Shades of Moon
Each night, Daenaera waited, holding her breath, and most of the evenings, he came. Sometimes, he even accompanied her straight from the great hall, dismissing her ladies with a sharp gesture and leaving all kinds of whispers trailing them. He might be the Broken King, Aegon the Unlucky, the one who craved aloneness – but his queen was with child for a third time in as many years. Was it possible that his lust for her was so unrestrained that he couldn't even bother with observing decency? Even now that she was as big as a house, her slender grace gone, her skin peeling under the paint? The last thing a woman who was this far along was a husband, even a kingly one, seeking his conjugal rights. The king clearly didn't care about her at all. He didn't care about anyone…
Part of the rumours were true. It was true that Daenaera's pregnancy was a very exhausting one, unlike her previous two. It was true that she was no longer capable or indeed, willing to sate Aegon's desire. But he didn't demand it of her. After she had wiggled out of her wifely duties a few times, he had realized what was going on and did not insist. He just took delight in being with her, she embroidering clothes for the babe, he leafing through old parchments.
"Would you like to invite some new seamstresses and cloth merchant to show you their latest articles?" he asked one night, looking at the swift flash of her needle.
She laughed. "What? No more old ladies lining up to tell me how the world would end if I don't use the little clothes Aegon the Conqueror's mother dressed him in? I suppose their colour must have become unrecognizable by now."
"I can swear there is a strip of grey somewhere there," he mused. "I really do."
She looked at him because she didn't know whether he was jesting. It was hard to say with him. But the twinkle in his eye told her that this was one such time. She grinned and continued the game. "I am sure that I can summon the wraith of Aegon's old nursemaid to help me if I try hard enough."
Her smile faded. "I am not sure whether the babe would fit in Aegon's clothes," she said. "I have never been this huge. Sometimes, I feel like… like… like I have mated with a bear!"
He raised his eyebrows. "Should I be insulted or concerned?"
Daenaera shook her head in mock exasperation. "That's one of the questions a knight should never ask a lady. If you don't know, I am not telling you."
The babe kicked her, as if it wanted to express its agreement. Daenaera felt the movement as if it was coming through a great distance, rippling waves on the surface of a huge body of water. Bear jests aside, sometimes she felt that once she started giving birth, they'd be able to fill the moat of Maegor's Holdfast with the liquid that would come out of her!
"It's just water, most likely," Aegon said and she gave him a look of surprise. Usually, men didn't know much about these things. "And Aegon's clothes won't be suitable anyway. Because it will be a girl this time. I mean, you look so different… what are you doing? Are you crying?"
"No," she sniffled but she was. Of course she was. When with child, she was capable of weeping huge tears over a botched stitch. And the fact that he had noticed her appearance all three times made her even more weepy. "So no Rhaenys' clothes for her if it turns out to be her?"
Something flickered behind his eyes. Something that she hated. The hopelessness of one who could not undo what had transpired, no matter how fervently he wished it.
"With Baela and Rhaena being so much older," he said, "all I know of girls' attires came from you… or Jaehaera."
Her breath caught. Until this moment, he had never talked about his first queen. He had given replies when asked but he had never initiated the conversation.
"I've heard that she resembled a doll in stature," Daenaera said carefully. "A lovely, finely shaped doll."
He nodded. "She did. In the beginning, I thought she was like Rhaena's dolls because she never…" He paused. "Of course, I realized that she wasn't when Baela didn't shoot an arrow from Jace's bow at her… that was what she often did to Rhaena's dolls."
To a stranger, that might have sounded like a compliment on Jaehaera's looks. But Daenaera knew better. She looked at him and waited, the needle all but forgotten against the red velvet.
"She never grew up," Aegon finally said. "She never would have, either. At the time of our wedding and later, there were those who whispered that the settlement reached would burden the Iron Throne with a line of kings that would be… like her."
Now, he looked back at her, grateful beyond measure for the healthy heirs she had given him. Daeron was already reaching his milestones well before expected. Everyone claimed that they had never seen such a lively and charming child. But a moment later, guilt and regret settled anew and he became the Aegon she knew so well.
"And what about you?" Daenaera finally asked. "Did you think so?"
He slowly shook his head. "At the time, I wasn't capable of thinking at all. Maybe it would have been as they said. Or maybe not. I'll never know. Because I failed her and let her die."
Daenaera hadn't realized that she had grasped the embroidery again and gasped when the needle bit into her finger. Heavy drops started falling, crimson against crimson, and Aegon rose.
"I'm fine," she said quickly but he came near, holding her hand up to inspect it and bind it with a strip of white silk. Then, he pressed it to his lips and sat down next to her on the settee, still holding her hand before dropping it all of a sudden. Daenaera was used to those changes in his mood. With the passage of time, they had lessened but not died away. She tried not to let his need to distance himself hurt her.
"Did Lord Peake truly murder her?" she finally asked.
"I don't know," Aegon said, looking away. "I think he did. He wanted to be the only power behind the throne. And she was… If they entered her chambers and grabbed her, I don't think she would have had the presence of mind to scream."
He went silent again. The magnificence of the queen's chamber, the silver looking-glasses, the pale tapestries, the heavy carpets, the many objects of art suddenly felt oppressive. The fire cracking tall and bright in the hearth could not chase away the chill of the autumn night. This was the very chamber the poor girl had fallen from and died in. The crack in the shutters revealed a moon winking at them. What secrets did its shades hide?
"Either way, I failed her," Aegon said after a while. "She was like a bird with a broken wind that would never be able to fly, so I had to provide for her and keep her safe. And I betrayed her, just like I did Viserys. It was just a matter of luck that he didn't die like she did."
He spoke with the determination of a man who had made up his mind. Daenaera knew this tone of his voice. Whatever she said, it would not dissuade him, so she went silent, just touching his hand once.
Time went on. The fire went low so Aegon poked it for her. The muted sounds of Maegor's Holdfast faded into slumber when the servants retired, done with their duties. The pulsing in her finger went away.
He was still staring at the flames, seeing not the brightness of warmth, love and life but the shades of those who had been.
Daenaera rose and drew the shutters more firmly closed, blocking the moon and the sound of the dragons that had just started stirring. Abruptly, her chamber reverted to what it was: their shelter from the world, their private space where they could be who they truly were.
"I am going to bed," she said. "Are you coming?"
She was reasonably sure that he'd say yes. He had told her that with her, his sleep was calmer and his rest better. He enjoyed sleeping with an arm over her, stroking the swell of her belly. When he woke up in the clutches of a nightmare, she soothed him to sleep better than any other means. And yet he was so unpredictable that she could never say for sure.
"Yes," he said. "Let me help you with the nightdress."
He made sure that she was comfortably settled before removing his own black clothing. Instead of joining her, though, he stood at the bedside, staring at her.
"What?" Daenaera asked.
"It's the moon," he said and there was a faint trace of wonder in his voice. "There's just one moonbeam and it's bathing your face. You look so very beautiful."
Daenaera had not noticed it but smiled touched.
"It'll be a girl, you know," Aegon said again as he climbed beside her.
"You might be right," she said. "What are we going to name her?"
All of a sudden, she was scared that he'd say one of the two names that she could not stand hearing, not in the same sentence as her babe. Names had power. Names attracted fate.
She turned to him, the moonbeam sliding off her face that was now veiled in shades.
"Why, we'll name her after you, of course," Aegon said easily, as if it was self-evident, and Daenaera breathed a sigh of relief.