Strings of Silk / Aemond Targaryen

The Lost Hour

I prayed to the Stranger, though only once.

It all still weighed on me as the days passed, Helaena's visions and the half-mocking eyes of the courtiers. At least  I had the sept now. I prayed to the Mother, Maid and Crone in turn, and visited the unfamiliar altar hesitantly. The eternal blue of the Stranger's eyes was touched with a kind of indecipherable black that seemed to swallow me in a safe oblivion. It reminded me of my refuge in the Blackwater, or a deeper ocean still.

Sage took me every morning, and escorted me back. I did not trust her but could not help liking her for her simplicity, and even the awkwardness of her movements. She might know a great deal, but I did not think she was subtle enough to fake such clumsiness. It was no illusion that she was only half trained, that her nervous confessions as we walked were true.

"My sister Rue served Lord Lannister," she said. "And came here with his family. She was able to secure me a position two moons ago, and though it isn't much, it's a chance to climb higher." Sage's smile crinkled her nose and reached the corners of her eyes. I simply believed in her, that the knowledge she might possess was yet another burden of her position.

My reading progressed steadily. I could sound out a few words, ugly as they were. Ryker was still strict but it was so natural to him that no longer bothered me. It was no slight on me if his mouth was hard, as it was no slight if the leaves withered and fell in the autumn.

Aemond stopped by every afternoon with a book and read a passage from it, explaining as he went. He would talk to me a little, making sure I understood it fully, and with a nod, he would clap the book close and be gone. But I rarely saw him otherwise. He was busy in the city, Ryker told me, or holed with the sour faced Braavosi ambassador.

I had my dancing master as well, a nimble old Volantene man called Lark with a tattoo of a feather on his cheek, distorted by time. All slaves of Volantis had such markings, they said. I had seen them before, when a pair of twins with tears under etched their eyes came to Mysaria's for a fortnight. They were too quiet to please her, but they found work elsewhere. I wanted to ask Lark about his feather, but he had such a merry way about him, even as he chastised me, that I couldn't bear to break his happiness.

He beat a small drum to provide the beat. The steps were far easier than what I had learned at Mysaria's. It felt like I was moving through one of the vast looms in the city, weaving and darting to Lark's steadfast rhythm. I was always too fast, too eager to find my footing.

"You dance like newborn calf," Lark said, though he sweetened it with a smile. "Still, better too fast than too slow. And you will need partner. You have friend, girl to join you?". I did not wish to tell another teacher of my loneliness, but I did, and he chuckled. "I must dance with you, though the knees are old and not so quick. But you must learn. You cannot dance alone, like madwoman."

We worked on my courtesies as well. Though he could not speak the common tongue perfectly, he spoke these phrases fluently and after my awkwardness in the garden, I was desperate for them. But that was not enough.

"You curtsey like kitchen girl," he told me flatly, the feather crinkling as he scowled. The news was not pleasant, as I had already curtseyed before half the court.

My life was moving smoothly. Or would be if I ignored the massive weight of things, the lurking future and all I left behind, if I didn't think of my mother.

Every night I cried myself to sleep.

xxx

When I reached the solar for my afternoon lesson, Aemond had claimed Ryker's place.