After the Great Council, matters proceeded quite contrariwise to the brothers' suppositions. They had planned that the King would allow Aegon to return to King's Landing together with everyone else, but Jaehaerys managed to surprise everyone yet again.
"The Prince of Dragonstone's place is in his demesne," he said, and sent Viserys to his fief to learn the art of statecraft.
"If a husband lives apart from his wife, then both are sinful in the eyes of the Seven," he said, and banished Daemon to Runestone together with his lady mistress. Some small consolation served the fact that both spouses departed to fulfill the Sovereign's will with faces equally twisted in malice.
As for Aegon himself, he was ordered to return to the Citadel and continue his studies until Archmaester Vaegon, who had resigned the Hand's badge a minute after the closing of the Great Council, deemed him ready. Ready for what or to what end, Grandfather did not trouble himself to explain; uncle and nephew bowed and took their seats in the Hightower wain, which returned them first to King's Landing, only to bear them thence to Oldtown.
Shortly before their departure from Harrenhal, Daemon found Aegon and, with a sly smile, handed him a new cane with the old dragon pommel. The gift proved unexpected—the Prince had already forgotten about the shard of his grandfather's gift given away after his departure—and somewhat heavier than its predecessor.
"Tis... 'tis weirwood," Aegon muttered in surprise, stroking the milky-white timber.
"The very same," Daemon pronounced with satisfaction. "I had to commit a brigand's raid upon the Isle of Faces—I had no wish to pay Lord Strong for hospitality by defacing his godswood."
A memory slashed Aegon of his aged brother making notches upon the Harrenhal weirwood, but he drove it away, shaking his head desperately. Taking this on his own account, Daemon chuckled.
"That is not all. Press upon the dragon's paws, right here, and twist the handle."
Doing as his brother bade, Aegon felt rather than heard a barely perceptible click; the bone dragon tail forming the handle pulled upward of its own accord, and the pommel separated from the shaft, revealing a narrow strip of dark steel. Guessing what this might be, yet simultaneously disbelieving it, the youth pulled the handle—nay, now the hilt!—upward, drawing from the white wooden scabbard a dark grey blade that glinted dully in the sun. Narrow and long, it seemed woven of smoke curling over the vents on the slopes of the Dragonmont or bursting from the nostrils of an angered dragon; the patterns on the steel, left from the forging, resembled at once waves, tongues of flame, or dragon scales. Gazing at it spellbound, Aegon thought that all this was very Targaryen: a blade of supreme strength in a reliable scabbard, pretending to be something else, but not a deadly weapon. Surely a century ago, a certain petty lord, whose fief consisted of one small island and a heap of uninhabited rocks, felt something similar when, with the aid of impudence and luck, he became King of a whole continent.
"Whence?.." was all the Prince could utter when he regained the power of speech.
"One of my... Essosi companies swore fealty to me with a Valyrian sword. The sword was rubbish: gold and gems on the hilt, a diamond in the pommel, disgusting balance..."
Forged clearly by a Valyrian, but evidently an apprentice,—Daemon was definitely pleased with the effect produced and triumphant; at another time he would have stood breast-high in defense of the old master.
"I ordered all that precious junk picked off and returned it to the company as payment for their services, and the blade I gave to my Master-at-Arms."
"Your master knows how to work Valyrian steel?!"
"A Qohorik," Daemon cast out briefly, in a tone as if it were something self-evident. "He tinkered long, but in the end achieved something, as you see. The mechanism and spring inside are made of the same Valyrian steel, so rust and blows hold no terror for it."
"This is... a very generous gift," Aegon exhaled, swinging the blade a couple of times to test it. It cut the air with a melodious whistle.
"All so that, my brother, any Oldtown riffraff dares not stand in your path. I bade Dennis show you several moves, taking into account your capabilities, of course, so now you shall be able to stand for yourself. And besides, you can finally try to take revenge on me."
"Revenge?" Aegon asked again with no less surprise.
"Aye. For that time when you fell and dropped that training sword. It seems among knights this is accounted a defeat," the roguish smile and the dancing sparks in his brother's light amethyst eyes gave him an aspect altogether devilish.
"Is that the same time after which Father intended to send you to the Wall?" Aegon clarified just in case. "It seems among knights that is accounted a disgrace, not a victory."
Daemon laughed somewhat strained, and Aegon, hesitating slightly, joined him; he had managed to knock the arrogance off him after all. To change the subject, Daemon let drop as if by chance:
"I did not give it a name. Choose something to your taste, but worthy of Blackfyre and Dark Sister. I do not wish for Viserys and me to have to blush for you."
Twisting his face in a thoughtful grimace, Aegon continued to tease:
"It seems to me The Crone's Lantern would suit both it and me perfectly."
Daemon spat in anger and turned toward the exit, intending to leave. Already to his back, Aegon shouted:
"I shall name it Valyrian Candle!"
His brother only waved a hand in reply, not even turning around—as if to say, your business. But Valyrian Candle seemed so fine an option that Aegon could no longer imagine another name. He carefully slid the blade back into the shaft-scabbard, lowered and twisted the pommel, felt the click again; bringing the cane to his face, the Prince looked into the ruby eyes of the dragon; Daemon had ordered them cleaned too.
"It looks very much, Qēlītsos (little candle), that you are the only dragon that will fall to my lot," he spoke with a sad smile.
Dennis, examining the patron's gift, appreciated the balance and sharpness of the blade according to its desert, saying that the Valyrian part of the blood in his veins recognized the legacy of ancestors. Contrariwise, Uncle Vaegon remained indifferent and even seemed offended:
"You and that toothpick," he muttered irritably, absently turning another page.
The road to Oldtown took them nearly three months. In Smithyton they had to replace loosened carriage axles, and while old Lord Shermer, terribly proud that he could serve Targaryens, held a feast in honor of the Archmaester and the Prince, a white raven flew from the Citadel, and the merriment fell silent at once—winter had come to Westeros. As if by magic, the weather turned foul, and by the Holy Week they managed to ride only as far as Bitterbridge, where they were stuck both because of the rains mixed with snow, from which moving even along the paved Roseroad was not simple, and because of the holidays, during which the pious Reach guards accompanying them refused to ride.
Vaegon ground his teeth, pursed his lips, and became practically unbearable; Aegon and Dennis, so as not to fall under his hot hand, prudently fled to the yard to train. Almost ten years without practice had completely erased from the Prince's memory everything he had managed to learn before eight years of age, and the little that his muscles still remembered proved inapplicable due to the consequences of his injury.
"You will have to spin on one leg, my Prince," Dennis instructed, dancing around him in the inn yard with a blunted sword in his hands. "Either balance or suffer, but an opponent will use your weakness first of all in any case."
"You want me to become a heron?" Aegon hissed, bending his right leg. In the next instant, the servant struck him flat with the blade on the left calf, spun around himself for show, and poked the tip of the blade into the right knee. Pain shot through the leg at once, echoing in the back of his head; the Prince was distracted, lost his balance, and collapsed into the mud to the guffawing of gawkers.
"Better a heron, my Prince, than a corpse," Dennis lifted his grimacing and spitting master. "Valyrian steel is useless if you know not how to handle it. 'Tis nothing, my Lord, you will learn, you will surely learn."
And Aegon learned. By day, on the road, in yet another tavern or castle where they waited out the bad weather, he read, reread, copied, and retold to his uncle the treatises of lawgivers of all the Seven Kingdoms, and in the evening, before supper, he learned to handle Valyrian Candle. The scabbard of weirwood, which Aegon had at first so rashly cast aside, Dennis bade him keep in his left hand.
"Your Candle is content with one hand, and this shaft may well serve as both shield and dagger. Fear not to take a blow upon it, if it be not Valyrian steel—weirwood will endure."
Every training session left Aegon in an utterly shattered state; everything hurt, from his head, which had to think even more actively than over books, to healing bruises and scrapes; but worst of all, of course, fared the leg, which had to endure such mockeries upon itself.
The Archmaester, hurrying to his rooms in the Seneschal's Court, forbade stopping at Highgarden even for one night, fearing to become a hostage of the hospitable Lord Tyrell, however, the gods judged otherwise. Right before the castle, Vaegon was taken with a fever, and despite the curses spewed by his uncle, Aegon ordered a halt. Lord Matthos, striving to curry favor with the future King's brother, readily provided them with chambers, one of many in the huge castle. He also tried to foist his Maester upon them, but Aegon cut him off:
"My silver link will be worth less than a holey copper if I do not cure my uncle of a simple chill."
It truly proved to be merely a chill, but Vaegon had not breathed anything but the dusty air of stuffy libraries for many years, and therefore the illness thoroughly battered both him and his nephew's nerves. When two weeks later the illness receded, the Archmaester admitted that Aegon had coped "acceptably," which in his language was the highest degree of praise.
Scarce did the tiny light of the Hightower appear in the distance than Vaegon, utterly worn out by the road, pulled out a scalpel taken from gods know where and, nervously twirling it in long fingers, approached the driver:
"Do you see the Tower?"
The coachman nodded.
"If you stop anywhere at all save the city gates, you will be left without an eye. Or without a cock. Or without a head. Choose what is more important."
For some reason, the coachman did not choose, only shook his head rapidly, confirming he understood the order.
Returning to a slushy, dirty, and snowless Oldtown swept by winter winds at the very beginning of the second month of the year 102, Aegon already on the fifteenth day sat the exam for jurisprudence. Archmaester Loren, a native of Lannisport, asked but a couple of highly formal questions, explaining his leniency by the fact that the true exam for the candidate Aegon had been his active participation in the Great Council. From the lecture hall, the Prince emerged confused, slightly disappointed, but with a link of steel on his segment of chain.
"You look as if you are not glad," Adrian Hill chided him.
"No one has yet left Loren so simply with a link," supported his friend Marlon, who during Aegon's absence had twice tried to receive steel, but both times unsuccessfully.
"I am glad, but... It was too simple," Aegon drawled in confusion. "I tuned myself for a dispute, that I would have to convince him, prove... And he agreed so simply."
"If it comforts you, in life you will have much to prove yet," Marlon "soothed" him.
After the steel of jurisprudence followed yet another silver link—together with Dennis, Aegon solidified his knowledge of medicine. Then came the turn of military sciences; aye, Aegon did not intend to fight in the front ranks, but he deemed it necessary to know of what his brothers would speak at war councils.
"A lame knight whose sword is hidden in his own cane," ironized Vaegon, who did not understand his nephew's new hobby. "Oh, Warrior, have we truly returned to the Age of Heroes, when the eyeless, armless, and legless turned whole armies to flight?"
"I am not Symeon Star-Eyes," Aegon snapped. "I cannot help Viserys and Daemon with a sword, so let my head help them at least. You yourself made of it a weapon sharper than Candle."
Uncle only snorted, but the next day threw a paper with the Seneschal's seal onto the table before the Prince—a pass to one of the closed sections of the library.
"Your brothers intend to fight dragons astride dragons. Such has not been done since the times of the civil wars in the Freehold, so here is a new whetstone for you. Try not to kill yourself with it."
"I wonder only how you did not drop it on your foot," Aegon answered in tone. "What a weight."
Nor did he abandon his exercises with Valyrian Candle, but in Oldtown, he had to face a new problem: the damp cold wind coming from the sea echoed in the maimed leg with an ache, and training only worsened the effect; pains began scarce had Aegon found himself in bed and did not release him all night. In the end, Dennis, having enlisted Uncle Vaegon's support, refused to continue training due to the master's ever-worsening condition.
"I cannot train you, my Prince," in what concerned Aegon's health, Dennis was firm and unshakable as the cliffs of the Dragonmont. "You cannot master the sword if you continue to wear yourself out so. Your leg harms you yourself."
"It is the shitty weather, Dennis, not the leg!" hissed the Prince like a dragon. "I cannot master the sword if I do not train!"
"Then drink the shitty milk of the poppy!"
"Go to the Seven Hells together with your milk, Dennis, I do not wish to feel like a sleepy fly."
"Then sheath your Candle and give the leg rest!"
"And forget everything?"
Then they argued all evening, but came to nothing; in the morning Aegon, barely crawling out of bed, had to agree to a break in fencing—any thought of an extra step caused pain. The next day it became no better, and, despite the Prince's furious resistance, Uncle sent for Archmaester Edgart. The most skilled and capable healer in all Westeros appeared on the threshold of Aegon's room with the words:
"I confess, my Prince, I expected you would turn to me sooner."
"Immediately upon arrival?" Aegon grimaced.
"Aye, some four years ago."
A thorough examination led to a comfortless conclusion:
"Rest and only rest! No training—to the privy and back!"
"Do I understand correctly that you wish to forbid me to fence?" the youth pronounced with a threat and instantly bit his tongue. The old man had always been kind to him, even at that failed exam, and now obviously tried to help.
"I would gladly forbid you this," sighed Edgart. "Only you will not listen, will you? You may continue your training when you recover. It is merely the fatigue of overworked muscles."
"Are you certain?" Vaegon asked again.
"Nothing serious, this happens to all who engage in such exertions. Prince Aegon's case, of course, is more neglected: shards of bone knitted incorrectly, hence these bumps, and the grown muscles now rub against them—hence the pains."
"Elysar ought to have cut off my leg," Aegon hissed in vexation. "Would not have had to..."
He did not want to say the word "suffer" or "torment"; that would be an admission of how much it hurt, an admission of his own weakness, but ziry zaldrīzes istas (he was a dragon), and there are no weak zaldrīzes (dragons). Even Rhaenyra's Syrax, being a hatchling, could breathe flame in a face so that eyeballs burst.
"Possibly, my Prince," agreed Edgart and scratched a bald spot strewn with brown senile spots. "But I, like the late Grand Maester Elysar, by the by, hold to the position that between amputation and preservation of a body part, one must always choose preservation. Naturally, save those cases where it leads to infection and necrosis of tissues."
"I would forget about all discomforts," Aegon continued to grumble, but more for order's sake than truly angry. "Mayhaps with a wooden block instead of a leg, I could even dance. But as it is, a little thing—and straight for the milk of the poppy."
Edgart scratched his bald spot again and exchanged glances with Vaegon. Finally, the Archmaester of healing pronounced in a somewhat conspiratorial tone:
"Milk of the poppy is taken to ease pain already tormenting the body, but... Ways are known to forestall the very appearance of pain."
The conversation, from boring, unnecessary, and burdensome, suddenly acquired no small interest for Aegon.
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