Salvation - Aemond Targaryen / Aegon Targaryen

The Ringing of the Tower Bells

17 days.

That's how long she spent on the road with her uncle. They passed Horn Hill without stopping, as a raven had arrived from Lady Sam's dear lord father that the Sweat had come to court. To not chance it, they passed many other southern lords, and their keeps who only briefly honored the hand, and she in passing.

Otto Hightower was a man of little words, and even littler expression, When he did speak, he spoke in short, curt sentences that Jeyne could hardly misinterpret as anything other than blatant facts. When she tried to ask him about her cousins or ways of the court, he would tell her that the princes were healthy and enjoy dragon riding, and that the Princess Heleana spent most of her time doing needlework and tending to her children. She learned that the prince and princess born to Heleana spent most of their days with their maid, and in doing so they had chosen to spend most of their time inside. Little Maelor, a boy of just two enjoyed his time outside, and would often be found with his mother strolling the gardens, inspecting the insects or climbing on the steps of the Red Keep.

He told her, or more so warned, her that the Dragonpit housed many young dragons, including those most recently bonded, but still unridden to the littlest of the royal family. He told them that they were wild beasts and to steer clear, unless escorted by the dragon keepers or his grandchildren. Though he often told her that there was no reason that she should go to the Dragonpit—for her place was inside the Keep.

When she asked him of her potential matches, of the men of the country that her dear cousin, the Queen had picked for her Otto could not tell her anything about them. He listed not names or ranks, or the holdfasts in which the lords would made their home. He merely shrugged his finely decorated shoulder and continued to gaze out the window as the Kingsroad passed them by, and they ventured closer and closer to King's Landing.

Defeated, Jeyne resigned herself to do the same. She spent many of the hours just staring through the wicker, trying to count the trees as they passed, or trying to see the faces of the small folk that passed them by. She read her copy of the Seven-Pointed star and tried to memorize the passages that would surely take her through the next few years of her life. She tried to wonder if this is how her cousin the queen felt. If her cousin had endured these long, silent, Wheelhouse trips, or if she had somehow been able to crack the hard exterior of her Lord father.

Had queen Alicent managed to get through the shell of her father or even now, thirty years after her birth? Had she still just seen this stoic graying man who kept his thoughts closer than anything in theworld? These were the thoughts that kept her awake. On the nights where their caravan would set up, tents rather than attempt to sleep at a minor lords keep Jeyne stared to the sky, focusing first on the Maiden's star but also searching for the boys which had flown past Highgarden so many days ago.

Soon Jeyne realized that the house of Hightower that fifteen years ago had been held in such high prestige had somehow almost fallen out of favor in the south. Men no longer looked at their adorned wheelhouse as if the gods themselves had sent it down from the heavens. They no longer bowed at Lord Otto's feet and besiege him to pray for them, nor did they bow or curtsy to her. It seemed the closer they got to King's Landing, the less godly the people became.

There were a half dozen brothels, at least, in every town, with scantily clad women waving their limbs, or their torsos, or their breasts to the world for any man with a copper coin to see, touch, or hold. There were men she presumed to be thieves or burglars being paraded throughout the cities on wooden blocks with holes cut in the flat part for their hands and their heads. There were children who fought in the streets of each town, scraping and clawing each other for loaves of bread or meat that had rotted and then been covered with various sticky substances used to hide its age and spoilage.