The Sword in the Darkness
Harrenhall
They said the Dornish princess was beautiful.
Lyanna questioned people's vision.
Elia Martell was a pale, ghostly thing who would not last an hour in the saddle. Lyanna could see that she was naturally dark and perhaps under the sun, there would be some beauty to her but the life at Dragonstone that was rumoured to be an extremely dark place where light barely reached had sucked the colour off her, lending her skin some grayish tone that was different from the fair complexion of the ladies who had been born further north.
And vastly different from her husband's fair skin, glowing with health and vitality.
They said Elia Martell was possessed of wit.
Lyanna wondered if they had any idea what wit was. She had seen the woman rewarding serving girls. She never gave them one bigger coin, just many small ones.
They said the Princess of Dragonstone was delicate, that she was still recovering from the ordeal that was childbirth, exacerbated by her the new babe that she was carrying.
Delicate? What a twisted dance around the truth!
Lyanna wondered if this was what southern ladies did with their time. Perhaps if they wasted less of it on sweets and meaningless chattering, and tedious sewing, they would have had more time to go out and breathe some health. She had never heard of a woman who was as weak as to lie around for six months – six months! – after giving birth. The Stranger that Elia Martell believed in had taken mercy on her. It was her own weakness that had rendered her useless for so long.
They said the future queen was a good and gracious lady.
Lyanna wondered why did anyone put so much weight on being a lady.
Elia Martell was supreme amidst all these women who smiled and chattered, and traded gossip which was mainly untrue as they gathered together to supposedly do embroidery and other women's pastime. Lyanna had never mastered this skill and she ended up with her hands bleeding every day but she would have suffered it gladly if she did not detest the complex social play of discreet asking for favours so much. Why couldn't these women go straight to the problem? Why did they need to drown everything in a sea of useless niceties? Lyanna could see clearly that Elia Martell was often exhausted, that she was in no mood to listen, that she only wanted to retire and go to sleep but never did. Come on, come on, just do it, Lyanna urged silently. You're the Princess! Why don't you do what you want – what you need? Tell them to go away or just rise and walk out. But the Dornishwoman never did, this making herself even weaker and paler in her quest to play the great lady. The perfect princess. And Lyanna was supposed to admire this?
They said Prince Rhaegar was very happy with his lady wife.
Happy? With these big sad eyes?
How could he be? Lyanna had seen the pair together at the table. He was talking to her in a low voice and she was shaking her head impatiently, barely listening and gulping the content from her goblet like there was no tomorrow.
Was there any doubt as to why he was sad? Being wed to someone who did not appreciate him, did not even notice him? As he sang his touching song in the hall and all the women wept, Lyanna stole a look over the hundreds of heads at the dais and caught the moment when Elia Martell closed her eyes, the tiredness and boredom on her face obvious before she erased them.
This was the moment Lyanna felt the first tears prickle her own eyes. Tears of compassion. Rhaegar Targaryen, as chivalrous and great a knight as there ever was, deserved something better than a cold, weak wife who could not appreciate her incredible happiness at being wed to him – even without taking the crown he would one day offer her into account!
And still, there was this moment, just one moment when Lyanna's compassion changed directions. When the laurel of blue roses was extended towards her, she imagined how she would have felt in Elia Martell's place… The feeling was not a good one.
In the dead silence hanging around a stunned, smileless crowd, she glanced at Elia Martell. The Dornishwoman sat frozen in her place, horror and grief fighting in her but neither feeling was strong enough to propel her from her chair, make her fly at her husband and Lyanna, scream, try to slap them, or even turn her back on the scene of her humiliation. This meek little thing was just asking for humiliation, letting Rhaegar do with her whatever he wished!
Completely unworthy of someone as valuing courage as Prince Rhaegar. Lyanna reached for the flower crown and wondered why her hands would not take her when taking it was all she wanted.
This night, she had the fantasy for the very first time, right before she went to sleep. A gleaming sword, much like the one Rhaegar Targaryen had wielded this day, cutting the darkness and severing the chains holding the Prince captive to the monster that had come in the form of a pale woman with swollen belly. A hand setting him free. Vaguely, Lyanna recognized the hand.
It was her own.