CHAPTER XVIII
During the Storm
The great hall of Storm's End thrummed with the clamor of a wedding feast long into the night, the sort of revelry that masked the gathering thunder of war beyond the castle's ancient walls. Torches guttered in iron sconces, casting restless shadows across the high rafters where the crowned stag of House Baratheon rippled beside the turtle green of Estermont.. a new marriage of banners same as the couple seating beneath. Long tables groaned under platters of roasted boar glazed in honey and mustard, lamprey pies swimming in saffron sauce, and heaps of black bread still warm from the ovens. The air was thick with the reek of spilled wine, roasted fat, and the faint salt tang that always clung to this place, as if the sea itself refused to be shut out. Harps and drums wove through the laughter, and bards sang of Durran Godsgrief and his endless wars against the gods, their voices rising and falling like the tide.
Caspian sat not at the high table but at a lower one, half-hidden among lesser knights and sworn swords. He had chosen the seat deliberately; he could not bear Ormund Baratheon's booming voice tonight, nor the man's heavy hand clapping his shoulder as though they were old comrades. His own head felt heavy, an ache from before still singing beneath his fine doublet of crimson wool and silver satin. He lifted his goblet...Arbor gold this time, dark and heady- and drank deep. The serving girl who refilled it was no older than fourteen, freckled and wary; Caspian did not thank her. Lords did not thank the smallfolk, and in this moment he felt every inch the lord he had become: arrogant, distant, and hollowed out by guilt.
'Arrogance was the bane of many a great men.' he thought, the stories half forgotten drifting up like ghosts.
Was not it Icarus, who flew too close to the sun, and fell to his demise as his wax wings melted?
Caspian had believed himself immune to such folly. Or if not immune, then at least justified in it. He possessed a power that trivialized the labors of ordinary men...a gift that let him shape stone and timber as though the world were clay in his hands, brew elixirs that sharpened sight or quickened the blood, summon tools and fortifications in the space of a single turning of the moon. In the privacy of his mind he sometimes felt here in Westeros it made him more than a lord of Claw Isle. It made him something closer to a god. Yet the very belief that he stood above the snares of pride had been arrogance itself.
Or perhaps Uncle Thoren had simply knocked the lesson into his skull along with the blood from his nose.
What he would not give now for another potion. He had drained them all in the frantic days during and after dealing with that damned project the king saddled him up with- all his potions gone with only a single flask of swiftness that had remained, tucked inside his belt pouch like a guilty secret. He had brought it on this journey to Storm's End for reasons he could no longer name; perhaps it had seemed prudent, or perhaps it was just there forgotten in his inventory that already ran low.
Another thing to add to the mental list half of which lay forgotten.
Wouldn't it have been damned useful when Thoren's fist came whistling toward his face?
He shook the thought away and drained the goblet again. The wine burned a warm trail down his throat and spread through his chest, dulling the sharper edges of memory but not silencing them. Across the hall, through the haze of smoke and torchlight, he saw the Steffon, newly made husband...leaning close to his lady wife as both of them were dancing. They made a handsome couple. Cassana Estermont was a slender, red haired woman with quick eyes and a smile that seemed to ease the barely hidden tension in Steffon's face. The lad was smiling back at her now, a genuine curve of the lips that lit his eyes like sudden sunlight on black water.
Something good had come of it, then.
On the long road to Storm's End, Steffon had ridden in drowned spirits, shoulders slumped, voice curt where once it had boomed with laughter. A far cry from the boisterous stag Caspian had known him to be. And that change, too, could be laid at Caspian's feet, though none but he and Uncle Thoren knew the truth of it.
His actions had touched other lives again. Indirectly, invisibly, like a stone dropped into a still pond whose ripples spread farther than any man could foresee. Uncle Thoren had been right. Caspian had let it all go to his head...for all his plotting and his seeming triumphs, he had failed to see the real enemy slipping past his defenses.
He had nearly harmed his own mother.
The memory seized him then, pulling him down as surely as a riptide.
It had been a grey, windswept morning in his solar, nursing a headache after a spat with Myriah. It was not the first spat they had, for Myriah had more fire in her than the damned dragons themselves. She was the sun, a balm to his soul from the tireless… thankless duty he had brought on himself by agreeing to fix the mess that was King's Landing.
He did not know why on earth he even agreed to it in the first place, but he was damned sure he was manoeuvred into it somehow. Maybe he had thought to uplift the suffering of the common folk with his power- it would have been so easy if he had not needed to hide, or maybe it was the greed in him that saw the concessions he could wring out of the king. Maybe more lands, better positions for Celtigars or something! he did not remember now.
Well, he should have known, for the king indeed looked like a cat who got the canary, and he had not been sure why- arrogance failed him there too he guessed.
The scribe had come hurrying into the solar with a scroll his face pale as whey.
Caspian had been bent over the missives he had to sign the contracts he had to extend and numerous plots and whispers planted in the right ears that would further his schemes even further after his death.
He did not know what would happen to his children or grandchildren if they did not have the same ability to break the world one cube at a time like he did.
Mutt's voice had trembled. "My lord… your lady mother. The caste's been attacked my lord. The ships made past patrol my lord… they say it bore the marks of Blackfyre- a bolt nearly hit the stone tower when Lady Vaelena walked the battlements with her Velaryon kin."
FUCK.
Caspian had known at once. Sammarro Saan…the Lyseni pirate who styled himself the Last Valyrian- had sent his men to play their part as they had discussed. Mutual profit, they had called it: gold and ships for Saan, a spark for war and removing one ally of Maelys from the board for Caspian.
Yet it seemed he underestimated the incompetence of-
Uncle Thoren had warned him from the first.
The solar door slammed open minutes later with such force that the iron hinges screamed in protest. Uncle Thoren filled the doorway like a storm given flesh...grizzled, broad-shouldered, his scarred face twisted with a fury Caspian had rarely seen turned upon him. The older man had always worn a weathered look, but this was something darker. Thankfully it seemed Caspian's good fortune was that blood still bound them; the love that stayed Thoren's hand from outright strangling his lord and nephew looked perilously thin in that moment.
He never saw the punch coming.
Thoren's fist crashed into his face like a mailed gauntlet. Pain exploded across Caspian's nose and cheek. His head snapped sideways, blood spraying hot across his lips and chin as the world tilted. Before he could steady himself, his uncle seized the front of his fine tunic in one meaty fist and slammed him hard against the cold stone wall.
"You bloody fool!" Thoren snarled, breath hot and ragged against Caspian's face. "I told you! Seven hells, I warned you not to trust that Lyseni whore-son of a pirate and his crew of cutthroats! 'I know what I'm doing, Uncle,' you said. 'Mutual profit,' you said, all high and mighty. Look what your clever fucking plotting has bought us- a bolt a hand's breadth from your own mother's eye!"
Caspian's head spun, the copper taste of blood thick on his tongue.
Well, that wasn't entirely true, was it? he thought dizzy, but he had the sense to keep the words locked behind his teeth.
He did not fight back. "It was a lapse," he rasped, voice thick. "The men under Saan-"
"A lapse?" Thoren's laugh was ugly, raw with disgust. He gave Caspian another savage shove against the stone. "Your schemes nearly spilled the blood of your own blood, boy! Your mother! You thought yourself so damned clever with your false flags and your sorcery.. I held my tongue all this time, thinking you'd come to your senses. But men die in the real world, Caspian. They bleed. They scream. They don't bend to your will like clay and timber. And if that bolt had flown true…"
Thoren's grip tightened, his voice dropping to something colder, more dangerous. "Tell me, nephew. Would your precious war have been worth it then? A few hundred dead smallfolk and sellswords to spark your grand conflict? Was that the price you were willing to pay with her life?"
Caspian said nothing. Regret twisted like a knife in his gut. He could feel hot tears mixing with the blood on his face, but he made no move to wipe them away. Perhaps it was the sight of those tears, or the heavy flow still pouring from his broken nose, that finally stayed his uncle's hand. Thoren released him with a shove and stepped back, chest heaving.
Caspian slid partway down the wall, pressing his sleeve to his nose in a vain attempt to staunch the bleeding. The velvet soaked crimson at once.
Thoren loomed over him a moment longer. "You are my lord. My blood. But by the gods, if you like your father ever risk this family again with your arrogance, lord or no, I'll beat the lesson into your skull until it sticks."
He turned on his heel and left the solar without another word, the heavy door booming shut behind him.
Forgiveness was still nowhere to be found the next morning.
Thoren dragged him to the training yard at first light, offering no explanation. Ser Jaremy trailed at a respectful distance, eyes downcast and sheepish, offering no intervention. Caspian had not asked for any. He deserved this. Far worse, perhaps.
The spar that followed was no courteous bout between kin. Thoren came at him like a tempest with blunted axe and shield, relentless and unforgiving. Caspian was no novice...he had trained hard, and his gift sometimes lent him unnatural quickness...but fury turned his uncle into a tempest made flesh.
Blow after blow crashed home. A brutal strike to the ribs drove the air from Caspian's lungs in a painful whoosh. Another glanced off his helm and split his lip; blood sprayed across the sand. He tasted iron and salt on his tongue.
"You think your tricks make you untouchable?" Thoren growled between swings, his voice deceptively calm while his axe sang through the air. "Arrogance will be your death, nephew- not someone else's blade. I told you Saan was a risk from the first!"
Caspian ducked a blow that would have rung his head like a sept bell, only to catch a savage kick to the chest that sent him staggering.
Thoren pressed forward without mercy. "He sent word after, of course. All apologies and smooth Lyseni lies. Bragged how he and your men had taken the rest of the ports anyway, how he'd flayed the fools who nearly ruined everything. Tell me, nephew… does that make you feel any better? One silly little mistake weighed against all your grand successes? After all, nothing truly happened to your mother, did it? She's still breathing. So all is well in the world?"
The mockery stung worse than the blows. Caspian snarled and fought back with sudden fury, landing a solid strike against Thoren's shield that actually staggered the older man a step. Pride flared hot for one brief heartbeat.
But Thoren simply shook it off and came on harder, inexorable.
In the end, Caspian lay sprawled in the dirt of the yard, chest heaving, every muscle burning as though set aflame. Thoren stood over him, breathing hard but unbowed, axe resting on his shoulder.
"Answer me, nephew," he demanded, voice low and rough. "Does it make you feel better?"
Caspian stared up at the grey sky, blood and sweat stinging his eyes. "NO!" he shouted, the word torn raw from somewhere deep and honest.
Thoren stared down at him for a long moment. Then, slowly, the tension in his shoulders eased just a fraction.
"Good," he softened. "Then there's still hope for you yet."
He reached down, seized Caspian's wrist in a callused grip, and hauled him roughly to his feet. But instead of releasing him, Thoren yanked his nephew forward into a crushing embrace. The older man's arms locked around him like iron bands, nearly shaking with the force of whatever storm raged inside him. Caspian could feel the tremor in Thoren's broad chest, the ragged hitch in his breathing against his ear.
"I won't lose you the way I lost your father, boy," Thoren muttered, voice thick and hoarse, barely above a whisper. "I was too late to pull him back from his own damned folly- too late by years. Watched him chase his ghosts and wine until they dragged him under. I won't make that same mistake with you, Cas. Not while there's breath left in these lungs. You're my blood. You're all that's left of him that I can still save. So you remember this beating. You hear me?"
"Yes Uncle."
The memory faded as the hall's noise rushed back in. Caspian's goblet had been refilled again; he drank without tasting it. The wine was doing its work, but the guilt still remained.
Yet the voice in his head would not be silenced.
"It was a success," it whispered. "You have your war now, before the enemy could build strength further. Nobody of import died. What's a few lives against thousands. It was the better choice."
Caspian shook his head sharply.
The only reason he would even think that is to absolve himself of his own guilt.
If that bolt had struck true… if it had found his mother's heart instead of the stone would he say the same?
The thought twisted like a knife. And now look at the ripples: Steffon and Cassana wed ahead of time, children in alliances hammered together in haste, young lives yoked together because war waited for no one.
"They are not children," the voice insisted. "Not in this world."
"Shut up!" Caspian slurred shaking his thought out. Either he was going mad, or the wine was doing its job how unwanted it maybe.
Either way, the guilt remained.
Him avoiding the high table was for a good reason. If he had taken the seat of honor, Ormund would have talked his ear off, and Caspian could not stomach it tonight not without messing up the fragile amicability both of them had built. The change in the bull-like lord from viewing Caspian as little more than a bootlicking lickspittle to a man he at least tolerated had come slowly, perhaps because Claw Isle's port was now the only safe harbor of import after the success of his schemes, or perhaps because Uncle Thoren had somehow contrived that untimely sparring session in the yard. Caspian had given his uncle a betrayed look that early morning; Ser Jaremy had avoided his eyes altogether.
Oh the arse whooping he had received- if he had known, he would have never came out of his furs.
Caspian followed his uncle reluctantly, ribs still throbbing from yesterday's penance, braced for another lesson in humility. Instead, as they entered the yard, he saw Lord Ormund Baratheon already at work clad in only a gamberson in the chill, hammering a straw pell with the casual fury of a man born to war.
The Bull of Storm's End loomed enormous: half a head taller than any knight, shoulders like cannonballs, arms thick as young oaks. He moved with a speed and grace that defied his bulk, each blow landing like a thunderclap.
Magical fuckery, Caspian thought, half-serious. How else could flesh be so vast, so swift, so lethally skilled?
Somehow coincidence of the hour, or more likely Uncle Thoren's quiet scheming he found himself paired. Caspian swallowed the glare he wanted to fling at his uncle.
Oh, you fucker.
But practicality won: one slip against Durran's blood could send a man to the Stranger, and his pride had already taken enough knocks.
The bout was savage. Sword and buckler for Caspian, axe and shield for Ormund...blunted steel chosen to test, not kill. Steel rang on steel. Caspian struck first, quick and testing; Ormund answered with a booming laugh that shook the walls.
Caspian pressed harder and he jarred the lord's shield arm, but the reply came like a storm surge: an overhead axe blow that sent him rolling, sand flying. They traded for what felt like hours. Breath ragged, sweat stinging, pride alone kept Caspian upright. He had once stood even with Uncle Thoren; against this man he felt a boy again.
At last Ormund did not fell him. Caspian knelt, chest heaving, sword tip in the dirt. The stormlord hauled him up with one massive hand.
"You fight well for a coin counter" Ormund grunted, clapping his shoulder hard enough to rattle teeth. "You'll do. When the Blackfyres come, we'll need men who can stand."
Uncle Thoren watched from the rail, arms folded, a faint smirk on his face. Ser Jaremy looked plainly relieved. Caspian swallowed his humble pie with little grace he had left.
Yet as the bigger man turned away, Caspian could not help the baffled thought that rose unbidden:
How in the seven hells did this man ever die in the war?
Not to any blade, surely. Not this mountain of speed and strength. War was a cruel, random thing- stray splinters, unlucky arrows...but the notion that anything short of the gods themselves could bring the Bull of Storm's End down felt impossible.
And yet, in the world-that-was, he had fallen. Caspian shook the chill from his spine and followed his uncle from the yard, the question still gnawing.
The memory tugged at him again, but he pushed it down for now. The wine was warm in his belly. Across the hall the music swelled, and Steffon laughed at something as Aerys japed pointing at Tywin who respectfully but stiffly danced with the bride who at least had the grace to not laugh at the lion awkward face.
Feeling the feast was coming to an end and with it the bedding, he sought to make himself scarce.
He rose quietly, slipping from the hall before anyone could draw him into conversation. Outside, the wind off Shipbreaker Bay howled like a warning. Caspian pulled his cloak tighter and walked into the night, the taste of wine and regret still bitter on his tongue. Arrogance had nearly been his ruin.
Perhaps, in the end, humility...hard-won and bloodied would be his salvation.