Chapter 127: 51
Chapter 51: Part LINotes:
(See the end of the chapter for notes.)
Chapter Text
Disclaimer: I own nothing, just borrowing for a while.
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"I've ordered investigations into all the likely suspects. Spies from the Free Cities, disgruntled Maesters, Targaryen Loyalists, Dornish rebels, my sister…"
"You believe the Queen Mother is linked to this plot?"
"I always suspect my sister of involvement in every plot."
Tyrion Lannister, Hand of the King – 305AC
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Red Keep – King's Landing – 300 AC
As per usual for his semi-regular visits Bernadette met Gendry at the gate to Maegor's Holdfast and escorted him through the winding corridors and up the staircase to the King's quarters for one of his occasional invitations to visit his half-brother. By now he could easily find his own way but there was still the formalities to take account of, plus another more personal motivation.
A somewhat more recent development to the routine was that when they reached the last flight of stairs they both stopped half way up. Bernadette looked around and listened for anyone else approaching before kissing him. "I'm free after attending Sept tomorrow if you want to meet then, and perhaps do something fun" she told him. "Not that, not right after Sept" she chided before he could even open his mouth to reply.
"How did you know what I was going to say?" Gendry wanted to know, it's what he was thinking but he hadn't actually said it yet.
"It's all you ever want to do" Bernadette told him with a giggle.
Gendry sighed. "You know that's your fault for ever letting me" he pointed out, reasonably he thought.
"So I shouldn't have?" Bernadette asked coyly.
"Did I say that? No I didn't" Gendry replied with considerable feeling on the matter. It had come as more than a bit of a surprise when, after several attempts to get her to walk out with him, she had eventually relented, and then even more of one when it didn't take near as long again to get her into bed for the first time.
Unfortunately the ongoing need to try and keep things quiet, their respective jobs making it difficult to always find time for each other, and, to Gendry's irritation, the fact she seemed to enjoy teasing him but not always putting out once she got his forge going meant that he wasn't enjoying her favours near as often as he wanted to.
This was, he expected, because she planned to hold him to his promise to marry her once his apprenticeship was finished, and that he was going to be greatly disappointed on a regular basis until he did.
Which was fair, he had to admit, but still greatly frustrating.
Bernadette kissed him again. "You shouldn't be late" she told him before a wicked smile appeared on her pretty face. "Did you know that I'm not wearing anything under this dress?" she asked sweetly, as she set off again up the stairs.
"Aargh" Gendry groaned, trying to think about metalworking instead, a task made more difficult by being behind her as she added a greater than usual sway to her hips, the lightweight, flowing cloth moving with them enough to show it.
Women were evil, he decided with a resigned sigh as he began to follow her again, pondering why the metal had to be that exact shade of bright orange when you were forge-welding Qohorik steel because that was better for his sanity than letting his imagination run wild.
The Kingsguard at the door to the Royal apartments barely acknowledged them beyond opening it to let them through. They were after all only a servant and a bastard blacksmith, being a royal bastard meant little in terms of social standing, and since he knew who they were and that the king was expecting his half-brother he just moved aside to let them on through.
"Not going to check me for weapons, Ser Preston?" Gendry queried.
"Are you carrying one?" the knight asked.
"Yes"
Ser Preston frowned. "If you'd lied you could have saved me from having to ask why" he complained. "Let me guess, it's something you made you want him to see?" he surmised.
Gendry grinned. "Good guess" he replied.
"If you knew how to use them, as well as make them I'd be more worried" Ser Preston told the blacksmith flatly. "As it is we've all seen you showing off some fancy new blade in the king's presence enough by now to know two things. Firstly, that if you were going to attack him you would have by now, and secondly that being good at swinging a hammer isn't a skill that transfers to swinging a sword" he said. "Just go in" he requested, just wanting this inane conversation over with.
"Right you are, Ser Preston" Gendry replied, Bernadette leading him on through. "If you ever want those greaves on your legs adjusted come to the shop. I can see where they're not fitted quite right, whoever made them for you isn't worth the money you paid them. They spent more time on making them look shiny and not enough on making them comfortable."
"That's what I told the bast.." Ser Preston began to reply then decided to alter his choice of words, "…arsehole on the Street of Steel I ordered them from."
"Always a mistake to buy something from an arsehole, My Lord. Patronise the bastard instead" Gendry advised, feeling extremely pleased with himself for the line and hoping Bernadette liked it too. Reading those books Lady Shireen kept giving him had done wonders for his vocabulary and meant he could even indulge in some of the wordplay he knew his half-brother, the king, was a master of.
Not knowing whether Gendry was being uppity or not Ser Preston ignored him and went back to being bored guarding the door, closing it behind them as they went inside.
They found King Joffrey inspecting a very large map, resembling an unrolled rug more than anything else to Gendry's eyes, spread out over the floor of one of his rooms, much of the furniture pushed to the side out of the way to make room for it.
With Bernadette waiting nearby in case she was needed Gendry feigned a cough to try and gain the king's attention but initially failed to draw him away from his thoughts.
"They didn't get it quite right" the king said, mostly to himself. "The Fever River doesn't reach as far East as that. Its headwaters are in the hills there" he continued, using a long stick to point down to where he meant.
"Your Grace" Gendry greeted his half-brother with a bow.
Octavian looked up. "Good Day Gendry" he responded, looking up. "If I place a port at the mouth of the river, I know its navigable for at least certain types of large ships along most of its length" he went back to looking at the map, "then I can build a road the rest of the way to the old fortress and then another road heading north-east from Moat Cailin to the White Knife River on the coast there, just across from White Harbour" he said, indicating the route. "It'll enable us to increase trade across Westeros from the Sunset Sea to the Narrow Sea. Being of particular value to trade to and from Braavos and Lorath."
"Yes?" Gendry responded uncertainly.
"Yes" Octavian confirmed. "It won't be the first new East-West trade route however, the Blue Fork of the Trident can be navigated almost to where it becomes Hag's Mire and that's less than fifty miles from the coast" he said. "It'll involve a few viaducts to build a good road from an inland port on the river to one I'll build on the coast but that'll be easy enough with the new concrete."
"Concrete?" Gendry queried.
"Just perfected, or nearly perfected, building material that the Guild of Pyromancers have been working on for me" Octavian explained. "It's based on sand, gravel and a new type of cement, practically as hardwearing as stone once it's set, but you can mould it any shape you want and with the right mix of ingredients it'll even set underwater" he enthused. "No need for natural harbours, build breakwaters anywhere along the coast you want and plant a port there."
"Sounds… useful" Gendry surmised.
"It'll revolutionise Civil Engineering as we know it" Octavian declared happily. "Bridges, aqueducts, whatever you want constructed in a fraction the normal time and with less need for skilled labour like stonemasons pounding chunks of rocks with hammers and chisels."
"Not so good for the Stonemason's Guild then" Gendry observed, he had a couple of friends, or at least acquaintances, that were apprenticed to master-masons of that Guild."
"Plenty of other work for them, don't worry" Octavian reassured him. "Relatively thin marble slabs to clad new concrete buildings for example" he suggested one possibility, imagining some of these new building judging from his expression. "Oh, I'm being a poor host" he suddenly realised. "Help yourself to bread and cheese on the table and there's chicken over…" he began to say, pointing to where a large pile of bones was resting on a serving tray. "Damn it Clegane" he mildly swore. "It's a wonder that man doesn't grow feathers."
"Should I fetch more chicken, Your Grace?" Bernadette asked.
"Yes please, and if the one over there is empty another bottle of wine as well, assuming you can find one my bodyguard didn't get to first" Octavian replied sardonically.
"We try and hide the good stuff so he doesn't help himself, Your Grace" Bernadette explained. "Not that he ever gets drunk on duty" she added quickly, not wanting Sandor Clegane to think she had badmouthed him. He was a scary man, if not necessarily as mean as his scars made him look once you got to know him a little.
"Nothing too sweet by preference, perhaps Arbor Gold if you don't have to go all the way down to the wine cellar to fetch one" Octavian requested.
"I don't mind doing that, Your Grace" Bernadette told him.
"Perhaps not, but I'm not that fussy and I'd sooner not wait that long" Octavian told her. "Get along now girl" he commanded sternly.
"Right away, Your Grace" The handmaiden responded, dashing off immediately.
Octavian waited until she was gone before turning to Gendry, now looking rather less pleased. "Gendry, you might be interested to hear that for some time now I have been quietly recruiting a number of agents and informants within the Red Keep, and the rest of King's Landing" he said, seemingly randomly. "Some of them are new, others used to report to a different master and in fact the men they used to serve still think they do in many or most cases" he continued. "It is oft the case that these intelligences lead to my dispatching a few of the City Watch to give someone a much-needed beating, as warning or punishment, but on occasion I learn something that merely results in some miscreant receiving a stern talking to."
"Yes?" Gendry responded, slightly confused by what Joffrey was on about that might concern him.
"Yes" Octavian confirmed. "Of particular importance was the need to keep a watchful eye on those that live and work in the Keep, servants for example, because we never really did find out who had our father poisoned or why exactly they did it" he said. "As yet there are no clues on that front, but I did recently learn of some other activities going on within my household that might not be treasonous, or particularly nefarious at all, but did irritate me somewhat" he continued, now directing a baleful glare at Gendry. "I seem to recall telling you not to fool around with the serving girls and doing so in a manner that made it clear I would be annoyed if you did. Is that not the case Gendry? Yes or no."
Gendry inwardly winced. "No" he replied.
"No?" Octavian responded, surprised by the answer and not looking too pleased about the apparent challenge.
"No. Your Grace" Gendry restated his answer, albeit more deferentially. "You said I couldn't mess around with one of the servants unless I was going to marry the girl" he said. "Which I'm going to" he added firmly.
Octavian raised his eyebrows before frowning. "Gendry. Have you gotten her pregnant?" he asked, tone and expression ones of chastisement and disappointment.
"No. It's not like that" Gendry replied quickly. "I mean she could be, but I don't think she is because I'm sure she would have told me, I've promised her that when my apprenticeship is finished, and I'm on the rolls of the Guild of Blacksmiths so I can earn a decent wage, I'll marry her."
"Hmmm" Octavian responded after some consideration. "I do hope this promise wasn't just a means to get her drawers and chemise off?" he checked suspiciously.
Gendry's mind instantly flashed to being told only minutes before that she wasn't actually wearing either of those items right now but he successfully managed to push the image back out of his mind again. "No, it's not like that. I really like her" he replied. "Bernadette's not like most of the girls I meet, not that I get to meet many, it's not just that she's pretty, and dresses nicely, and always makes her hair look good, she's just…" he trailed off, trying to think of the proper way to put it. "More refined" he said eventually.
Still holding his stick Octavian rested it back over his shoulder. "She doesn't think that marrying the king's half-brother is going to lead to a life of luxury does she?"
"No, she thinks I might end up earning more coin than most blacksmiths, because of men wanting to buy arms and armour from me to try and curry favour with you somehow, but she knows you're not going to legitimise me into House Baratheon or anything daft like that" Gendry replied. "The people wouldn't stand for it, not after the Blackfyre Rebellions got so many good men killed" he knew. "We won't be poor, even a journeyman blacksmith lives a lot better than most Smallfolk and hopefully learning the trade under Master Tobho Mott will see the Guild granting me the title of Master Blacksmith younger than most, maybe even before I'm thirty if I put the effort in."
"You're looking ahead to the future then? I approve of the planning at least" Octavian told him. "I assume Mott is happy for you to remain working for him as a journeyman?" he asked.
"He says so, we've talked of it" Gendry confirmed, nodding. "He's always praised the quality of my work and how much effort I put in, and that was before we had knights and lords always turning up hoping to get a knife or something made by King Robert's bastard."
"The one the current king invites to the Red Keep every couple of weeks to have luncheon with him" Octavian added with a knowing smile.
"It's done wonders for the shop" Gendry admitted. "I mean we always had plenty of work, because we're the best, but now we can mark up prices on little things and still sell them. You were right about that."
"I'm right about a lot of things, Gendry. Not everyone is always happy about that, but the smarter ones just learn to live with the truth of it" Octavian replied, less than humbly before looking Gendry right in the eyes. "Let me be absolutely clear on this. You're my half-brother, not my servant, my serf or my slave, but you'd better marry the fucking girl or I will not be happy" he said with not inconsiderable menace. "And until you do marry her would you please either put more effort into keeping the relationship discreet, or else publicly announce you're betrothed, because I don't want people thinking I'm pimping my handmaiden to my bastard older sibling" he stated firmly. "It's crass."
"Right" Gendry agreed, trying not to flinch. He might be shorter, and a lot less muscular than me, Gendry thought to himself, but by the gods my younger brother is intimidating when he wants to be. Sometimes you could really see why he was occasionally referred to as 'Tywin Lannister with a smile" amongst the denizens of the streets and alleys of King's Landing. Those inclined to thievery or the like particularly detested him, or rather his reformed, actually effective, City Watch with a considerable passion.
Not so long past Gendry had overheard a conversation in an alehouse when one of the other patrons had been complaining bitterly about what the world was coming to when an honest cutpurse couldn't go about his business unmolested by thuggish Goldcloaks, or even worse be unable to bribe their way back out of a cell?
"Judging by how long she's taking with the chicken I assume the object of your affection is waiting for the egg to hatch" Octavian joked. "How goes the steel for the first batch of the new crossbows by the way?" he asked.
"The first half-dozen prods are ready though Master Mott continues to say that it breaks his heart to think about using such good steel for anything but a sword or armour" Gendry replied. "Was the trial one we made really that much better?"
"It was truly outstanding" Octavian told him. "We already had steel crossbows with draw-weights that are so absurdly high you need a windlass to cock them, but you can't draw them back nearly as far as a wooden bow because if the steel gives way under the strain the force released could kill or injure the crossbowman" he explained. "Qohorik steel can take more strain without yielding, so we can increase the length of the power-stroke without taking our life in our hands. The bolt leaves the crossbow going noticeably faster, they'll be murder against anything but the finest plate armour at a range which will surprise a lot of people."
"And you'll have a monopoly on them for the City Watch" Gendry noted. "We can't make them any faster I'm sorry to say, it's not the other work, it's how long it takes to properly make the steel."
"And the spells that have to be cast during the process, no doubt" Octavian replied knowingly.
"Spells?" Gendry responded with a confused expression, feigning ignorance. As it was he really didn't know the specifics but he knew Tobho Mott's methods were… arcane sometimes.
"Mott's secrets are his own, just as long as he's not performing blood sacrifices using people I don't care what's involved" Octavian told him honestly. There were some very disturbing things said about what they got up to in Qohor, and just why nobody else could replicate the quality of their arms and armour.
"Talking of the steel we made for the prods, there was a little left over so I made this" Gendry announced, holding up something wrapped in cloth that had been tucked into his belt. He unwrapped it and held it up to show the king.
"Is this a dagger I see before me?" Octavian asked rhetorically. "You do know that if you kill me with that you don't get to be king just because we're both sons of the previous one I hope?" he continued deadpan.
"It's for Lady Shireen to say thanks for the books she's been lending me" Gendry explained, ignoring the king's jest because he knew him well enough to know it was made only for his own amusement. "The handle is made of deer antler and I engraved her name on the blade."
Octavian reached out to take it for a closer inspection, Gendry handing it over. "Very nice work as always" he said turning it over in his hands to examine the detail of the work. "I do have a question though, one I've meant to ask before. Why is your handwriting so much worse than your engraving?"
"I honestly couldn't tell you, Your Grace" Gendry admitted. "I've wondered that myself" he said. "Could you give it to her for me?"
"Why not give it to her yourself?" Octavian queried.
"Because if I go see her I might run into Lady Yara again and she's terrifying" Gendry replied. "She looks at me like she wants to make me her Thrall… or worse."
"I imagine her intentions towards you are somewhat lascivious in nature" Octavian told him, clearly amused.
"I know, that's the worse" Gendry replied. "She looks at me like men look at tavern wenches."
Octavian had it on good authority that Yara also looked at tavern wenches the same way herself, she was adaptable in her tastes that way, but he didn't pass on that piece of salacious gossip. "You need not worry, Lady Yara is away on the business of the Iron Throne, transporting my uncle Tyrion to the Wall by way of Eastwatch-by-the-Sea" he told him. "She had the fastest ship in the harbour, and was clearly pining for the sea, so Lord Stark gave her the assignment" he continued, passing back the knife.
"That's a relief" Gendry said happily shortly before Bernadette appeared again, holding a tray of chicken drumsticks still sizzling from the stove, another maidservant carrying a bottle of wine and two glasses.
"Put those down over there and then go get yourselves something to eat, we'll be fine helping ourselves to food and wine" Octavian told the servants. "Oh, and when he leaves could you escort Gendry to the apartments of the Lord Regent please Bernadette, he's going to see our cousin, the Lady Shireen to deliver a gift."
"Of course, Your Grace" Bernadette replied as she placed the tray down.
Octavian gave Gendry a look that clearly meant 'Tell her what we discussed on the way' before directing his attention towards his luncheon.
Her duties done for now Bernadette bowed to the king and left, making sure to remain nearby for when Gendry's visit ended.
Despite her initial reservations, and in some ways despite herself, she had actually become quite fond of him. He wasn't the drunken oaf his father was, he was surprisingly sweet and attentive, and she had to admit she found his muscular physique particularly appealing on a personal level.
When the message had first arrived for her from Casterly Rock, written in Queen Cersei's own hand, ordering her to exploit Robert's bastards evident affection for her and to permit him 'any favours that might be necessary', Bernadette had thought it had been a mistake to even include his advances in her regular report. Despite her loyalty to Cersei that wasn't the sort of assignment she wanted to undertake, not being a cheap harlot.
Still, orders were orders, and it really wasn't that bad. It was rather fun really, much more diverting than listening at closed doors or keeping watch on people of interest.
And at least there was always Moon Tea if he got her pregnant, so she wouldn't have to marry him if it came to that, she thought with relief.
Notes:
Note from the Author:
Bernadette was an informant for Cersei and appeared very loyal (to the point where she took finding her engaged in distinctly un-sibling like behaviour with her brother Jamie in her stride). Cersei may be on the other side of the continent but she is not without her resources.
Now that concrete has been 'invented' Octavian is starting to make more detailed plans for his Civil Engineering projects. Roman Concrete was very useful stuff.
The drawback of a strel crossbow (or Arbalest) wasn't the draw-weight but the draw length (see what I did there). Medieval metallurgy wasn't up to making steel that could be bent too far without risking catastrophic failure. Qohor seems to have mastered the art of making steel better than everyone else (it's not Valyrian Steel but it's weirdly good nonetheless) enabling a longer power-stroke when the crossbow is loosed. Like Joffrey, Octavian is fond of crossbows, he's just not interested in shooting them into whores recreationally.
After he finishes his apprenticeship Gendry would become a Journeyman Blacksmith, most of whom tended to stay with their old masters for a few years to keep learning the trade (but they were paid now which was nice. Belonging to an important Guild meant higher social status (and the opportunity to accumulate more wealth) than most people that weren't part of the aristocracy. By Smallfolk standards Gendry would be a good catch and he knows it.
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