Capítulo 80: Melisandre 2
284AC
She stared out at the sun, rising over the rocky plains in the distance, she could see the old Valyrian road with its black stone carved into the earth like a great burnt trench, they would be following it today, heading east, to lands she had not yet visited, even in her wandering with the old woman.
As she glanced over the horizon, she felt a tugging at the hem of her skirt leg, and she turned down to see the silver hair toddler who was her charge, raising her hands in the air enthusiastically.
"Up-up."
"Ah, here you go."
Melisandre smiled as she lifted little Daenerys onto the wagon. They had stopped by a well to let the mules drink for a while, and it was back onto the road again now. They had passed Norvos at night, so as to avoid the heathen priests of the city who considered R'hllor a demon, and now they passed on towards Qohor, where they would be stopping at the small temple of R'hllor there to stay for some time
She sat Daenerys on her lap and started to correct the small braids in her hair as the old woman returned from the woods. The boy, Viserys, walking alongside her, his mouth silent but his eyes full of tears.
When they had first acquired the prince, he was intransigent and unwilling to hear the word of R'hllor. But the old woman knew her trade. Mellisandre did not know what horrors she had wrought on him in those early days as they journeyed from the Braavosi coast south to Pentos, only that for many months after he had not been able to stop shaking, a clumsy wreck of a child, and yet the old woman made him serve her. Gone were the robes and finery he had worn, replaced with simple red rags, like those of a slave, and he trembled at the boney touch of the old woman's hand.
His screaming made it difficult to sleep in the night sometimes, but she knew that whatever magic it was which the old woman cast on him was to shape him into a proper vessel for R'hllor's work, so she simply comforted her own little clay and slept as best she could.
In truth, the only punishment which she saw was for when the boy in his shuddering clumsiness erred, dropped a drink meant for the old woman or knocked something over. Them the old woman would push his left hand into the fire with a cruel smile on her face, and he would scream and beg as his flesh burnt and charred, and the old woman would laugh.
This happened for many months before the prince finally broke, a mass of quivering sobbing and tears, screaming and crying he had fallen to the floor of their stoney house, and the old woman had smiled, picked him up, and carried him away, to where Melisandre knew not.
When they had returned, he had been silent, and they had brought a cat with them, black as night, the boy had named it Balerion, and when he had held it, his shuddering had stopped. Aside from the rags which the old woman forced him to wear, all he was left with was that one cat. She had seen how he cared for it, loved it even. She had seen how it brought him rats sometimes, to supplement the gruel that the old woman fed him while the rest of them ate well from the wealth of the old woman's Pentoshi friends. Staying in palaces while the clay slept in the stables.
She had watched the boy grow, from six to nine now, gaunt and harried. His silver hair hung in a loose matted mess over his eyes, his will broken to the service of the old woman, who forced him to call her mother, just as she did Mellisandre.
She saw how he had loved that cat, and how it had grown with him, shielding him, licking his burns, and comforting his nightmares.
When they had set off into the east, the cat had come with him, licking at his heels, even as the old woman made him walk beside the cart instead of ride. He looked for all the world like any other slave, albeit one with Valyrian blood, clutching hold of that cat.
Then, this morning, as they had stopped by the well to drink, the old woman had taken him off into the woods, as she sometimes did to work her magic, and now they returned, the boy's hands coated in blood.
Mellisandre had expected it was coming, of course, the old woman would never let the clay set into shape again after all, not until she was done shaping it. But Mellisandre did not know the day or the hour it was coming.
There was a fondness for little Balerion on her own part as well, though not enough for her to mourn its passing. As time passed she had grown used to the cat, to Daenerys chasing it about or grabbing at its tail, even to the fear that filled Viserys eyes when he could not find it, or when his sister played with it too harshly.
Now there was something else in his eyes, as he turned to look at them there. There was despair in droves, that she expected, with all he had been through she was sure that the boy's whole being was driven by despair. However, there was also something more dangerous, a wave of anger that seemed to burn out from the very inside of his skull, his lips might be sealed for fear of the Old Woman, but she was sure that in his gaze he would send them all to the hells without a thought.
Mellisandre almost shivered as his eye's landed on her, but that would be a show of weakness, and one that would earn her her own beating from the old woman, and so she repressed it only staring back with a face of mock interest.
The Old Woman saw it too, though her eyes had no sight, and she grinned a toothy grin as the boy fell to his hands and knees as he always did, throwing himself into the muck to let the Old Woman step onto the cart more easily, before walking behind the cart, as they journeyed, his burning eyes never leaving the Old Woman's back.
That evening, as they stopped at a tavern and Viserys was sent to the stable with the mules, her curiosity finally overcame her.
"Mother, why do you choose to make the clay hate you? Is that not dangerous?"
The hag smiled broadly, and Mellisandre thought that her eyes glimmered in the torchlight, huddled as they were around a dark corner-table, "Girl, Of all the things which rule men's hearts, it is hatred that burns the brightest." The witch seemed to take glee in the words which left her lips. "And Hatred born of love burns the brightest of all. It is a fitting tribute to R'hllor."
Mellisandre took the words, and placed them within her heart, for there seemed more to them than their meaning today alone. "Thank you for your wisdom, Mother."
The Old Woman nodded, her thin flesh like pale parchment seemed to barely fit around her skeleton in the dim light of the tavern. "You will be wise too, in time Melisandre. Our God demands it, and we who walk in the light do all things for R'hllor." She raised a cup of Lorathi bloodwine, and Mellisandre did the same in turn. Their voices echoed as one, though they were drowned out in the dim cacophony of the tavern at night.
"For R'hllor."
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