Chapter 383: 3
Chapter 3: Chapter 2: The ArchmaesterChapter Text
"A woman's tears are her second best weapon."
—Warden of the West, Lady Paramount Cersei Lannister, the Acerbic Lioness
101 AC, Red Keep
"Grandpapa!" I cheerfully called out, tackling the old man in a running hug. The Old King let out a whuff as I slammed into him, indulgently stroking my hair.
"Hello, little dragon. Now what are you doing away from your parents?" Jaehaerys asked, kneeling such that I was level with him.
"Must we go?" I whined, nuzzling into his beard and putting on my best impression of Yuri's patented doe-eyes. "Harrenhal is so dark and dreary. They say it's been cursed after Aegon the Conqueror burned it."
"Indeed. Tis a frightful place to be sure. But needs must. A Great Council is being convened, and the only fitting place for it is the largest castle in the Seven Kingdoms." My great grandfather agreed, looking me in the eyes.
I pouted.
"I think it's rank stupidity. Letting little lordlings decide who is king or queen. It sets a horrid pray-seed-dent." I complained, deliberately fudging the pronunciation. I found that acting too mature for my age tended to backfire more often than not. Already Mother was suspicious, and I had to tread carefully around Hand of the King Otto Hightower. He smelled a rat, and I did not want to attract undue attention yet.
"Precedent." Jaehaerys said.
"Pray-seedant." I tried.
"Pre-ce-dent." He enunciated slowly
"President." I proudly said.
"That will do for now. Work on your pronunciations with your Mother, little dragon." The Old King said, ruffling my hair again.
"You didn't answer my question." I accused. The King of the Seven Kingdoms nodded at that, rising to his feet and walking down the hallway, beckoning me to follow him.
"Now what happens if I decide not to hold a Great Council, and decided whom I wanted to crown?"
"You can crown who you want. You're the King. Your word is law. Everyone has to obey."
"If only if it were that simple, little dragon." Jaehaerys ruefully said. "While I have the authority, it is a duty, not to be lightly used. Every law I pass must be measured and justified. Obeyed not because I am King, but because men want to obey it. If I were to start demanding that everyone kneel and obey, I would be little more than my uncle Maegor. A tyrant whom executed all whom disobeyed him.
"The opinions of the many matter, little dragon. Those little lordlings outnumber us a hundred-to-one. And the smallfolk outnumber them a hundred-to-one. Defy too many, and they will rebel. The best rulers make wise choices that everyone agrees with." One thing I loved about my great-grandfather was that he never minced words with me. Never treated me like I was below his intellectual station because of either my age or gender. I could ask him any number of difficult questions, and get a proper answer back from him.
Unlike Daemon whom treated me as though I was a foolish girl with flowers in my head. Or Father, whom saw me as his precious baby. Or Ser Harold Stokeworth, the master-of-arms in the Red Keep, whom refused to let me even step foot in the training grounds, claiming it was not womanly. Or Grand Maester Runciter, whom treated me as either a lackwit or a nuisance.
"But we have dragons!" I protested, roaring for the effect, pretending to breath fire. "We can make them listen!"
Air superiority in Westeros was essentially OP. Very very few things could stand up to another dragon. At best, there were siege engines, as Meraxes could attest to, but there were ways around such an issue. Dragons could fly high above the clouds, high out of range of any siege engine. The problem arose was that they had to descend in order to enter attack range for their dragonflame to be effective, simultaneously putting them within range of siege engines and arrows.
One solution in particular, came to mind…
"No, no." My great grandfather chided, snapping me out of my thoughts. "That is the path of tyranny. My uncle, Maegor the Cruel, went down that path, and where did that lead him? Childless and hated, putting down rebellions every year. No. Never shall we return to those days."
And yet Maegor succeeded in putting the fear of dragons into every single man woman and child on the continent, and breaking the back of the Faith. He succeeded in consolidating House Targaryen's power and authority under his iron fist of military authoritarianism. Tyrant he may be, the Conqueror's lastborn had successfully strengthened House Targaryen's authority and bled enough of the other houses that the realm was too weak to truly oppose House Targaryen.
I genuinely believed that a large reason why King Jaehaerys had very little opposition in his early rule was that absolutely nobody dared risk incurring the wrath of the dragon, because of Maegor.
"I see. Still, heirs are a man's own business. I think that letting others meddle in it is a bad idea." I finally said, after a few moments spent mulling over what he said.
I didn't like the idea. It eroded House Targaryen's authority. The notion that lords could choose whom among us to rule them smelt far too much like the first step towards democracy. How long until they decided that great councils could be used to depose kings they didn't like? Or crown whichever heir they wanted? How long until they started wondering why shouldn't they themselves get the throne, if they had enough of the realm behind them? How long until the smallfolk realised that they could take the throne with sufficient popularity? Reaching up and dethroning the lords and ladies above them.
Oh, if I was a smallfolk commoner, or even a lesser lordling, when I'd reincarnated, I'd definitely be scheming my way into power, but the fact was I wasn't. I was one of those in power, and thus had a vested interest in retaining said power.
"Let us agree to disagree then, little dragon. Now I do believe I see your mother up ahead, so run along now."
I smiled, thanked him for his time, curtsied as elegantly as I could, before scampering back to my mother.
———
101 AC, Harrenhal
Harrenhal was pointlessly large. The walls were eight storeys high and wide enough my grandfather's bungalow could probably fit on top of them comfortably. The towers, even bent and twisted, were the height of high rise apartment buildings. The main keep was larger than my old primary school and secondary school put together. The granaries were the size of shopping malls and the stables could fit an Olympic swimming pool within them.
I was born and raised in Singapore, where land was a premium, so the sheer wastage of space I saw in the castle was physically painful. I could probably pick up one of Singapore's satellite towns and cram it into Harrenhal with space to spare. I snickered to myself as I pictured the image of me picking up my neighbourhood of Clementi and dumping it into the godswood and halls of Harrenhal.
Huh, that was actually more practical than I thought.
Harrenhal was too big for any one family to live in, not even Walder Frey and his legion of children, but as a city instead?
The curtain walls could be repurposed. The spaces between them converted into shophouses facing inwards, while the battlements could have manses built atop them. The stables could be communal, and shared between travellers, the local lords and the smallfolk. Half of it would have to be converted to store livestock, but even half the stables was more than what most castles had. The smithy was large enough for two dozen blacksmiths, the bathhouse could be communal and the kitchens could feed the whole population comfortably.
The sept could service everyone communally, as could the godswood, though converting that into a public park was an attractive idea. The towers could fit in a thousand apartments the size of my old home, and the great halls repurposed into markets or other such communal spaces.
I was writing down on a scrap of parchment my idea of converting the cavernous vaults of Harrenhal into banks, brothels and granaries when I felt someone slide into the seat beside me.
"Someone's looking like she's deep in thought." A girl's voice remarked. "What are you writing?"
I looked up and saw the person beside me. She was older than me, around Yuri's age. We shared the same silver-gold hair, worn long and loose, tumbling down in beautiful ringlets, though hers was platinum, while mine was electrum. Our eyes were purple as well, though hers were bright violet, while mine were a dark indigo. Beyond that, I could tell that she was more beautiful than I was, though I was indisputably cuter. It would change in a few years, when I lost the baby fat and matured into Canon Rhaenyra's beauty, but for now she was the more beautiful. She wore a exotically cut dress of teal edged with silver, contrasting mine, a simple dress of red with black embroidery. Who she was was obvious. There was only one other girl my age that looked Valyrian, and her name was Laena Velaryon. Firstborn of Princess Rhaenys and Lord Corlys the Sea Snake. We'd met a few times, but never really interacted.
"Cousin Laena." I greeted, rising to my feet and elegantly curtsying.
"Pooh. No need to be so stiff, Rhae, can I call you Rhae? If I wanted to be bored, I'd get a septon." Laena said, pulling me back into my seat before cuddling up beside me. "Oh, you're so adorable. I always wanted a little sister. Can I bring you home with me?"
"Are you plotting to kidnap me and ransom me to my father?" I asked, Laena choking in response. "Force him to renounce his claim to the throne in exchange for me back."
"I'm hurt Rhae. Do you really have such a low opinion of your cousin?" Laena sobbed, covering her eyes with her sleeves. I rolled my eyes at her antics. Yuri could've done the crocodile tears thrice as well at half her age. Laena wasn't fooling anyone.
"Don't worry, I have a better opinion of you than my uncle." I reassured her.
"Ooh. Which one? Vaegon? He's creepy. Surely not Daemon. He's so handsome." Laena excitedly spoke up. I rolled my eyes at that. I personally respected Uncle Vaegon quite a bit. As the Archmaester of Finance, he was arguably the foremost financial expert on the continent. My mother was an accountant, and for half my life, I believed that I wanted to be one as well. I still had a certain fondness for numbers even if I eventually became a doctor. Daemon on the other hand, reminded me too much of my old bullies in secondary school. Handsome, self-assured, cocky and perverted. I despised him the second I saw him, and nothing would ever change that.
"Why Uncle Maegor, of course." I smilingly said.
"Gods, you are evil." Laena groaned, pinching the bridge of her nose. "Cute, but so evil."
"I was japing, Coz." I reassured her. "You are my favourite cousin by far."
Well, that was mostly based on her character in Canon. I really pitied how she died in childbirth and got Vhagar stolen away from her by Aemond.
"Has anyone told you that your japes are in poor taste?" Laena asked.
"Yes." I replied.
"And yet you still make them."
"As you said, I am evil."
"Well met, Coz. I think we'll get along nicely." Laena said, pulling me into her lap and nuzzling me. I indulged her cuddling. Nobody in my past life liked cuddling me when I was a child. It felt nice. "So what exactly were you writing, Rhae?"
"A way to repurpose this horrid waste of space." I said. "Harrenhal is just too big for a castle. It would be better served as a city. We'd have to divert the Kingsroad to pass through it and buy food to feed it, but cities whelp coin. They'll be able to afford it. Now, speaking of food..."
———
101 AC, House Targaryen's rooms, Harrenhal
Uncle Vaegon lacked the ethereal beauty of our family. His hair was thin and white. His facial features sour and his expressions dour. He was far less spry than his father or my grandfather, with a thin and pale body which even his voluminous grey robes couldn't hide.
He bore a mask, rod and ring of yellow gold, which apart from his long chain, was the only splash of colour on his attire. The gold was the hallmarks of the Archmaester of Finance, which in this era, had yet to fully separate into Mathematics and Economics.
Despite being only forty, he looked sixty, though then again, great-grandfather was sixty-seven but looked eighty. In hindsight, Westerosi anti-ageing treatments were little more than makeup and dubious potions, which was probably why they looked twenty years older than they actually were.
Oh god, now that I thought about it, the Old King was barely any older than my Father in my previous life. He was sixty-five when I died, but significantly healthier and more youthful.
Oh wait, I died four years ago, so my previous father was actually older than my current great-grandfather. God, Westeros was fucked up. How much underage sex was involved to become a great-grandfather at age sixty-three? My own grandfather only became one in his early eighties, when Yuri was born.
I glanced at Laena, laughing at something her brother Laenor said, and mentally revised the calculation. She was the eldest great-grandchild, and born when Jaehaerys was fifty-eight.
I watched as Daemon and Corlys railed at each other, barely hidden barbs and insults hurled as they each tried to get King Jaehaerys to support their respective candidate's claim to the throne. I shook my head at them. Two ambitious souls whom wished to plonk their backsides on a chair of blades. The Old King had grown stubborn in his old age, and wouldn't budge. He was still insisting that the lords outside had the right to choose whom they wanted as King, which I still found stupid.
I appreciated that we couldn't just browbeat everyone into agreeing with us, but I didn't believe that we had to knuckle to their decisions on who to crown. That stunk too much as the first step towards democracy, which had horrific implications for our family's continued authority and rule.
"Not throwing your candidature into the ring, uncle?" I asked Vaegon, sitting beside him in the corner of the room.
"I have no interest in rule, niece. I'd be a miserable ruler and a poor King." The Archmaester replied, not glancing up from his book.
"And still you convinced great-grandfather to hold this glorified popul— I mean, cattle show. I see it as nothing more than the erosion of our family's authority." I grumbled, watching as Rhaenys verbally tore a strip out of Daemon's hide.
"Father was indecisive. He worried that the lords wouldn't accept a queen ruling over them, so I suggested that he convene this 'cattle show', as you put it, to decide whom they preferred ruling over them. A king or a queen." Vaegon replied. I noticed that he was like Jaehaerys. He never looked down on me based on my age or gender, and talked to me as though I was an adult.
Then again, he had yet to look up from his book, so there was actually a non-negligible chance that he simply didn't register whom was talking to him.
"So what are you reading anyway, Archmaester? I've always been fond of reading books." Technically, I was banned from the library. Grand Maester Runciter, that old goat, hated it when others visited his beloved library. He had forbidden the servants from entering it, and personally cleaned and dusted every single inch of it in his free time. Even highborn had to petition entry, and while royalty could come and go as they pleased, Runciter was willing to ban or evict us should we displease him.
He had banned me thrice, as he refused to believe that a mere two-year-old could read.
And for the record, two-year-olds absolutely can read. I was mostly capable of reading by that age in my past life. But even now at age four, I was still banned, for that old mule was incensed that I had snuck into the Red Keep's library nearly a dozen times over the years. Well, I snuck in and got caught nearly a dozen times. Damn my tiny body and it's needs for frequent powernaps.
"A Study of Restraint, by Maester Rolf. A discussion on the so called Curse of Harrenhal." Vaegon curtly replied. I nodded.
"Indeed. It's simple economics. King Harren was a fool that was clearly overcompensating for something. This castle is fifteen times larger than anything reasonable. He bankrupted his kingdom building a castle whose upkeep surpassed the incomes of its lands. A wiser lord should have built a stout keep that was ten times smaller, and would have recouped the coin within a decade." I agreed. Vaegon's book closed with a snap, and the man looked up at me for the first time. Amethyst eyes that normally resembled those of a dead fish suddenly glowed with interest.
"Mind you, the King didn't help matters. When he built the Kingsroad, he should have threaded it through Harrenhal. The sheer traffic from traders would have made the castle halfway affordable, if the merchants were allowed to live within the walls." I continued, meeting my uncle's stare unflinchingly.
Archmaester Vaegon Targaryen, once Prince of the Seven Kingdoms and a direct descendant of Aegon the Conqueror, after a long moment, slowly stood up.
"Walk with me, niece. Tell me more of your thoughts on Harrenhal." He ordered me. I obliged, rising to my feet. I ran up to my father and told him that Uncle Vaegon was taking me out for a walk and he barely paid attention before giving me permission, his attention fully on Daemon as his shouting match with Rhaenys reached a crescendo.
The two of us walked down the cavernous hallways of Black Harren's folly, a pair of guardsmen following us at a discreet distance. Once we reached the absurdly tall battlements, I broke the silence.
"Well, I had this idea..."
———
The door to the common room of the royal family's quarters in Harrenhal opened with a massive bang, startling everyone within into silence. I took in the scene with great amusement. Rhaenys and Daemon had jumped apart quickly, which meant that they were either kissing or grabbing each other by the collar before our interruption. Lord Corlys was holding my cousin Laenor by the shoulder, other arm raised either to gesture at someone or commit child abuse on his son. Laena was the very picture of nonchalance, barely glancing up from her goblet of juice. Meanwhile my father Viserys had been startled off his chair and the fatass had landed on his fat ass. Jaehaerys was visibly nursing a goblet of wine, and had nearly spilled it when we entered.
"She can do algebra!" Uncle Vaegon announced, completely oblivious to the chaos, his hand an iron manacle around my wrist. For such a frail man, when he was motivated, he was capable of surprising strength.
"What?" My father asked, pulling himself off the floor.
"Your daughter, nephew, is capable of understanding and performing an advanced mathematical concept that few students in the Citadel are capable of even understanding!" The Archmaester said excitedly, thrusting me forwards.
"Rhaenyra? You... I... What?" Viserys babbled, stunned.
"Not to mention her mastery of her sums, multiplication and division." Vaegon carried on. "Were she a student of mine, I'd give her no less than four links for her chain for this. Likely more."
I preened as everyone else in the room stared at me. Maths had always been my one strongest subject. I've never scored anything less than 75% for a math test in all my life, even at my lowest and most depressed periods of my life. In fact, it was one of the few consolations I had at the peak of my teenaged depression. Numbers made sense, unlike people. This was the main reason why I pursued accountancy before knuckling to my parent's demands to convert to medicine.
Compared to modern maths, Westeros' maths was primitive. I'd learnt everything, and more, of what they taught on the subject in the Citadel by the time I was fifteen.
"And she's so remarkably sharp. Very astute grasp of most topics I broached with her. Alchemy and healing especially." Vaegon ranted on, utterly lost to the world. "Languages as well. Remarkable."
Alchemy was primitive chemistry. Which was arguably my third best subject. As for languages, well being a polyglot was especially important for a doctor in a nation as multiracial as Singapore. I spoke seven before I died, English, Mandarin, Japanese, Malay, Tamil, Hokkien and Cantonese. As Rhaenyra, I was taught High Valyrian from the cradle and spoke the Common Tongue, which was English. After eight languages, what was more?
And healing required no explanations.
"Nephew, I daresay you've fathered the sharpest mind the Seven Kingdoms has ever seen in a thousand years." Vaegon praised, whirling around to face me. "Niece, pack your trunk. I'm taking you back to the Citadel with me. I absolutely must introduce you to the other archmaesters."
That finally got everyone to stop gaping and start shouting.
"No! She's my soft toy! Mine!" Laena screamed, glomping me so aggressively we fell onto the floor.
"Who are you calling a soft toy?" I demanded, trying to pry my cousin off me.
"What madness is this?" That was Lord Corlys.
"You are not taking my daughter anywhere!" Viserys protested.
"Everyone stop shouting before I start knocking teeth out!" Rhaenys shouted. I didn't hear what Daemon said, but it must have been something very insulting or arousing, as Rhaenys immediately pounced on him with a loud cry.
"Silence in the name of the King!" Jaehaerys thundered, slamming his fist onto the table, the sound like a thunderclap. Silence fell, everyone retaking their seats as sanity was restored. Rhaenys and Daemon disentangled themselves from the ground and sat as far apart as possible, the former nursing a split lip, the latter, a black eye. Laena pulled me into an armchair and made me sit on her lap, clutching me tightly.
"Son, I appreciate your enthusiasm, but we cannot take Rhaenyra to the Citadel. For one, her father hasn't given her permission to leave. And she is female." Jaehaerys reasonably said.
"Oh. I forgot." Vaegon sheepishly admitted, finally seeing the hole in his plan. He blinked and shook his head. "No matter. She can cut her hair and wear pants instead of dresses. No one will know."
Okay, maybe he didn't see that aforementioned hole. Time to back him up on this.
"Grandpapa? Why can't I go to the Citadel? Uncle Vaegon says it's got the biggest library in the Seven Kingdoms and all the wisest men. I want to go!" I spoke up with a double dose of whining and a triple dose of petulance. As I spoke, I forced myself to remember the lowest points of my life. Getting dumped. Seeing my parents shame and disappointment at me. My grandfather and grandmother's funerals. Tears filled my eye.
"Little dragon, girls cannot become maesters." Great-grandfather tried gently, but I was having none of that.
"That's stupid! This is all stupid! Auntie Rhaenys should be queen, but everyone is too stupid to allow a girl to rule! That's why we are having this horrid cattle show in this horrid castle for a stupid reason! I want to go to the Citadel! I want to learn and forge a chain!" I shouted tearfully, channeling all my inner rage into it. Sexism was one of the things I absolutely loathed. Not because I was a big believer in women's rights, but because excluding half the population from certain jobs because of their reproductive organs was not just stupid, but wasteful.
"Rhaenyra! Apologise for to your great-grandfather for your outburst! This is unacceptable behaviour for a princess of the realm!" My father thundered. Huh, didn't know he had that much backbone in him.
I forced out an apology between gritted teeth, and let myself be confined in my room, crying all the way.
As soon as I was behind a locked door, my sobs miraculously stopped and I found myself a washcloth and basin before wiping away my tears. I hadn't had to cry crocodile tears for decades, and I was afraid that I had lost the skill. Thankfully, Alice was a talented actor, and taught Yuri how to convincingly fake tears. I may or may not have eavesdropped on their lessons and used them as a refresher course.
Now then, with that outburst, I had secured my goals. Vaegon was insistent that I was the prodigy of the millennia, and determined that I get the finest education. If he couldn't bring me to him, then he would come to me. By suppertime, I was certain that he'd be accompanying us back to King's Landing, and by first light on the morrow, would have sent ravens to the Citadel calling for the best maesters to come to the capital and help him teach me. Hopefully including the Archmaester of Healing.
Slim was the hope that he could save my mother from a death in her birthing bed, but if I could prevent the Dance from happening before it even began, then all options ought to first be considered.
Weekly Power Status
-- Power
Ranking 
-- Power
stone