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Barth's Whisper: HOTD SI Ch.9
🕑 Added 2025-07-17 17:10:38 +0000 UTCChapter 9
GALEN
The Good Queen was loved by all, and for good reason. The Queen was well known for her generosity and kindness. She was the voice of mercy and benevolence in the Red Keep, and was one of the reasons in his mind that Jaehaerys was as popular and successful as a King.
He saw in her the same kindness as her daughter Maegella as she gazed at him with that smile of hers, and motioned for him to sit down.
“Come sit, Galen,” and unlike others who remained somewhat hesitant and or haughty around him, he felt a sense of motherly kindness from her as she often referred to him as her own child.
And the Queen took her time as the servants brought her tea and snacks, and she gave him a warm smile.
“I do hope that you don’t mind spending your evening with an old woman like myself,” and he could only shake his head.
“I am honored that you would call for me, my Queen,” and despite his dislike for nobility and monarchy as a whole, he held great respect for the woman in front of him who had done much for the people under her rule, especially women.
She was the first person to pay any heed to their plights, as she made the right of the first right a crime and offered women many rights that they were often deprived of.
She was not perfect. No one was, but she was far kinder than any Queen before her, and was the mother to his savior.
“Honored, huh?” she teased lovingly as the servants put forth cups and trays in front of him as well.
“Join me. You must be hungry as well by now,” and indeed, he was so he took the offered tea, as the Queen continued to eye him with curiosity and want.
“You are quite dutiful,” she added after a few minutes had passed, and he smiled.
“I am unworthy of that praise,” and she chuckled.
“And modest as well,” she quickly added, before continuing.
“But still, I have sat on the Council for years now and never before have I seen a new member be so bold to make such a proposal on their first day,” and that was to be expected, but he had good reason for doing that.
“Indeed, though I did this not out of greed but out of necessity,” and his words surprised her as the Queen reeled back.
“Necessity? How?” she sought an explanation, and he told her the truth.
“You and the King have been very generous to me, in naming me to the small council, your grace. But soon enough, the limitations of my heritage shall catch up to me,” and the Queen’s gaze narrowed.
“You believe that you won’t be a part of the Council for much longer,” and yes, he did.
“Yes,” already his addition to the Small Council had raised many eyebrows, and that would only continue, and so he planned to do as much as he could while he was on the Council.
“Do you think less of yourself because of your heritage?” the Queen’s question came as a whisper, her words filled with pity as he shook his head.
“No,” he answered, much to her surprise.
“I am proud of what I am and what I have achieved,” and she smiled.
“Such clarity of thought in a person so young is rare. How old are you now?” she asked, her curiosity visible as she knit her brows together.
“I shall be sixteen in a moon’s time,” and his answer seemed to silence the room, and even the Queen’s eyes widened.
“You are only fifteen years old?” she asked, gazing intently at him as he nodded.
“Yes,” she said, and then shook her head, putting down her cup.
“You are a child,” and her voice quivered, as Galen retorted.
“I have not been a child for many years now,” and he followed suit as he explored the rich tapestries decorating the wall.
“I have felt the Stranger’s embrace. I have buried friends and family. I have seen suffering of the worst kind,” and all that aged up a person, apart from his own special circumstances.
“How old were you when you joined the Citadel?” and he raked his mind for the number, and answered in a second.
“Eleven, your grace,” and the Queen’s mind raced.
“And you left the Citadel?” and that was her being generous, for he had not left. No. He had been kicked out.
“Thirteen,” and so she took a deep breath.
“You seem so old. When I was sixteen, all I could think of was singing and dancing, yet you have helped thousands,” and that was her being modest.
“I can barely compare to you, your grace,” and she may claim that, but she was quite astute at politics at that age, and was pregnant with her first child.
The Queen took a few minutes to absorb the news about her age before she began once more.
“You need not worry about your position on the Council, young Galen,” she assured him.
“Jaehaerys is not so fickle a man to let his servants hector him. He has named you to his council, for he saw greatness in you, just as Maegella did,” and that was because he saw in him his old friend, Barth.
“And I agree with both of them. You are destined for greatness and you are more worthy of sitting on the Small Council than a thousand petty lords,” and that was needless praise.
“I am grateful for your praise, my Queen shall endeavor to live up to your expectations,” and she nodded, before her lips thinned.
“Still, I did not simply call you here to praise you,” and her eyes dimmed, and a grim expression appeared on her face.
“I expected as much,” he eased her worries, and all it took was a simple glance, and the servants all left the room, leaving her alone with him.
“I wish to speak to you about Gael,” and it had been some time since he had last seen the Princess, and already a dozen rumors had sprung up about her many. Many close to the truth, while many nowhere near it.
He believed it to be a ploy from the Crown itself to drown the truth of the incident in mystery, so as to protect the precious Princess but the court was brutal, especially for a Princess so young and tainted.
“How is the Princess?” he asked, and the Queen’s lips thinned.
“Not good at all,” she told him the truth, and he had feared as much.
“She refuses to eat, or drink, or do anything at all. She was already frail, but now she has become only skin and bones, and the Maesters fear for her life,” and though he had managed to save her, she still carried bruises that needed energy to heal.
“The loss of a child is a tragedy enough for any woman, but her loss is far greater than that,” for she had not just lost a child, she had lost her ability to conceive.
She had lost her ability to trust, to love, and that was no small loss.
“Help her,” she pleaded softly, and he saw her eyes fill with tears.
“Save her as you did before, my child, and this Queen shall be indebted to you forever,” and he shook her head.
“You need only command, but the ailment of the mind is not so easy to heal as an ailment of the body,” he cautioned her.
“But her sorrow comes from the fact that she has lost her ability to bear a child,” and she nodded.
“Yes, but you must lie to her. Give her hope so that she may live again, for I cannot watch her wither away any more,” and he would have done that, if not for the promise he had made to the Princess.
“She will see through my lies, but I believe that I need not lie to her, your grace...”
“What do you mean....”
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GAEL TARGARYEN
Gael had always envied the commoners. She envied their simpler lives and how the world had little to no expectations from them.
But she was born a Princess as a daughter to the Conciliator and the Good Queen Alysanne. Born after tragedy had stripped the King and Queen of all their daughters, only for the Gods to bless them with her during the winter of the Queen’s childbearing years.
A blessing they called her, but her life was anything but that.
Gael was forced to live her life in the shadow of siblings whose faces she could hardly recall. She had to be reminded constantly to mind herself so that she would not end up like Saera and Viserra.
The love lavished upon her came because of desperation, and was tiring for her, for her father saw in her another troubling child who could cause him harm, while her mother saw in her a chance at redemption.
They refused to see her for who she was.
And then she had met him, that man with that beautiful voice, and had thought that she had found love. She had found someone who saw her for who she was.
But she was naive, as she lost herself to his lies and became the very thing she was warned against all her life. She became Saera, she became Viserra, and the Gods chose to punish her just as they had punished them.
They stripped her of the only thing Gael had always desired—motherhood.
So as she lay there in her room, she could feel her life slip away, and she did not care.
She heard the pleadings from her mother, her brother, and several others, but despair had sunk deep into her bones, as she let herself wither away.
The door to her room opened once more, and days of starvation made her weak enough that she could not even lift herself to see who it was.
“Gael,” and it was the Queen’s voice that entered her ears as she saw her mother sit down on the bed beside her, and she took her hand.
“Someone is here to see you,” and there was something different about her voice now, in how it shook and quivered.
She tilted her head to see the guest, and felt her heart shrink as she saw that it was the very man who had saved her life a few days back, the one who had prolonged her suffering.
“Galen...” she whispered, and the young healer nodded as he gave her a bow.
“Yes, it is I, Galen the healer, Princess,” and his gaze was as soft as it had been on the day she had first met him, despite the pain she had caused him.
As much as she wanted to die, she did not wish to see someone else suffer because of her—especially someone as kind as the man in front of him, who devoted his life to others.
“It pains me to see you in this state, princess,” he whispered softly as she looked away from him.
“I just want to die,” she answered, her voice dry and raspy, and she could feel her breath quicken just because of speaking.
“Because you believe that you cannot be a mother,” and he was the one who had confirmed the Maester’s words.
It was the one thing that would have been wholly her own—her child. She was a princess and would need to marry a lord of her father’s choosing, but the child. That would be hers, and yet the Gods had robbed her of that only thing.
“That day when you came to me, I endorsed the Maester’s insinuation that you would not be able to birth a child,” he began, and the words made her heart twist in agony, as he reiterated her suffering.
“But I spoke only of what was possible at that time,” and she frowned, as the brown haired man continued.
“By the means and techniques available to me today, it is indeed impossible for you to birth a child,” he repeated and his words, pained just as badly as they had been when she had first met her.
“But I did not speak of the future,” he whispered as hope began to simmer in her heart.
“Because I believe that there are techniques and ways that could allow you to have the thing that you believe is lost,” and it was a lie. It had to be a lie.
“You lie!” she retorted angrily, as tears filled her eyes.
“No,” her mother answered.
“Lies! Lies!” she screamed, shaking her head, as the healer began.
“No. I do not lie, not when it comes to healing,” he replied as Gael slowly pushed herself up to stare him in the eyes.
“Pr..ve...it,” she demanded, as her mother gripped her shoulders to help her sit.
Galen, the healer stared her in the eyes as he whispered.
“Five years. Give me five years and I shall give you back the very thing that the Gods have robbed of you,” and he asked her for five years, so she would give that to him.
“If you fail?” she asked.
“Gael, I beg of you. He does not lie,” her mother pleaded, but she refused to pay her any heed as she continued to look him in the eye.
“Then you can have my head,” and it was a generous offer, but one that was meaningless to her.
“No! You cannot do that, heal...” her mother tried to intervene.
“No!” she cut in before her mother could finish, her voice stronger than it had been for years as she made her own.
“Not your head. If you fail, then you shall take my life...”
“GAEL!”
“So be it...”
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Comments
Porthos
First night *
FallenMetalGod
Thank you. It was a significant interaction between the Healer and the Queen. Let's see how Galen will try to do the impossible for the era and time. Great job, as always, and I can't wait to see what happens next.
