The Dragon of Duskendale -- A Song of Ice and Fire Fanfic

Chapter 17

Elia Martell watched the sun rise behind the gallows of the Gate of the Gods, silhouetting the kicking and writhing form dangling in its arch.

The captain in the Goldcloaks, thin and reedy, danced on the end of a hemp rope, his feet less than a foot from the cobbled street. He'd been thrown from the crenellations of the gatehouse above, high enough that the sudden stop should have killed him. But either due to his light build or luck—bad luck—his neck did not snap, leaving him to jerk and jig as he strangled.

She wanted to look away for, unlike so many of the so-called 'nobility' of Westeros, Elia did not revel in the suffering of others. But the princess of Dorne did not allow herself to, watching the morbid ballet until the captain hung limp and piss ran down his leg to the cobbles below. My children could have died due to you, ser. Many thousands of others did.

She turned away as other men in gold, some of the few Goldcloaks the crown felt it could trust, cut their former compatriot down. Aging Lord Donnel Buckwell grunted as he did the same. "That is the last of them, Your Grace."

Elia nodded. "And thank the Seven for it, Lord Donnel. And you, for your handling of this matter."

The Lord of the Antlers smiled wryly. "I was just the face of the investigation, Your Grace. We have Lord Varys and Ser Manfred to truly thank."

True enough. It had gone as the old man had said, Lord Donnel visibly probing into how the Lannister army was permitted entry to four of the gates of King's Landing while Lord Varys investigated from the shadows. Ser Kevan Lannister had known bribes had been paid but he knew not how far the corruption in the City Watch spread. While Elia hadn't let Ser Manfred interrogate Tywin Lannister himself—she wasn't sure how to handle that, even now several weeks later—but she had given the Kingsguard leave to get information from other prisoners and anyone Lord Donnel and Varys turned up. Her squat, ugly knight had done so with great success.

Five of the seven gate captains had been guilty beyond a reasonable doubt, paid off by men Tywin sent ahead. Their commander, Ser Callador Staunton, might well have taken Lannister gold too, but he had died during the Sack—no one knew who had cut him down, be it a man of Aelor's or a Lannister to reclaim the money or a citizen frightened out of their mind. The other two captains were not so evidently guilty, and one—Kermit of the Riverlands—had rallied his men and actively fought the invasion. Lord Donnel and Ser Manfred had been willing and ready to kill the other and all the surviving serjants to ensure a clean sweep.

Elia, regent, had intervened. The remaining captain and a score of serjants had gone to trial, evidence presented to the court with herself presiding. It had been arduous, long weeks of testimonies before she had condemned seven of the serjants and the final captain to be hanged for their treason from the very gates they had once defended. The rulings did not sit easily upon her shoulders, and she had wept more than one tear in the privacy of her chambers. But when handing down the punishments, as well as during the executions themselves which she had attended without fail, she had been a Viper of Dorne. She had kept her face stone and her tone unyielding. This captain was the last of them to die, the remaining men of the City Watch temporarily under the command of Captain Kermit and overseen by Lord Donnel himself.

A breeze from the sea brought a morbid scent to the morbid scene from the direction of what had once been Flea Bottom, though that storied slum was now nothing more than charred buildings and blackened streets. The smell of smoke and, more disturbingly, burned flesh still clung to it like a blanket, the winds sharing the sickening stench with the rest of the capitol. I never thought I would miss the scent of King's Landing of old, but even that reek is better than this. Though she had to her own dismay grown quite used to the new scent by now, it still ambushed her at random times and emptied her stomach of her latest meal. She had already lost half a stone.