Snippet #1515785

Several levels below the Red Keep was a room long and wide, built of white stone and marble. At the far end of the crypt, against a wall bearing images of the Seven, was a coffin with a glass lid surrounded by wreaths of flowers and tall candles burning on sculpted holders. This was the resting place of the Lady Morgana Damian.

The silent sisters bowed and took their leave as Raban entered the chamber and walked slowly to his mother's side. Looking down upon her still features, more peaceful than they had ever been in life, as though death had wiped all the cares from her brow, he felt nothing but rage for the one who had done this to her. The Queen was dressed in a simple gown of grey that hid the ruin of her belly. Her hands were crossed tranquilly over her chest, and there was not a spot of blood to be seen - the work of the silent sisters, who had cleaned her so expertly that she looked as if she were merely asleep and treated her body with herbs and ointments so that it would not decay.

Raban had come here every day since the night of that fateful feast to keep his silent vigil, sometimes staying to watch over her for hours on end. It angered him that no one else had come to see her; they had mourned her for all of a minute, it seemed, before going about their daily business of politics and revenge, but it suited him to be in that room alone with his thoughts and memories of the Queen. Soon, perhaps, he would have to ask the King about her funeral arrangements. There would be a grand, solemn procession through the palace, the bells of the Great Sept of Baelor would ring out their condolences, the people of King's Landing would mourn and wear black, and the Queen's body would be taken away to be interred in the catacombs with the others of noble blood. The funeral would be delayed for some time by the wars ravaging the land, and that suited Raban as well, for he did not want his mother to be taken away and shut up in a cold, marble tomb in the hard, stony ground. So long as she was here in this room, he could almost believe that she was resting through these ugly events, and that when they were all over he could shake her awake, and she would open her eyes and smile and call him her sweet Rab, her little crow, and ask him if he had missed her.

Raban bowed his head as the hours passed and the candles burned lower, but no teardrops wended their watery tracks upon his cheeks. He had shed all his tears in the first two days after she had fallen, and wiped them all away like a good Damian - spare us your tears. There were no more tears to weep now. They had all been wrung out of him, along with grief and fear and sorrow, leaving him cold and empty and clean as a polished bronze mirror.

Many changes had taken place in the days since. Raban was no longer the boy he had once been, neither on the outside nor on the inside. Perhaps it was the progress of adolescence, or the ravages of grief, but his face had grown harder and sharper, the cheeks less full, the brow less smooth and more serious, creased by long thought, the chin more prominent, his face altogether less boyish and more like a young man's. His slender, youthful frame was harder, bulkier from long hours of practising with sword, horse and lance. His hands, once fair and smooth, were roughened by callouses. Yet these changes were nought compared to what had taken place on the inside. It seemed that on the day Queen Morgana had died, Raban's boyhood had died as well. No longer did he have the luxury of being the babe of the family. Now the Crown Prince of a realm torn by war, he spent his days studying hard under Maester Syrus and Septon Timon, working at swordplay with his masters of arms, observing the King in affairs of statecraft, and if he did glance wistfully out the window from time to time, it was far less often than it had once been. Where before he had laughed and played games, now he was serious and seldom smiled at all.

Yet the biggest change of all? He wanted to kill his brother. The realisation had come as a shock to him, but the passage of time could not erase the memory of his mother dying in that feast hall nor his brother's mocking laughter. He hated Lionel with a fury and violence that frightened him, the feeling making his blood boil, pounding in his heart, coursing darkly through his veins. He wanted to hunt his brother down and hurt him the way Lionel had always hurt them. He wanted to make Lionel pay for what he had done to the Queen and to their family. He wanted the satisfaction of hearing his brother beg for mercy and say that he was sorry, admitting that he was wrong for doing the terrible things he had done. And he wanted to be the one to wield the sword, to break Lionel's arrogance, to deal the killing blow that slew the monster who had haunted their lives forever.

Wearily, at last, Raban raised himself from the hard floor. He looked down at his mother's face one final time before turning and walking out of the crypt. It was time for him to return to his chambers. He was expecting a report from Oliver, the man whom he had sent to gather information on the two escaped prisoners sent by Lord Winsler.