would stand to reason that once his dragon was killed, he would get sick again.
We only know about Maegor the Cruel in the past tense and that usually isn't kind to people. He might've earned his nickname, but that wasn't all there was to him. Besides, they never exactly say when he put down his laws or the bounties.
I could be wrong here, but I don't think the early Targaryen kings would use "Lord of the Seven Kingdoms" as a part of their titles. And for a simple reason: Dorne was still independent. So, I'm guessing they just skipped that part.
I'll see you all next chapter!