Marked
Right now, the South felt little different from the North.
Snow was falling on King's Landing, as it had for years. In both heart and mind, Daenerys Targaryen, bearer of more titles than she cared to count, knew that the difference in temperature between South and North remained true, even if she could sense little of it. For most of her life she had been in Essos – from Pentos, to the Red Waste, to Slaver's Bay and beyond, she had seen the wonders and terrors of the East. Now, in the West, she was faced in the knowledge that she was the ruler of seven kingdoms, all of which were facing the problems of internecine conflict and starvation. The undead had been defeated, their efforts to extinguish all life thwarted. Now the living looked set to finish the job.
In the Small Council chamber, she poured over manuscript after manuscript. Her last master of coin had decided that it wasn't a good idea to have a Targaryen on the throne, and the realm's problems might be best served if the Iron Throne had a new resider. He'd lost his body and found his head on a pike – good for justice, bad for matters of finance. Across the table, she looked at Tyrion Lannister, still her Hand, and now acting master of coin until she could find a new one.
"Well?" she asked.
He looked up at her. "Well what?"
"Well?" the queen repeated.
"Well? Well? Why do you keep asking me well?"
"You're my hand, and my master of coin. I expect you to have an answer."
Tyrion pushed over the parchment towards his queen. "There's some maesters that say that mathematics is the universal language. That it is only in maths that we find truth."
She scoffed, before asking, "do you agree with them?"
"I might. Course, the truth I used to get was at the bottom of a glass of wine. Drink enough, and you come to the realization that all life is transitory, and-"
"If I want philosophy, I'll ask for it." She put her own parchment aside. "I'm the queen of seven kingdoms. How do I feed them?"
Tyrion sighed. "You know that our grain stores can last us a year at the most?"
She nodded.
"And when I say 'us,' I mean the people of the Crownlands."
She nodded.
"And that this has already proven to the coldest winter in a thousand years?"
"Do you think I spared your life all those years ago for you to tell me things I already know?"
Tyrion paused, putting a hand to his chin. It reminded Daenerys of him bringing a cup to his mouth somehow. Only there was no cup, because there was no wine. Not in this part of the world anyway, outside the black markets that stretched from here to Oldtown.
"I think…that you know what I know," said Tyrion. "That cold calculus might indicate that for every man, woman, and child who dies of starvation of the cold, is one less mouth to feed."
She glared at him. "I did not cross the Narrow Sea to be queen of a graveyard."
"No, you didn't, and very good job on the whole no graveyard thing." He leant forward over the table as best a dwarf could. "Still, here's what I know – that we don't have enough grain. That we don't have the coin to purchase anything from across the Narrow Sea, and what coin we do have is going into the hands of the Iron Bank."
Daenerys sighed, rubbing her eyes. She hadn't crossed the Narrow Sea to be queen of a bank, but at times, this was what ruling felt like. "What about Dorne?" she asked. "They were spared the worst of the war, and the worst of winter."
"Both true," said Tyrion. "But while we're exchanging hard truths, I'll point out the truth that Dorne taking your side in the war was more for the sake of Oberyn Martell than any greater loyalty. And that Dorne has its own problems in that it is still deciding which house has the best claim to Sunspear. And the Dornish being the Dornish...well, I'll let you imagine what a Dornish civil war looks like."
Daenerys sighed, closing her eyes. Tyrion spoke the truth – not just the truth he imparted, but the truth that she knew what he did. Also the truth that what was going on in Dorne mirrored what was going on in the Seven Kingdoms. The Stormlands were without a ruler. The Vale was ruled by a child lord who spent most of his time getting people to fly (whatever that meant, she'd yet to visit Robin Arryn). The Reach was ruled by the last son of House Tarley, who was despised by half of his people for, among other things, aiding the Dragon Queen who'd burnt his father and brother, and bedding a "wildling whore." The Westerlands might be reasonably secure under the hand of Jaime Lannister, but the North?
She shook her head, getting to her feet. She couldn't think about the North right now. Sometimes, she wasn't even sure if there was a North at all, so fleating as word was from it.
"We'll continue this later," she said to her Hand, rising to her feet.
"If it pleases your grace, I think I'll stay here." Tyrion returned his eyes to the parchment in front of him. Going over numbers. The numbers that showed how destitute the realm was, and the numbers of the dead that such destitution led to.
"Can you shit?" Daenerys asked.
He looked up, bemused.
"Can you shit?" she repeated. "I remember a saying that Lannisters shit gold."
"Sayings aren't always based on truth."
"No. I suppose they aren't."
"Blood and fire," Tyrion murmured. "I think you did such an excellent job of living up to that saying."
For a moment, she was tempted to remind one of the last Lannisters of how much saying was worth. But instead, she left the council chamber and made her way through the passageways of the Red Keep. Even if Lannisters did shit gold, it wouldn't have mattered. You needed food in your belly to shit, and that was in short supply. Just like coin. Just like loyalty. The same lack of loyalty that meant that she never travelled anywhere through the Red Keep without at least a pair of her Queen's Guard, and never travelled into the city without four times that number.
Half the people hated her. The other half despised her. Still, she refused to be cooped up in this place like some mother hen, waiting for the sun to shine out from perpetually overcast skies. She would never carry the name of "Mhysa" in this realm, and she had not freed anyone from their chains. Still, they were her subjects. Her children. A mother did not stop loving her children no matter what words they used against her. Or, she reflected, rubbing the side of her abdomen, deeds. For every ten assassins, one of them got close enough to strike. And of the hundred or so, one had managed to pierce her flesh.
He'd died with ten times the pain he'd given her.
As she came to her chambers, gave her Queen's Guard a nod, and walked in, the first words she uttered were the same ones she'd uttered upon every such meeting.
"How many heads?"
Her master of whispers looked up at her. "Less, today, your majesty."
She walked past him towards the window. Frost covered the glass, obscuring her view of the city beyond. Over three centuries ago, this was where the Targaryen Dynasty had begun. Now, she went to bed here every night in the knowledge that it might die a second death.
"Would you like to examine their cases?"
She sighed, putting her hands together, weaving her gloven fingers in and out. "I trust you to do what is right."
"What is right? Or what is needed?"
She looked at him. "Remember our deal, Varys? Your honesty, my mercy?"
"I do, my queen."
"Then in honesty, do you have something to say?"
"No, my queen."
"Good." She returned her gaze to the window. "Heads, pikes, spikes."
"And no fires." He rolled the parchment up.
She wished that by now, she'd gotten used to this. She'd done worse, she told herself. At Meereen, she'd punished the innocent alongside the guilty. She supposed that by letting Varys handle threats to the crown in his own manner, fewer of the innocent would perish. Varys was many things, but as she looked back at him, watched as he put his sigil on the death warrants of traitorous lords or ruffian smallfolk, she reflected that his interests lay with the people. Even before hers. So far, he judged it best that her rule was still in the best interests of the people.
And if you decide otherwise? She wondered. Would you actually tell me your concerns?
Every time she asked, he said that he had nothing to say. Years on, and it was enough 'honesty' to give Daenerys pause. She was the rightful ruler of the Seven Kingdoms, that wasn't to say she was infallible. She blew on the window, watching her breath rest on the glass. The winter was ever present. Sometimes, it was as if nature itself had conspired against her.
"Is there any word from Dragonstone?" she asked, turning back to the Spider.
"None, your grace."
"Hmm." She walked over to the desk. "Then I suppose when I dare suggest I travel there, you will say what you always do?"
"That you are needed in the city? That his presence is best kept secret for now?"
"Secret," she scoffed. "Half the city is talking about my 'secret.'"
"And the other half believes it to be true," Varys said. "That's useful – it'll make the truth easier to bear."
"And we postpone that truth every day."
"You are the queen, of course," Varys said. "But in my experience, truth and lies are best used differently – the truth serves the one who wields the weapon best when used sparingly, and at the opportune moment. When the people of the realm learn that Daenerys Targaryen, first of her name, rightful queen of the Andals and the First Men, has an heir, it is truth that best be used to serve you, and-"
"I want to see my son Varys."
A silence lingered between the two…what, Daenerys reflected. Friends? Hardly. Allies? There might have been a time when that was true, but with the lack of any single enemy to fight, or any clear goal bar maintaining her rule and serving the realm, the term didn't feel as welcome. Ruler and advisor? She supposed, but then, hadn't she given the Spider free reign in his role as master of whispers?
"Your grace, that is your right, but-"
"But what, Varys?" She took a seat at the table, putting her hands in fists in front of her, as if pleading – certainly her tone conveyed that. "His father is to the north, is mother to the south. He's alone, on some godsforsaken piece of rock."
"And thereby, safe. There are many who would seek to end the life of your heir. More so if they learned he was the product of incest." He paused. "Need I remind you of what happened to the sons and daughters of the Mad Queen?"
She remained silent.
"No? Then when we're on the subject of things one needs reminding of, shall I also point out that the boy's existence being kept a secret is also for the sake of Jon Stark? The Northerners are different from the men in the south of many ways, but incest and bastardry is still frowned upon."
Daenerys retracted her hands and met Varys with a stare. A fire danced in her eyes, but it was but embers to the fury she had once possessed. Once, she had been at the head of an army of Dothraki and Unsullied, breaking chains, and burning monuments to the debasement of Man to the ground. Now, chains cut through her flesh, as grief did her soul. Grief that she kept suppressed from all but her closest advisors, but grief nonetheless.
"There will come a time where the people know that you have an heir," Varys said. "And while you are entitled to decide when that time may be, I advise you to wait until people would be reciprocal to a second Targaryen on the throne this century."
Daenerys paused, strumming her fingers on the table. Her mind was elsewhere, as was her heart, but none were in the same place. Her mind remained in King's Landing, while her heart was divided between Winterfell and Dragonstone. Jon Snow (or Stark, as he was now known) wasn't the first man she'd fallen in love with, but he had been the last, and had been the one to give her what no other man had. Yet he was the one who turned away after learning the truth – a weapon as deadly as Varys had described it. The truth that could shatter his rule, and whatever levels of trust she had with the North. It was the North who had suffered under the rule of Aerys, the North that had suffered under the Lannisters and Boltons, the North which had suffered under the Army of the Dead. If the people learned that a bastard had sired his own bastard, and done so by bedding a Targaryen, that he was a Targaryen…
Daenerys had read the works of Maester Anajo that "the truth shall set you free." Rising to her feet, she reflected that Anajo had been an idiot.
"Alright Varys," she said. "I'll play your game."
"My game, your grace?"
"Yes Varys, your game. The Game of Thrones is ended, the wheel is broken, and it shall never turn again." Another lie, given how many lords still plotted against her, but it was a lie that she hoped would one day be replaced by truth. "In the meantime, I make preparations to sail for Dragonstone."
"Your grace, you-"
"I am the queen, and I take your advice that the heir be kept secret for now. Me being with him though? That is my choice. And you can't stop me."
The look in the Spider's eyes told her that Varys very much wanted to stop her.
"Give me this, Varys. My other children…" She paused, composing herself, taking a breath of the frosty air. "My other children have departed this world. Were they here, I could fly to my fourthborn, but alas, the land and sea are the only options left."
"Alas so," Varys said, not sounding bereaved in the slightest. "I…what are you doing?"
Daenerys didn't answer, but instead continued with what she was doing. Namely, unrolling her right sleeve, revealing her pale skin to the flickering light of the candles that remained. On the wrist were three drawings made in black ink. Each of them identical in size. Each of them the picture of a dragon.
"My children," Daenerys said, pointing to the drawings. "A tradition of Naath that Missandei taught me about. Tattoos, I believe they're called." She pointed to each of them. "Viserion. Rhaegal. Drogon."
"All missed, I'm sure."
She didn't say anything – Viserys could sympathize, but he could never understand. Jon Snow had given her a child, but he was but the fourth. Her children, her triplets, her firstborn, were no longer among the living. Not even their skulls had been able to be transported to King's Landing to rest within the depths of the Red Keep.
Viserion, who had been the first to fall to the Night King.
Rhaegal, who had given his life to free his brother from the touch of undeath.
Drogon, who had finally perished to spear and sword, but only after the Night King had been reduced to ashes, and his army with him.
Her children had left this world, their bodies now resting in the icy wastes of the north. If even one of them had remained, she could have visited her fourthborn and return to King's Landing in but a handful of days. Instead, time and distance were the tyrannies she had to contend with, along with the smaller, more insidious tyranny of desperate people with little to lose. Whose desperation could make things even more…desperate.
Varys got to his feet and gave a bow. "I take my leave, your grace."
She nodded, and walked back to the window, not sparing him a glance as he left the room. Was she turning her back to a potential enemy? Perhaps. But Varys wouldn't do that. Not without having a plan for someone else to sit on the Iron Throne, and indeed, who was there? None but Jon Stark of course, who'd made it clear he wanted nothing to do with the throne, or his Targaryen heritage. He was Warden of the North, and the son of Eddard Stark. Anything else was irrelevant.
Except maybe what they both shared. What they had created.
And the truths they could never tell.
A/N
The idea for this came from reading that Emilia Clarke got three dragon tattoos on her wrist after completing filming for Game of Thrones. To which I say "um, okay." I'd have thought that this would make it harder to take certain roles, but I suppose actors/actresses manage?
Anyway, drabbled this up.