At that moment, the maid's eyes lit up.
'It worked! The Prince noticed me!'
She smothered her elation, lowered her lashes, and put on a shy, respectful look.
"My name is Alicent Hightower, Your Highness."
She gave the name a deliberate little stress, clearly hoping the shared name with the Queen would curry favor.
"My father is Ser Ryderic Hightower, younger brother of the Hand, currently Captain of the Harbor Watch in Oldtown. My mother is Daisy Florent, of House Florent from Brightwater Keep."
A cold voice cut her off like a guillotine.
"I asked your name." Aemond stared at her, unamused.
"Not your pedigree. Are you reciting the family tree? Or do you think this is funny?"
The chill words startled her.
According to her script, the Prince should now show interest, ask about her lineage, and she could mention how she had grown up on tales of the Targaryens.
Aemond looked toward his mother.
Queen Alicent shook her head slightly, a flicker of annoyance crossing her face.
'These cadet branches… always grasping.'
"Enough," Aemond said. He had no wish to speak further with the self-important girl.
"Set the pudding down and leave."
The smile froze on the girl's face.
Her lips parted, and the shimmer in her blue eyes turned to genuine bewilderment and shame.
She could not believe her carefully staged encounter was ending in such casual dismissal.
Biting her lower lip, she placed the dessert dish carefully in the center of the table, curtsied with trembling form, and silently fled the dining room.
After the door closed, Queen Alicent exhaled and rubbed her temples.
"Ryderic's daughter… arrived with the family caravan a fortnight ago," she explained wearily.
"Lord Hightower said the girl was clever and worth cultivating; he wanted her to see something of court life in the Red Keep. I thought to place her among my maids and observe her for a while."
She sighed at the transparent ambition of her cousin.
Her own rise to Queen had made every Hightower girl dream of climbing just as high.
Yet Alicent had never professed love for the King; Viserys had asked her family for the marriage. She had done her duty.
Now this girl meant to copy her path, become a royal lady's attendant, win favor with beauty and wit, and rise…
"Fool," Aemond judged.
"But she really is very pretty," Helaena said softly, innocent as ever.
Aemond glanced at his sister. There was no jealousy in her remark, only simple observation.
A strange feeling stirred in him, a protectiveness he couldn't quite name.
Just then, a faint rustle came from the corner.
Scritch. Scritch.
Helaena heard it first. She turned her violet eyes toward the gap between the heavy oak sideboard and the wall.
"What was that?"
The sound came again, clearer: frantic scratching, like sharp nails on wood, followed by a tiny, high-pitched squeak.
Helaena's eyes widened. She clutched her spoon and leaned forward.
The next instant, a fat grey rat burst from the shadows!
It was palm-sized, with greasy fur and a long, pink tail. Its bead-bright eyes glinted in the candlelight.
It shot across the parquet floor in a grey blur and vanished beneath the tablecloth beside Helaena's chair.
"Ah!" Helaena gasped, jerking her feet up onto the seat.
In her haste, she knocked a crystal goblet from the table.
Crash!
The cup shattered, water spraying across the floor like diamonds.
Alicent jumped but quickly steadied herself and drew her trembling daughter close. Helaena had always feared vermin.
"It's all right, Helaena. It was only a rat, and it's gone," she soothed, patting the girl's back.
Then the Queen's voice turned cold.
"Attend me!" she called toward the door.
It opened at once. The maids entered, pale and anxious.
"Your Grace?"
"A rat, in the Queen's apartments? Where does the royal family dine?" Alicent demanded, her voice rising.
"How do you clean? How do you guard?"
The noble maids paled and knelt as one.
The eldest stammered, "We scrub daily with lavender and mint, Your Grace. We scatter tansy in the corners... We… we cannot think how it came, "
"Cannot?" Alicent snapped.
"That is your answer? Cannot? Had it been a viper? Had it bitten Princess Helaena? Would 'cannot' suffice?"
The women pressed their foreheads to the floor, terrified.
Aemond watched, his expression subtly altering at the word rat.
His violet eyes narrowed, currents moving in their depths.
Rats. Filthy things that lived in shadows.
Yet sometimes, filth was best for filthy work.
Two names surfaced from memory, reeking of blood: 'Blood and Cheese.'
That exquisite, horrific phrase: "A son for a son."
Aemond's gaze shifted to Helaena.
In the story, he knew that because he had struck the first kinslaying blow, this innocent girl had been dragged into the abyss.
She had been forced to choose which of her sons would die.
She watched helplessly as her child was beheaded, her mind shattered, and finally, she leapt from the spikes of Maegor's Holdfast…
'This was not how her life should end.'
"Aemond?" Alicent noticed her son's uncanny silence.
She released Helaena and looked at her second son with concern.
"What's wrong? You look pale… Are you feeling unwell?"
Aemond came back to himself. He drew a deep breath, pulling away from that dark future.
"Nothing," he said.
"I just think… the Red Keep's sanitation needs a thorough overhaul. If rats can wriggle into Maegor's dining hall, they can get anywhere. Father's solar, your bedchamber, Helaena's room…"
He paused. "This is no trifle."
At that moment, the dining room doors swung open.
A man of about fifty entered: stout but solid, dressed in fine russet wool, the three-headed Targaryen dragon embroidered on his chest.
His kindly face was framed by neatly combed grey hair and a trim beard.
"Your Grace, my Prince, my Princess," he said, bowing with the easy deference of long royal service.
"I am Gyles Rosby. I heard a commotion. What has happened?"
"Lord Gyles," Alicent replied, giving the steward a small nod.
Gyles Rosby. A second son of House Rosby, he had been made Royal Steward when Viserys I took the throne and had served faithfully ever since.
Renowned for loyalty, efficiency, and exactitude, he kept the Red Keep running like clockwork.
"A rat startled Helaena in the dining hall," Alicent explained.
Gyles Rosby's brows snapped together. He knelt, peered into the shadowed corner, then checked behind the draperies.
When he straightened, his face was grave.
"Your Grace, this is an inexcusable lapse," he said.
He turned to the maids, who were still kneeling on the floor.
"Go at once to the Master of Kitchens and the Chief Steward. I want them here within the hour. By dawn tomorrow, every corner of Maegor's Holdfast, every corner, must be scoured. Fit double iron rat-guards over every larder and lay fresh poison along the walls."
"And fetch the rat catchers," he added.
"Bring in the best in King's Landing. I want them to search the drains and hidden passages for nests."
"Hidden passages?" Aemond cut in.
All eyes turned to him.
Aemond rose. "Lord Gyles. You've run the Red Keep for years; you must know something of its secret ways?"
The steward answered, "I know little of them, my Prince, twisted and tangled as they are. These rat catchers, though, have served here for generations; they know the passages well."
Aemond knew the history. The hidden corridors had been built by Maegor the Cruel, whose masons were executed the day the work was done to keep the secrets.
After Maegor's death, only the rat catchers had cause to learn those ways.
"Among those rat catchers," Aemond asked, "have there ever been two called Blood and Cheese?"
Gyles blinked, thinking back. The hall fell silent; Alicent stared at her son in bewilderment.
At last, Gyles said slowly, "Blood and Cheese… the names ring a bell. Four, perhaps five, years ago, they were assigned to the dungeons and drains. They were said to be cunning trappers; no rat could outwit them. But their repute was… questionable. Some guards claimed they filched royal goods when no one was looking. Lacking proof, I dismissed them on a pretext. They've since been living somewhere in Flea Bottom."
Gyles met Aemond's gaze. "Why do you ask, my Prince? They're baseborn scum, unworthy of your notice."
Aemond did not answer directly. He walked back to the table, pausing to rest a light hand on Helaena's shoulder.
She flinched, not from fear, but from the sudden warmth. Looking up, she met his eyes; in their violet depths, she saw intense, focused concern.
"I've heard they were the best," Aemond said, sitting again.
"If the Red Keep is to be cleansed, we should hire the finest. Don't you agree, Lord Gyles?"
Gyles looked troubled.
"Your Highness, they live in the roughest part of Flea Bottom; finding them will take time. And even if found, allowing such men inside the castle… is it prudent?"
"Ser Criston Cole will accompany you," Aemond said, brooking no argument.
"He knows how to deal with their sort."
With a reluctant bow, Gyles yielded.
"As you command, my Prince. I shall see to it at once."
He withdrew, motioning the kneeling maids to leave as well.
Aemond watched the door close. He picked up his fork, but he was no longer eating.
He was planning.
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