Chapter Text
Daenerys didn’t remember a time when Daena hadn’t been there. But she did remember a time when she couldn’t remember men commenting on the wizened but still sharply muscled Valyrian woman. As she grew older, she became aware of the mutters of men. They said that Daena was a blood mage, and a sorceress, and they said that she was older than she looked, and they muttered, too, at the way that when they sparred with her, they could see the continuous traces of scars on her body, and how they usually lost to her.
Daenerys knew her as mommy. Her mother had insisted on that, since her youngest age, when she explained to her and Viserys that Daena was like a second mother to them. Men muttered about that, too, but they held their tongues around Queen Rhaella, and her withering look, and Daena, well, mommy had a quick and sharp Valyrian steel sword.
One time Viserys had declared, after playing with his friends—the young Lordlings of Pentos—that a child could not have two mothers. Daena had smiled, that night, and said, “then, young Prince, I will be your father.”
She had taught Viserys how to fight, and been the one who had disciplined him when he was a fool, especially when he treated Esther like a servant.
Esther, the woman with the brown skin and the curly hair, and the sharp dark eyes—Esther was not Pentoshi, or Rhoynish, or Dothraki or anything else. She had come from the place that Daena had been. Daena sometimes said she was Pentoshi, but nobody believed that. Esther was definitely not Pentoshi. She was Something Else, but like Daena she prayed to a single God like the Lord of Light, but not the Lord of Light.
Esther was the one who kept the ledgers. One night, Daenerys had crept close to her mother’s door, when she was about twelve years ago, and had overheard them talking. Esther had said that her family had served Daena for two and a quarter centuries.
Daenerys had took it to mean that her family had served Daena’s family for two and a quarter centuries.
Sometimes these days, though, Daenerys thought about it, and wondered if maybe Daena was a Blood Mage.
Esther, Daenerys learned as she grew up, did a lot more than keep the ledgers. Daena’s gold had created a big iron-works south of the city, and Esther was usually in charge of supervising all the new things it made. It was said to be the finest iron works in all of Essos. Daena called her a ‘ Damn fine Engineer’. They made shovels and hoes and scythes and ploughs and iron wagons and armour and swords for the whole of Essos.
She had learned politics from a young age, and warfare, too. Sitting with her mothers, she’d first had read to her, as a four year old girl, a colourful book with a big rabbit shaped like a man, named Hare Clausewitz, who had taught her all about war as Politics-by-Other-Means. You must never forget this part, because war is just a continuation of policy.
The Ironworks made them all very rich, and they lived in one of the largest mansions in Pentos. At the first, the Braavosi had been concerned that they would make Pentos strong again, but instead, Mother and Daena and Esther had raised wages for their workers, and opened a textile mill with the profits, which made the most, cheapest textiles in all of Essos; and they had enough money that they had started paying the bonds on debt-bondsmen, so they could come to work at the factories. So, they had their own political party, the Readjuster Party, because it wanted to readjust the debt of the bondsmen, so they could pay it off and be free.
The Slaveowner’s faction, still bitter at Braavos, had responded by raising a mob and assaulting their palace, and the Textile works. Daenerys remembered that day, just a few years ago, very clearly, when Mother had fled with her and Viserys to the Ironworks in a state of desperate agitation, and flung herself into Daena’s arms. But then their enemies had met another one of Esther and Daena’s creations, the cannon they called Street-Sweeper. Street-sweeper was an 18pdr, she had learned later, and that was quite a lot when fired double-shotted with cannister. Then Daena and Esther had led out two hundred men from the works, armed with muskets, and four hundred with pikes.
The next day, the surviving Magisters surrendered, and Daena caused the Prince of Pentos to make Esther a Magister.
With the Readjusters in power, they had just gone and outright abolished Debt-peonage. Daenerys had started working as a scribe for Esther in the government, and gain day to day experience with the needs of the people, while Daena rode through the streets, with Viserys at her side, like a squire. She learned a lot about the nature of men and women in those days, dealing with the disputes of the people of the city.
She learned how one could fly without a dragon, the happiest day of her life. Daena had taken her up—Mother Rhaella had insisted that she go separately from Viserys—successively in a flight right after her brother, in a hot air balloon, which had been the wonder of the whole city, painted in colourful dancing dragons and making the people cheer and scream and declare it a feast-day.
And from the way her mother had kissed Daena sweetly on the cheek, and leaned into those care-worn but fiercely strong arms, she had learned enough to draw some conclusions about her mother’s relationship with Daena, some very clear conclusions, in fact. So, while drinking some of the tea from Yi-Ti that her mothers and Esther were so fond of, their own great luxury, she asked, idly, “Lady Esther, answer me honestly. Are my mothers lovers, in the sexual way?”
Esther had snorted softly, and with her eyes bright, nodded. “Queen Rhaella would rather have you and Viserys not learn it so explicitly, but I knew you’d figure it out eventually. You’re a bright girl, Your Highness. Daena has always been inclined more or less exclusively toward women. She had dalliances with men when she was younger—I’ve read the diaries of some of my ancestresses, they were in for a wild time—but she’s always preferred women. She is married to your mother, in fact if not in law. We just don’t speak about it here, because people wouldn’t really understand it, not in the way they would in the place that Daena and I came from, where they could be married in law as well as fact .”
She’d expected the answer in some ways, but the full explanation seemed to add as many questions as it clarified some matters. “But my mother, well, what my father?”
Esther had eyed her over her cup, clearly judging how much to tell the young Princess. “I don’t think your mother exclusively, or even half-way, prefers women. Doubtless she loved your father once upon a time. But your father is dead, and she chose to bond with Daena after Daena saved her life, on Dragonstone, and we built the boats, from the washed-up hulks of the royal fleet, that carried you all away to Pentos with her remaining loyalists.”
Daenerys thought she understood that well enough, and it made sense, and she was happy for her mother that her mother had someone who she was happy with, that way. Then she decided to dribble out another bit of the information she’d pieced together from overhead conversations in the night. “Lady Esther, is Daena a Princess?”
Esther laughed. “Yes, Your Highness. Daena Duleep-Singh, the Granddaughter of the Lion of the Punjab. You know her religion—that was the religion of the family that raised her.”
Daenerys decided not to ask about whether or not Daena was a Blood Mage, and whether or not she was really so old that Esther’s ancestors had sworn loyalty to her. That would probably go too far. So she asked another question. There had been several assassination attempts against them in the past year, and there were rumours that the Usurper-King was preparing a fleet to cross the Narrow Sea, to root them out. “Why don’t we just go to the land where you and Daena are from, Lady Esther? It seems much nicer. Mother and Mommy would be married and, erm, wife and wife.”
“There’s no place for someone like Daena there anymore.” Esther looked distant. “There’s no place for a woman who is kind to her workers, and for a woman who likes her privacy. They finally chased her out of the ends of the Earth, and now, at last, back to whence she came. And I came with her because … Couldn’t imagine doing anything else.” She smiled brightly. “Really, helping raise Your Highness is worth it, by itself.”
“And helping the people of the city, isn’t that also it? I see how happy you are doing this, Lady Esther.”
The dusky woman’s look was distant, for a moment. “Essos needs a lot of help,” she allowed at last.
“It does.” Dothraki, slavery, grasping, endlessly warring cities. Daenerys had heard about all the problems. “But how will we do anything about them, when the usurper comes?”
Esther smiled a small little smile, and reached out to pat her shoulder. “The usurper will have a hot welcome, Your Highness. Don’t worry about that. Now, help me prepare for the afternoon petitions.”
“One more thing, Lady Esther.”
“Yes?”
She grinned. “Is it true, the word on the street, that you will make women equal to men?”
Esther patted the revolver on her hip. “Oh no, a gentleman named Sam Colt did that some centuries ago. We just cried the town with the news. ”