Joy on the Way, Prices to Pay

One of the hardest things in her new life was falling asleep. The silence around kept her awake long after the Red Keep had gone to sleep. Three months into her marriage, she still hadn't had a night when she had drifted away effortlessly. Sleeping in a quiet chamber was new to her – at Starfall, her bedchamber had been overlooking the sea, being situated almost as close to it as the Palestone Sword Tower. She had used to its murmur or roar being a part of every moment of her life and now it was no longer there. When she was staring at the darkness ahead, no sound punctuated the nothingness.

"Could you perhaps start snoring?" she asked one night and Maekar turned over to give her a look of astonishment, abandoning his intention to blow off the bedside candle.

"What?" he asked and laughed. "I thought women had the opposite problem. No woman wants a snoring husband."

"I do," Dyanna said adamantly. "Would you snore for me?" she begged, although she knew that was not something that his will could control.

He laughed again, then became serious. "You can't sleep yet?" he asked and she nodded. "Well, then I have to offer that we keep each other awake," he suggested and she beamed at him.

But that was only a solution for some time. Finally, he went to sleep without snoring, without even disturbing the silence with his breath, and Dyanna was left to stare out at the dark form of the canopy over their heads and think of a home so far away and no longer hers.

"Is it easier now?" the Queen asked one day as Dyanna sat in her solar, drawing the wooden feather against the strings of the lute in a tune known to both of them, one that was said to have come from the lands around the Mother Royne a thousand years ago.

"Maekar is very good to me," Dyanna replied, both formally and truthfully. Colour rushed to her cheeks as she remembered some of the ways he was good to her. They were most definitely not fit for his mother's ears!

"I am glad to hear that, of course," Mariah said after studying her gooddaughter's blush and averted eyes. A smile crept to her mouth but she didn't let it fully show. "But that was not what I was asking about. Has life here become easier on you?"

Now, Dyanna looked at her and smiled. "It has," she had. "In many aspects. It's just different."

Mariah smiled. "Vastly different," she agreed. "I know it best."

"Bes!" little Valarr agreed. He was just learning to imitate sounds and Dyanna and Mariah laughed at his attempts which clearly delighted him. He started coughing and while Dyanna looked at him, concerned, and waved his wetnurse close by, the Queen's laughter only became louder.

"He's faking it," she said. "He heard me cough a few weeks ago and has been imitating me ever since."

Now, Dyanna joined in her mirth. She remembered her little sister giving pained cries when she wasn't in pain but she hadn't noticed any fake coughing. Immensely pleased, the babe tried to cough and cry at the same time and his grandmother smacked a kiss right between his eyes. He squealed, excited.

"He's magnificent," Dyanna said with full conviction.

"Indeed." The Queen let the babe on the floor where he immediately tried to crawl in the direction of Dyanna's nice shiny violet skirts. "I expect that your babes will be no less magnificent," she said, looking at her gooddaughter intently.

Dyanna's heart went cold. She had seen the looks aimed at her waist every day since the first month of her marriage had rolled out, the interest in the eyes of her handmaidens as they had first taken her blood-stained linens three weeks after her wedding night. Somehow, she had never thought about the possibility of not getting with child soon enough. Women in her family had all been fecund. But her mother had given birth to her first a few years after her wedding. If Dyanna couldn't do it soon enough for the King and Queen's liking? Was Maekar thinking the same thing? He had never said so but she didn't know him well enough yet to know his thoughts. What if she fared worse than her lady mother? If she didn't give birth at all? Lulled into security by the fact that the Queen had specifically requested her as Maekar's bride and soothed by the understanding her goodmother showed her, by Mariah's attempts to make it easy on her, lightheaded by the adoration of both court and people who liked nothing better than a young, beautiful woman with distinct charm, she had let herself forget that there was one thing that everyone expected of her and if they didn't get it, all her makings would not matter. But the Princess of Dragonstone's blessed condition would give her a little time. Just a little. Mariah's eyes were intent on hers and that was the Queen before her. The Queen with three sons older than Maekar and only one grandchild this far.

"Soon enough, I hope," Dyanna said, trying to make her tone light yet encouraging when she didn't know if there would ever be a reason for such encouragement. Angry resentment rose in her. She had thought that Mariah had chosen her because of Maekar. Because she knew that Maekar liked her, or wanted her, or whatever. Never because of her family's story of fecundity. She should have known better. In her brief married life, she had already realized that Maekar expected very little of his parents in terms of care or even notice. His readiness to believe that she'd break her promises to him so easily when she had never done so couldn't stem from her actions. It lay with theirs. Why, then, had she expected that the Queen would have placed her unique qualities to make Maekar happy higher than the expected qualities of her womb to produce the heirs Mariah's other gooddaugters had not ensured this far? And if they did, Dyanna's children would be just pushed away as unneeded. The very same children Mariah now expected of her.

Her linens were white when she laid in them – and stayed white when she didn't expect it. Silence reigned in the chamber as she, Elanal, and Saryl Lothston, her favourite lady in-waiting counted the days since her last moonblood, just in case, and when Dyanna's nursemaid nodded and smiled, the two girls gasped and looked at each other. Dyanna hugged first Elanal and then Saryl, the grin splitting her face in two.

"You did well," Elanal said. "Very well, my lady." She looked at both her and Saryl. "But we should be quiet about it for a while."

She didn't need to say why that was needed. Many women lost the babe before they even started showing. If such a thing befell Dyanna, it would reflect badly on her position at court and within the family… if anyone got to know.

"Not even Maekar?" Dyanna asked plaintively but Elanal would not be moved.

"No one."

"I think your caution is misplaced," Saryl said. "The Prince will share in the joy and never hold a grief against my lady if it comes to this. He's so besotted."

For this, Dyanna hugged her spontaneously once again. So, it wasn't just her imagination and longing. It was hard to say with Maekar because he was so withdrawn. But there was someone other than her who thought he liked her. Was besotted with her.

"That's enough," Elanal said sternly. "Now, both of you need to go on with your lives like always. The change is not so great yet," she added just as Saryl was asking Dyanna if she felt any differently. A smile belied the older woman's harshness as she added, "Soon enough, you'll know what it feels like, too."

Even in the swell of her happiness, Dyanna thought that there was a sudden strain in Saryl's smile and wondered why that was.

They announced her state as her fourth moon filled out and the Grand Maester proclaimed the babe hale and healthy. But the gossipers at court knew better, of course. They discussed Dyanna's lack of pallor and the fluidity of movements that she hadn't lost. Her lack of morning sickness that was obviously unnatural for a healthy pregnancy. The way her gowns fitted her slim waist. On and on, until Dyanna wondered if they were trying to imply that she wasn't carrying a child at all. The rough way the master at arms looked at her when he thought she wasn't watching made her think that he hoped so.

"That's a great blow on Daemon," Shiera Seastar said as she sat watching Dyanna put on her favourite amethyst earring. "You and Jena both expecting at the same time. Rohanne's fertility doesn't seem so significant anymore."

And you wanted to make sure I am expecting, perhaps? Dyanna thought cynically. It was true that Shiera was just eleven or twelve but there was already wisdom and cunning in her beyond her years. That was not a thing that could repel Dyanna but it made her wonder if it was a coincidence that the girl had found herself in Dyanna's chambers just when she was sitting in her solar not in a gown but flowing robes.

Battle lines were already being drawn – and Daemon Blackfyre's rising pride was not the only enemy.

Maesters and midwives rushed to Jena's chamber in the middle of night. Dyanna knew that if her goodsister's travails started now, the Stranger would come. Jena was still in her seventh moon, not quite filling it. She prayed for the tiny innocent creature but when she tried to enter Jena's chambers to learn what was going on, Mariah herself sent her away. "It isn't for you here," she said curtly, her eyes traveling briefly to Dyanna's still flat belly under the robes. "Iblas lurks in the shadows…"

Instinctively, Dyanna withdrew at the mention of the sand demon that targeted and hunted birthing women. But it was too late already. Many of the courtiers who had rushed here and been banned from entering had heard. And perhaps it didn't matter, perhaps what happened would have taken place anyway but Dyanna couldn't help but think about it when she heard that Jena's son had been born perfect but too small to survive only six months after conception… and that Jena's ladies were saying that she, Dyanna, had stolen Jena's baby strength for life. Maekar told her that without mincing words and while she was grateful to him for his straightforwardness, she was stunned by the words.

"But she doesn't believe it, does she?" she exclaimed. "She can't believe that I have stolen her child's strength so ours can live?"

Maekar stared at her with pity. "She's from the Marches where all superstitions about the evil Dornish spirits in the moors. Of course she believes it."

"And she's just lost her babe," Dyanna reminded both him and herself. She should feel sympathy. She did feel sympathy. But as her hand went protectively over her belly, there was anger in there as well. Her babe was hers. Not something that she needed to keep alive with sorcery! If anything, Jena should remember how late into her marriage Valarr had come. The fact that it had been just as late as Astra's birth for Dyanna's mother was something that she didn't dwell much on.

"And people believe it?" she asked, incredulous, but she knew. Of course they thought she wished ill on Jena's child. After all, Jena's children were a hindrance on her own, spare children's way, they probably reckoned.

"Some of them do," Maekar said. "They say that from the moment you conceived, she started getting worse."

"She was worse far before I knew! She was sick every morning for days!"

"But you conceived when she was into her third moon. Right when the morning sickness should have gone away…"

She studied his face and then asked angrily, "Are you claiming that I…? "

"No!" he spat. "I don't know what to do with you, Dyanna, I really don't. You're being so irrational. You ask me what people think, I tell you and then you get angry as if I am the one saying it…"

Dyanna considered this and then held out a hand. "I'm sorry," she said simply because she was. He took her hand but her concern didn't vanish.

"Everyone who says this will regret the day their ancestors bent the knee to Aegon the Conqueror," Maekar offered by the way of comfort and though Dyanna knew he could not threaten gossip away and she wouldn't let him because that would only give the rumours credence, it felt good to have such a savage defender.

Still, she felt better when Jena left for Dragonstone. It was easier to look past Aelinor and Alys' jealousy but the resentment and longing in Jena's eyes when she looked at Dyanna's belly that had finally started going round made Dyanna sad and angry at the same time. It was better this way. And if the way Baelor wouldn't quite look at her when talking to her meant that he had also heard and believed, she couldn't do anything about that. He wouldn't believe her if she went to him and told him that she hadn't done anything this vile even if she tried to claim her innocence, would he? At the end, the rumours would stop. They had to stop. She couldn't bear the thought of her babe being born under the dark shadow of superstitions, like Maekar had been – a bad omen, a child of defeat and shame born at the time King Aegon had lost his iron dragons in the failed conquest of Dorne. So she waited and she hoped.