Chapter 21: The Household Appointment
ULF
Three days after Viserys let me walk out of his throne room alive, a summons came for me. Not from the king.
From Otto Hightower.
A servant found me in the training yard, in the hour between Helaena's morning walk and her afternoon among the godswood beetles. I was working sword drills at an ordinary man's speed, because half the yard was watching and men talk.
"Lord Hand requests your presence. Small council chamber. Immediately."
Here it comes.
Otto didn't send for anyone until he'd already decided what to do with them. I wiped the blade, sheathed it, and followed.
The council chamber sat low under a beamed ceiling, no bigger than a merchant's dining room. One long table, scarred where generations of rings had ground into the corners. A jug of Arbor red nobody had touched. Sun through the window slit cut the Crownlands map in half.
Otto sat at the head. Alicent at his right, hands folded, watching me the whole way from the door. Corlys Velaryon opposite her, sea-cloak still on, drumming two fingers. They'd hauled him off a deck for this.
Criston Cole stood by the door. Hand on his sword hilt. He hadn't moved it since I entered.
I stopped at the proper distance and waited.
"Lord Ulf," Otto said. "Thank you for coming."
"I'm not a lord, Hand."
"A technicality we may address in time." He gestured at a chair. "Sit."
I sat. Corlys caught my eye and gave me the smallest nod. Play along.
"Princess Helaena has expressed... comfort with your presence." Otto let the pause do its work. "Her mother and I have noticed an improvement in her disposition since you began attending her in the godswood."
Alicent's voice was soft and did not waver. "She speaks more. Smiles occasionally. Seems less... lost."
"The princess is kind to allow my company," I said.
"Kind." Otto's lips thinned. "Or perhaps you provide something her family cannot. Attention without judgment."
Where is this going?
"Her Grace the Queen and I believe it would benefit the realm if the princess's stability were... maintained." He folded his hands. "To that end, we propose transferring you from Lord Corlys's service to the Red Keep's household guard. Specifically, assigned to attend Princess Helaena during her daily activities."
Nobody said anything. Corlys stopped drumming.
Then his chair came back on its rear legs. "You're taking my best marine."
"We're offering him a position of greater honor and responsibility," Otto said. "Surely you see the value in having a man you trust close to the royal family."
"What I see is a man who cut two throats in Flea Bottom for you and now gets handed to you for the price of the ink." Corlys let the chair down. "I hauled him off a dock and he's cleared my shipping lanes to Tarth. You don't buy that back with a room and a livery. I see you want control over who influences the princess."
"I want what's best for the realm. If that includes keeping the king's daughter calm and content, so be it."
They looked at each other over my head like I wasn't in the chair between them. Two old men trading a hound.
"What would my duties entail?" I said.
Otto turned back to me without hurry. "Escort the princess during her walks. Attend her in the godswood and elsewhere as needed. Ensure her safety and wellbeing."
"A glorified nursemaid."
Criston spoke from the door. "The princess has Kingsguard, Lord Hand. Seven sworn knights of noble blood. She does not need a sellsword from the mud with a tourney purse and a story about a foreign traveler."
"Your seven are sworn to the king," Otto said, "and the king is dying by inches. Which of your brothers do you propose to spare from that deathbed?"
Criston's jaw set. "Then give her Ser Arryk. Give her any man who's taken a vow. This one's taken nothing."
"I'll take one now," I said. "Name it and I'll say it in front of you."
"Vows aren't words," Criston said. "They're the years behind them."
"Then judge me in years."
Alicent's voice cut across both of us. "My daughter wakes screaming. Ser Criston, I have watched knights of noble blood stand outside that door and hear it and do nothing, because nothing is what their vow requires." Her hands were still folded. Her knuckles had gone white. "A trusted protector. My daughter deserves that much."
I looked at her properly for the first time since the melee. Under the composure, under the Hightower arithmetic: she had counted those screams herself.
"I'll accept," I said. "On three conditions."
Otto's eyebrow rose. "You negotiate with the Hand of the King?"
"I negotiate for clarity. First: I answer to Princess Helaena directly. Not the Lord Commander, not the Master of Arms. Her orders supersede all others except the king's."
Criston's hand tightened on his hilt hard enough that the leather creaked. Otto raised two fingers, and whatever the Lord Commander had loaded went back down his throat.
"Granted. Second condition?"
"I maintain my personal training schedule. Early mornings, before dawn. Whatever I need to stay sharp."
"Unusual, but acceptable. Third?"
"Housing within the Keep. Close enough to respond if the princess needs me."
Otto considered it longer than he'd considered the first two.
"We can arrange a room in the servants' wing. Nothing grand, but secure and private."
"That's all I need."
He drew a parchment from the stack at his elbow and slid it across. A service agreement in formal script, my three conditions added down the margin in his own neat hand. Corlys had already signed the release. He'd signed it before I walked in, which meant the shouting had been for my benefit, or for Otto's, and probably both.
I picked up the quill. Signed.
Alicent leaned forward. "Ulf. Protect my daughter. That's all I ask."
Not a request. She knew what this world does to gentle things.
"I will, Your Grace."
She nodded. Satisfied or resigned. Hard to tell with her.
Otto stood. "A steward will show you to your quarters. You begin tomorrow."
Criston held the door and didn't step aside until I turned my shoulder to pass. "You take her orders," he said quietly. "Fine. But if she ever gives you one that endangers the Crown, you'll come to me first."
"No," I said, and kept walking.
The room was exactly as promised. Servants' wing, third floor. A bed, a table, a chest, and a window over the training yard so I could count who came out before dawn.
The other door mattered more. It opened onto a narrow passage for carrying meals and clean linen through the Keep without troubling anyone noble. I walked it slowly, counting.
Thirty paces. One staircase. Two turns.
Helaena's chambers.
Under thirty seconds at a dead run, and I could run faster than that.
Otto thinks he's kenneling a loyal dog. He doesn't know what he just handed me.
I moved my possessions up from the Street of Steel that evening. Weighted gear wrapped in sailcloth so nobody would ask why one bundle needed two men. Training sword. The undercroft maps, folded into the false bottom of the chest.
Everything I owned, now inside the walls.
Midnight. My first official night on her door.
I stood with my back straight and my hands clasped. Professional. Appropriate. A sconce guttered down the corridor. The stone gave back cold through my boots.
The door opened.
Helaena stood there in her nightgown, hair unbound, smaller than she looked in daylight.
"You're here now?" Her voice was quiet. Uncertain.
"Every night. Unless you'd rather I wasn't."
"No. I want—" She stopped and started over. "The dreams are quieter when you're near. Not gone. But quieter."
"Then I'll stay."
She smiled. Fragile, and real, and gone again quickly, as always.
"Good night, Ulf."
"Good night, Princess."
The door closed softly. I heard the latch, then her bare feet crossing to the bed, then nothing.
I took my position against the wall and started counting the hours until the Keep went quiet enough to move in. Otto believed he owned a guardsman. Alicent believed she'd bought her daughter comfort. Both were true, and neither was the reason I was standing there.
The Dance was coming. This door was where I meant to be when it arrived.