Chapter 16

“Milady, milady, there’s a dragon in the sky!” a voice loud enough to wake the dead roused Lady Melessa Tarly, widow of Lord Randyll Tarly, who had only recently lost him and their son Dickon due to their refusal to bend the knee to Daenerys Targaryen.

“Trentan Flowers, where is this dragon for whom you robbed me of my nap?” Lady Tarly demanded to see now, though properly speaking, her daughter Talla Tarly was now the Lady of Hornhill.

“Over there, milady, I assure you!” the steward, a bastard of the Reach like all others named Flowers, pointed to his mistress.

“Seven Hells, that is a dragon!” Melessa lost all color to her face right then, screaming in terror.

Lady Talla Tarly, the nominal head of House Tarly these days, rushed out to discover what prompted her mother to scream like that, and sure enough, she witnessed the dragon as well. Given that her father and brother had been roasted by dragonfire on the orders of Daenerys Targaryen, the Mother of Dragons, there was plenty of cause for horror and panic with both ladies, as well as their household staff. The servants would be just as dead as the masters should a dragon breathe its fire upon Hornhill, after all.

“It comes closer, milady, almost upon us! Nay, it has landed, a good hike away from here. Why did it land, though?” Trentan wondered aloud, even as a tall, distant figure climbed down from the dragon and began walking toward the castle alone, without any guards.

“Who is that?” Talla wanted to know, even as the figure closed the distance between them even more.

“I do not know, but prepare to meet it, Trentan. Gather all of the men of Hornhill, arm them, and prepare to defend our keep,” Lady Tarly gave orders, and none flouted her, not even her daughter the heir to Hornhill.

The nearer the distant figure drew, the more the features took on a regal bearing undeniable to the ladies of Hornhill, yet a sadness in its posture, a heavy burden weighing it down. As it became even closer, and the servants mustered to arms, Lady Talla noticed two distinct facts about it: it was a woman and she was naked! Muttering a very quick prayer, Lady Talla demanded a horse, and when the stable groom attempted to deny her, she slapped him quickly across the face.

“I thank you for your protective ways, Dougas, but you need to recall who is the Lady of Hornhill here. It is not your place to deny me a saddle and a mount. I will ride to meet this woman and see why she comes upon us with a dragon at her back. Naked, no less,” the younger Lady Tarly told him as she mounted her steed and kicked off toward Dany alone.

The closer the two became, the more convinced Talla was that this was the Dragon Queen. Who else could or would it be? Yet why would Daenerys Stormborn, of House Targaryen, approach a family with a grudge against her? Did she seek to complete their destruction now or was there something else afoot? This wasn’t the stature or gait of a woman bent on slaughter or mayhem, at least from what Talla could see, bu then this was the woman who had executed her father and brother, if indeed she was right. Then again, who else could ride a dragon but the Mother of Dragons?

“Halt! Who comes here? Welcome to Hornhill!” Talla asked of the stranger, even as Trentan huffed and puffed to catch up with her.

The woman stopped and announced herself, “I am Daenerys Stormborn, of House Targaryen, Queen of the Andals, the Rhoynar, and the First Men, Protector of the Seven Kingdoms, Khaleesi of the Great Grass Sea, the Unburnt, the Mother of Dragons, the Breaker of Chains.”

“You ... you are the one who burned my father and brother alive, then. I shall be honest, I don’t much care about Father. He was a nasty piece of work. But my brother, Dickon, he was another matter. What possible reason could you have to visit me here, and what reason would I have to even entertain your words long enough for you to say them?” Talla spoke curtly to the Mother of Dragons.

“I come ... to atone and to pay my respects. When I executed your father and brother, it was when I believed myself, honestly, to be the rightful ruler of Westeros, of all Seven Kingdoms, and any who opposed me to be traitors who deserved the traitor’s death. I demanded that all men and women bend the knee and many did. Your father and brother refused. My Hand, Tyrion Lannister, attempted to intercede for them, to offer them a chance to take the black, at least with your father, to wear shackles and spend time in a cell, anything short of death. They refused all of this, your father even saying that I could not send him to the Wall as I was not his queen.

“I have since learned that there was one with a better claim to the Iron Throne than I. My husband, who also turned out to be my nephew. Jon Snow, formerly King in the North. One who I once asked and pressured to bend the knee, though he never did. I married him before he could, which proved to be wise for both of us. Now, I am set to be Queen, anyway, by marriage and as next in line to the Iron Throne. While I executed your father and brother in good faith, in an honest belief that I was in the right, I was wrong.

“Hence why I seek to atone for my ... crimes or sins, whichever you wish to call them, wrongs committed against your family. I should have spared their lives, I see that now, treated them as simple prisoners captured in warfare, at least until or unless there was a sound reason to execute them. I have found one possible way to atone for it, but if I do this, it will be hard and humiliating for me. I will do it nonetheless, if you ask it of me. I am prepared to walk this whole distance to your castle in the nude as a walk of shame, if that will heal the breach with your family.

“I do not make this offer lightly. I am accustomed to judging others, to being a queen, to having others beg me for mercy instead. Yet I must do this. I must break the wheel. I must show that I am good and just, as I have already proven that I am strong. Will you grant me this chance to atone with a walk of shame? Cersei Lannister was forced to do this. I freely consent to it,” Dany presented her offer to Talla, much to the Tarly heiress’s shock.

Melessa rode up, with Trentan at her side, even as Daenerys finished her address, the tears streaming down her face as she realized the meaning of it. Yes, she was wroth with Dany, but she understood at last that Dany had walked a very narrow path between virtue and strength, one where wisdom was sometimes absent in her youth. She was still a very young queen, wasn’t she? To be honest, as with Talla, much of the love toward Randyll that might have lived died with his cruelty toward Samwell, so it was more on Dickon’s account that she felt such anger and sorrow.

“That is not quite enough for me, Mother of Dragons, but if you do what I ask of you, I will consider the debt between us repaid, and will bend the knee to you as Queen, as you are now wife to our King. I should tell you that when my elder son, Samwell Tarly, served with the Night’s Watch while learning the maester’s craft, he served with Jon Snow, who was his closest friend and permitted him to go to the Citadel once he became Lord Commander of the Night’s Watch. You are married to the friend of my son, the one who protected him. For that alone, I should welcome you once this is done, as well as for being kin to Jon Snow, as his aunt.

“For another matter, I know, thanks to Sam, what is coming for all of us. Randyll never wished to believe it, but I do. The Army of the Dead. It is coming for us all. Winter is coming for us all. Nay, winter is here, but the Night King and the Long Night await us. I do not miss Randyll, but I miss Dickon, who could have been a great soldier for you and for Jon Snow against the Night King and his Army of the Dead. To atone for robbing not only myself and my daughter, but also Westeros, of such a fine young man, you should do a walk of shame, but in Oldtown, not here.

“Carry out the Walk of Atonement in Oldtown, naked as you are now, and all shall be forgiven you. You can keep your dragon close enough to protect you in case you are assaulted, but you must submit to everything else. Do you consent to this, Your Grace?” Melessa Tarly held firm to her convictions and resolved that she would forgive only if this was done.

“I do. I will carry out this Walk of Atonement, flying Drogon to Oldtown and walking, naked, from the gates until I reach the Citadel, where no women are permitted. Once there, I shall cease my walk and climb Drogon, who shall descend to meet me. Is this acceptable, milady?” Dany countered with her offer.

“It is, Your Grace. Is it to you, my daughter?” Melessa asked Talla, who nodded in deference to her mother.

“It is enough. I shall consider the matter closed and the deaths forgiven, should you do this. This is truly astonishing to me. I’ve never known a monarch who would seek to atone for an execution before. That is an act which might truly help to ‘break the wheel,’ as you say. You have my respect for offering it, but that is conditional upon you keeping faith with your word of honor. Swear it to me by your gods,” Talla demanded of Dany.

“I do so swear, but I have yet to find gods who have convinced me enough for my faith. Is this honest enough for you?” Dany asked her now.

“It is, since not every queen would admit to doubting all gods. That is a bold and frank confession. Still, if you wish our forgiveness, acts supersede words, do not they not?” Talla insisted, as Dany nodded and walked back to Drogon to mount him and fly to Oldtown.

Dany’s heart reached her belly as she landed at Oldtown’s gates, especially word of the flying dragon had spread throughout the Reach in a matter of hours and the elders of the city gathered in abject terror and prostrated themselves to her. They had seen Drogon coming and they feared the worst, of course. The burning of the Tarlys made them wonder if the Dragon Queen could ever tame the dragon inside herself. She did not know how they would respond to what they saw, as she stepped off Drogon in the nude.

“Your Grace, this is ... an unexpected pleasure and honor. Please know that we had no part in your war with Cersei Lannister or hers with you. Oldtown has never formally chosen a side, not as a city, though our traditional fealty lies with House Tyrell. Some of our boys ran off to fight for Lady Olenna Tyrell, and thus for you, while others marched off with Lord Randyll Tarly and his son, Dickon, and thus for Cersei. We are, however, prepared to bend the knee to you, and to your new husband, Jon Snow, our new King, for which marriage we now congratulate you,” Archmaester Ebrose of the Citadel spoke first, by silent assent of the city fathers of Oldtown.

“Meaning that you have seen which way the wind blows, so you have adjusted your sails, Archmaester, am I not right? It matters not at this time why, though it gives me pause in the matter of trusting you for the future. Perhaps that can be remedied in time, as you were wise enough to submit to the half of this couple that has appeared to you. You owe me your fealty, it is true, as Queen and the wife of the King, and to Jon Snow, you owe it to him by virtue of his birthright. He is the King now, as you say.

“I accept your congratulations with sincere thanks, but that is not my purpose here. Nor am I here to destroy anyone or anything, though if I am assailed, it will not go well with Drogon. He is very loyal to his mother, as you know. He would not take it kindly, would you, Drogon? I am come here for an act of contrition, of atonement. A walk of shame. A pilgrimage here, where I shall make amends to House Tarly for burning Lord Randyll Tarly and his son Dickon, alive, in the honest, yet mistaken belief that they were rebels against my lawful sovereignty.

“I did not know that Jon Snow, my husband and nephew, had the better claim to the Iron Throne by virtue of his true parentage. I believed, and even stated repeatedly, that I was born to rule the Seven Kingdoms, and that I would. I burned Lord Tarly as a traitor, but only after he refused the chance to take the black, claiming that I had no right to send him to the Wall. I burned Dickon Tarly as well, but only after he refused to listen to his father’s wise counsel, opting instead to emulate his example.

“You should know that, in so doing, both Lord Tarly, his son Dickon, and I foolishly, perhaps in my case due to my youth, disregarded the sage advice of my Hand, Lord Tyrion Lannister. Tyrion counseled mercy, not vengeance, to me, and submission, not obstinacy, to both Lord Tarly and his son. I should have listened to my Hand. Tyrion was right. So now, in all humility, as an act of penance and personal sacrifice, I hereby embrace the shame and begin a Walk of Atonement toward the Citadel’s doors.

“You will accompany me, will you not, Archmaester? Clothed in your case, of course. I must do this, as urged upon me by both ladies of House Tarly, in order to show that even queens can and should make an act of cruelty or injustice right. Lord Tarly was one thing, that might have been forgivable to some, given that he was the opposing commander, but his son did not deserve to die for his youthful rashness. So, in that spirit, here I am, naked and ready to undertake my Walk of Atonement, barefoot as well, knowing that my feet will be filthy and bloody afterward,” Dany declared, as she walked through the parting crowd of elders to the very gates of Oldtown.

“It will be ... my honor, Your Grace,” the Archmaester consented, albeit rather nervously.

Dany was quite anxious, as the gates of Oldtown opened before her eyes and she began walking along the streets of Oldtown, the Citadel firmly in her sights. There was no proclamation, of course, but none was needed. Rumors spread rapidly that Daenerys Stormborn, of House Targaryen, on the cusp of a great victory over her foes, had opted to commence a Walk of Atonement to appease the Gods or someone or something. It wasn’t clear to all what the purpose was, other than some form of penance for some sort of act, but what it suggested to many was that Dany wished to atone for usurping her husband’s birthright. Others viewed it as an act of contrition to prove to the Seven that she was willing to worship them and practice the Faith instead of whatever Gods she worshiped prior to her return to Westeros. Some even saw it as penance for the crimes of the Dothraki now ravaging some towns in the Stormlands.

There was a stunned, stony silence for many in Oldtown, witnessing the deliberate and voluntary act of submission and humiliation by a woman notorious for her brutality toward her foes. Whatever her motives, it hinted to them that there was indeed another, brighter, better side that those who blackened her name and reputation had not bothered to learn about her. Some had heard of this, but many knew only what gossip and rhetoric Cersei Lannister and others before her had wanted disseminated, including Robert Baratheon when he was King. Yet she hadn’t just taken King’s Landing, after all, when that would have only had one real cost: the lives of thousands of townspeople there. A ruthless, ambitious foreign invader not going for the jugular was strange indeed, wasn’t it, many now asked themselves.