Archmaester Vaegon
Perchance he had never before rejoiced at the approach of the Holy Week as he did this year. The year 111 After the Conquest had proven no simple one, but praise all the gods and the Seventh Hell (Peklo), it was drawing to a close. The bustle of endless weddings, relocations, reunions, scandals, and royal births had wearied even the courtiers, who surely prayed that the coming year would bring them spring and at least relative tranquility.
Vaegon too counted on the spring, but for his own reasons: he was meant to visit the new Citadel, but with his ailment, there was no thinking of setting out on a journey along winter roads. Marlon, let us assume, had forgotten how to solve theorems, but he knew medicine even better than the drunkard Cadwyl, who wore a silver mask, and since he had forbidden jolting over potholes, then so be it. For the same reasons, Aegon's offer to transport him to Dragon's Heart by air had been rejected.
"You are of dragon blood, of course, but the gods alone know how you will bear the flight," Marlon had said.
Truth be told, Vaegon himself burned with no desire to climb into a saddle—he had grown too accustomed to his dragonlessness. The further time went, the more the bond with a dragon seemed to him akin to a sick man's dependence on milk of the poppy: with each year, it becomes harder to rid oneself of it, until finally it becomes such an integral part of life that withdrawal is like death. The example of Viserys, who became the last rider of the dying Balerion, was illustrative. Just one single flight over the Blackwater and a few months of strange friendship—and the eldest of his nephews is still thrown into unbearably black melancholy by the mere mention of the great dragon, let alone timid suggestions to saddle another. Vaegon, who had never flown even in another's saddle, feared that the flight to Dragon's Heart would aggravate not so much his sores as the dragon rider's nature shackled in maester's chains. He had to wait and hope for spring, and there were reasons for this.
At Aegon's proposal, sealed with a royal resolution and stamp, the maesters who had arrived in the capital with Vaegon agreed to settle in Dragon's Heart for the preservation, increase, and dissemination of knowledge—that is, they agreed to form a new Citadel. Naturally, they needed a head, and naturally, by right of seniority in years, merits, knowledge, and archmaester's rank, the King's uncle became that head. He himself, when Marlon and his cronies offered him the seneschalship, did not fail to make a caustic remark about ensuring the sacred continuity that the new Citadel received thanks to him. Naturally, he agreed.
In his stead, Howland and Wallace set out to settle the Tower of Dread, accompanied by a couple of novices. They were to determine whether it could be adapted at all for the Citadel's needs, assess the scale of the problems, agree with the castellan of Dragon's Heart on how they would use the property and hospitality of Prince Aegon—in a word, do everything so that with the coming of spring, a dozen of their brothers led by the Archmaester and two dozen novices could move unhindered into their new home with all their books, vials, jars, instruments, and rarities. At the same time, a no less heavy burden fell on Vaegon's shoulders: it was necessary to explain to the Conclave of the Citadel of Oldtown that neither he nor the maesters sent to copy books from the Red Keep's library would return.
The letter to his fellow archmaesters turned out somewhat dry at first glance, as an official missive should be, but Vaegon could not deny himself the pleasure of being caustic and added several turns of phrase that veiledly sent the Seneschal of the Citadel to the Seven Hells. Viserys also sent his own letter, far more polite and verbose, and the Archmaester pusillanimously rejoiced at this, since he could hide behind it like a shield.
Perhaps for this reason, or perhaps because Seneschal Kennos was struck by paralysis, the Citadel's reply proved completely toothless and so uninteresting that Vaegon was disappointed. The Conclave only inquired whether they should elect a new Archmaester of Mathematics and Economics in his place; naturally, he refused—let them wait for his death.
Besides Oldtown, ravens with Vaegon's letters flew to Riverrun, the Eyrie, Winterfell, Casterly Rock, and all castles north of the Blackwater and the Goldroad, in which he notified the lords and maesters that by the King's will and with the consent of the Conclave, there would now be another Citadel in the Seven Kingdoms. One of the first to respond was Lord Jason Lannister, promising to send lists of books from his own library and several students. Receiving the letter from the Warden of the West, Vaegon could not suppress a satisfied smile—the investment in the Master of Coin was beginning to pay off.
However, of late, Vaegon's life was not limited to cares about the Citadel alone. In the middle of the twelfth month, Laena Velaryon followed the example of Queen Alicent and her friend Rhaenyra and was delivered of her burden, easily and without particular problems, as Aegon wrote, grateful to the maesters and the merciful Meraxes. His nephew's wife, however, surpassed both her friend and the Queen at once, giving birth to twin girls; although there was nothing unusual in a woman of House Velaryon bearing twins, the court, having barely celebrated the birth of Daemon's son and heir, again experienced a pleasant, and quite drunken, surprise.
Aegon and Laena named their daughters Baela and Rhaena, in honor of their late grandfather and living grandmother. Rhaenys, judging by the nephew's letters, was touched, and old Jocelyn nearly wept with happiness, taking her great-granddaughters in her arms. Viserys was also quite pleased that his younger brother, unlike the middle one, had wits enough to honor their father's memory. Vaegon only smirked at this charming sentimentality: Aegon had once half-jokingly asked his permission to name a child in his honor, to which the Archmaester in the same tone sent his nephew to the Seven Hells (Peklo) with such questions.
It was pleasant to realize that the Prince had heeded him, but somewhere deep inside, at the very bottom of his heart—his real heart, not the one felt in his lower belly from time to time—a small feeling stirred discontentedly, in which Vaegon did not immediately recognize jealousy. Strange, he had forbidden it himself, yet still hoped the boy (though what boy—he is a father now and will be thirty in three years!) would act contrary to him. As it turned out, in vain; evidently, the Prince remembered how the King and Queen had named their firstborn Aegon, and decided to avoid a ridiculous situation. Gods witness, the court had enough of two namesakes, for whom nicknames had to be invented to distinguish one from the other: Aegon the Elder and Aegon the Younger, Aegon the Clubfoot and Aegon the Little, Aegon the Half-Maester and Aegon the Child, Aegon the White, like the dragon on his sigil, and Aegon the Green, like the swaddling clothes in his cradle.
Surprised not a little by his feelings, Vaegon hastened to shove this strange and unpleasant worm deeper into its hole, and then spent the whole night scribbling a letter to Aegon, as he used to scribble proofs and refutations of others' calculations. He congratulated his nephew and praised the richness of Driftmark waters, which had brought him a double catch. He recalled that before him, their uncle and great-uncle, the half-forgotten King Aegon, the Second of His Name, called the Uncrowned, also fathered twin girls, and they had considerable Velaryon blood in their veins. From Aegon the Second, the Archmaester moved to his wife, quipping that Dragon's Heart attracted women named Rhaena, but immediately checked himself and wished his younger (it seemed Rhaena was named the younger of the girls?) great-niece a happier life with fewer husbands.
Describing Viserys's raptures over the choice of name for the elder daughter to Aegon, Vaegon noted that Baelon himself would have been very pleased and proud of such an honor; what the late brother would actually have said, the Archmaester did not know, but it seemed to him worth mentioning anyway. The memory of Baelon proved a stone thrown into a quiet pond, and other memories began to ripple out from it, immediately transferring to paper. He remembered how Baelon and Alyssa tried to teach him to hold a sword, but did not succeed in this:
"They made mediocre instructors (in this I later outdid them both). However, that I was superfluous on that tilt-yard was clear from the very beginning; it was hardly a matter of my diligence or skills—simply your parents needed no one, neither in those foolish sword games for grown-up children, nor later, when our parents decided to marry them," Vaegon justified himself. "Truth be told, had our mother not arranged their wedding, they would have fled across the Narrow Sea themselves."
Not to end the congratulatory letter with a dubious and pitiful story, the Archmaester recalled how his brothers, not yet fully grown, fussed with him, the little prince, in the godswood and tried to make him laugh, though their laughter amused him more than their simple jokes, and his mother rejoiced at his smiles, rocking either the crybaby Daella or the fool Saera in her arms, and it was a hot summer, and in the shade by the pond it was so fresh and pleasant...
Adding wishes of health to all three of Aegon's women and sound sleep to him at the end of the letter, Vaegon could not resist reminding him that Alyssa had taken to the air with her elder sons just a couple of weeks after giving birth, and inquired whether his nephew intended to repeat this feat. Drying the ink with sand, he shoved the written sheets into an envelope without rereading, and sealed it with his archmaester's ring.
The letter turned out hefty—with such a weight, a raven could easily plunge into the water in the middle of the Blackwater. Scribbling a note with instructions to send the message by sea, Vaegon left them with the envelope on the corner of the table where he always placed letters and orders for his assistants, and, crossing his hands on his belly, looked into the darkening void of the window. By internal sensations, which never failed him, the hour of the owl had long passed, and the hour of the wolf was surely nearing its end; it had been a long time since he sat up so late. And yet in spring, it would already be getting light at this time.
Something jerked in his side and pulsed habitually, forcing the Archmaester to hiss through his teeth. He had wasted so much time on the letter for naught; he could have finished in the morning; Marlon would mumble again in the morning about the benefits of sleep and the harm of such vigils and, what was most vexing, would be right. The thought of waiting for dawn had to be discarded with regret. Vaegon rose cautiously from the armchair and, foolishly holding his heart beating in the wrong place, as if that could dull the pain, shuffled to the bedroom.
Already settled in bed, he thought that all ailments are connected with the weather. If so, he should feel better as soon as the cold ended. But the pain would not subside and grew stronger. The Archmaester decided to try to sleep to rid himself of these sensations as quickly as possible, and closed his eyes. The sensation of a heart beating in two places plunged his mind into bewilderment, to which the body reacted with a new flash of pain, bright as the first ray of sun at dawn, like dragon fire, and once again all Vaegon's hopes turned toward spring.
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