Chapter Text
The Small Hall of Summerhall operated in dreadfully quiet efficiency...
The Small Hall of Summerhall. Daeron turned the phrase over in his aching head, because the rhyme tickled something in him that the rest of the morning had so far failed to reach. He rolled his boiled egg back and forth— dry bread to the edge of the plate, edge of the plate to the dry bread —as a man might worry a coin between his knuckles, and for largely the same reason: it gave him something to do that wasn't staring at his father.
Maekar sat at the head of the table like a thing carved from granite and left there to discourage conversation.
Daeron, somehow, and not entirely to his surprise given the regrettable sequence of grievous events at Ashford Meadows, was the only child of Maekar still residing at Summerhall. Egg and Ser Duncan were somewhere in Dorne, doing something purposeful and useful and no doubt dusty and uncomfortable. His sisters were at the Red Keep with their royal grandsire. Aerion was loose somewhere in Essos, raining his particular brand of terror down on people who had not yet learned his Brightflame persona.
Which left— wait —Aemon was at the Citadel, earning his links.
Which left Daeron. The ever present Daeron.
The ever present Daeron, alone with Maekar, who had, in the absence of anyone else to improve, decided to make a man out of him at nine-and-ten.
Every rattle of a spoon against a porcelain bowl rang like a blacksmith's hammer. Daeron winced. The light in the Small Hall was offensively bright — cruel, even — and he had begun to suspect this was deliberate. Something Maekar had arranged. A form of discipline that left no marks.
His father had not spoken a word since Daeron had sat down. For this, Daeron was tentatively grateful. He watched his father's eyes track across the parchment. Then track back. Then track across again, at precisely the same speed, with precisely the same furrow between the brows.
Daeron had another suspicion—
There were things a man simply did not say to Maekar “The Anvil” of House Targaryen, and are you sounding out the words, Father was fairly high on that list.
His own tongue felt like a piece of dry leather left too long in the sun.
"Serving boy—" He raised two fingers in the direction of a servant no older than Egg, who stepped forward with a pitcher. "No— not that. Be a good lad and fetch me something from the cellar."
"As you wish, my lord."
Daeron squinted a smile at him. "And put it in a cooled wineskin. There's a good boy."
The servant nodded and disappeared. Daeron watched him go with something approaching genuine warmth, which was more than he could say for anyone else in the room.
"Is there a reason," his father said, still not looking up from the parchment in his hands, "to be in your cups before the morning bell has finished ringing?"
"Something to water my withering mind." Daeron pressed his fingers to his temple. "Gods, why is it so loud in here?"
It was, as a matter of fact, not particularly loud. The servants moved in their precise, choreographed patterns, vacant-eyed and efficient, drifting from table to sideboard to door and back again in a rhythm so unchanging it made Daeron's skin prickle in a way he couldn't name.
He needed to get out of here.
"If you're thinking of fucking leaving," Maekar said, "I forbid it." He set the parchment down. His knuckles had been white against it. "I've had word from your uncle."
"Which one?"
"Aerys."
"Ah." Daeron considered this. "You mean Uncle Brynden?"
Maekar lowered his brows. It was a small movement and it accomplished a great deal. Daeron did not press further.
"There is a sickness." His father's voice was flat, the way it got when he was choosing words carefully. "Spreading from King's Landing. Through the realm. Your cousins have caught it. Same as your grandsire. Your sisters remain at the Red Keep. They are well.”
"My lord." The servant boy reappeared at Daeron's elbow with the wineskin, cool to the touch, beaded with cellar-damp.
Daeron took it with both hands like a man receiving a sacrament and mouthed his thanks to the boy.
"Well," He pulled the stopper, wet his lips. "Mmm.. Then I suppose we best stay strong and well."
Maekar looked at him for a long moment.
Outside, somewhere in the yard, someone was coughing.