Only Lady Joanna truly knows the man beneath the armor, and all his smiles belong to her and her alone.
—Grand Maester Pycelle, reporting to the Citadel
LADY LANNISTER
266 AC
Sharp twinges pulsed like war drums in her belly. Joanna glanced down at the swelling, draping a soothing palm over it. It hung so far ahead of her now, she feared the child might tumble out of her sooner than anticipated. Just be still a little longer, my cub, Joanna thought, willing it to reach the inside of her womb. It's not a long way for us now.
The appended weight put a newfound strain in her shoulders. Brought a thin sheen of sweat out of every little thing she set to do. Her wide dresses shimmied and jiggled as though an entire new Dance of Dragons were taking place within her. Joanna did not fancy herself a feeble woman, yet there was surely more stupidity than pride to be had in refusing to commit to the inner gardens for the few weeks that remained.
Her breath ran out of her more and more often. It happened one day as she walked the patio, and try she as may to conceal it with a yawn, it was Genna that strode beside her and not a scatterbrained maid. Joanna felt her cheek being cupped with a sort of sensibility only a fellow woman's touch might possess.
"Are you unwell, my dear?" her cousin inquired.
Very little escaped the shrewd eye of Lady Genna, and only a negligible part of the rest was left unremarked. Joanna let her gaze travel the length of her loose green silk gown. Allowed herself a tired, half-smiling sigh. "Honestly, Genna, sometimes I feel like I am carrying an entire pride down there."
Her cousin crowed cordially. Patted her own recently deflated front. "The Seven bless dear, haven't we all?"
Joanna smiled softly. Genna understood well. She had her own way of dealing with things, but she understood no worse for it.
Her cousin was a comely woman, slightly older than Joanna herself, with all of a Lannister's sharp looks and tongue. Married off to a son of Walder Frey's, one of many unexceptional ones, Lady Genna ruled over her husband with an iron fist. The servants had a mild fear of her, and even lord Tywin often found himself on the receiving end of his sister's quips. Perhaps it was the differences between them, perhaps the similarities. They are as stubborn as any mule, Joanna thought humorously. Good thing I am no less stubborn, or else I'd never manage them.
A huff escaped Joanna's throat as the midday sun suddenly turned scalding. A heavy lynx pelt swathed over her shoulders, one Tywin had personally skinned off a beast and tailored for her after a rare hunt. I never knew the thing to be so heavy, Joanna thought as her chest labored for breath. Sometimes she craved nothing more than to shrug it off, other times she wished she'd roll farther up into it.
"I only wish it would decide which season it loathes," she muttered to her belly without venom, "so I might start dressing in accordance."
Genna gave a knowing grin. Hooked an arm through Joanna's own as they strolled the gardens, accepting greetings and curtsies from peppy servants. Handmaids and squires bowed, cheered, and wished her an easy bearing. Joanna nodded her gratitude, some genuine, some needed.
"Maester Creylen," she called after a passing cloud of clanking chains and grey wool robes.
The short, bony man skidded on the spot, dropping into a low, somewhat clumsy curtsey. "At your service, my good lady," the Maester wheezed.
"My husband is expected to journey home for the birthing of his first child," Joanna spoke. "I mean to oversee an inventory of our household supplies. If you are not busy, I would have you assist me and Lady Genna in organizing the festivities this afternoon."
"Certainly, I am happy to prepare a rundown of our accounts for your ladyship."
"Do consider that we have no wish to gorge our household into bankruptcy," Joanna jested softly. She already had half a mind to cover the expenses directly from the Lannister treasury. The longer that gold piled up there, the more it would tempt old Lord Tytos to reach for it when his mistress asked after her dues.
Warmth spilled in the Maester's voice as his old face folded in a knowing smile. "Very considerate, my lady."
"And do remind Sir Benedict over at the weaponry that we are still waiting on those twenty copper gauntlets. Oh, and please inform Lord Vylarr of the City Guard that the hunting party we dispatched last week is to rejoin the castle guard for my husband's return."
"At once, my lady."
Joanna rested a hand on a skeletal shoulder. "Your efforts are appreciated, Maester. That would be all."
"Seven blessings to you both, my ladies, and easy bearing to the Lady Joanna."
Her cousin grinned slyly as soon as they walked out of prying earshot. "Tywin should do well to appreciate you, my dear. The pair of you have good heads for numbers, and that's a rare, frightful thing. You could be every bit the Jaeherys and Alysanne the Rock thirsts for these days."
"Please, Genna," Joanna scolded, lest someone was near enough to hear them. "Lord Tytos is in perfectly good health. With some luck, he'll manage the Rock for many more years to come."
Lady Genna gave a short, low laughter, and muttered sourly, "Some luck that would be."
There was little fondness between Lord Tytos and his daughter, especially since the unfortunate marriage he'd struck for her. Well, Joanna could not say Lord Tytos ever gave anyone particular cause to respect him. He is still Warden of the West. Tywin and I shall wait for our moment under the sun as patiently as we've waited for anything.
"What of your Emmon?" Joanna was quick to drive the subject away from Lord Tytos. "How are things at the Twins?"
Her cousin snorted and waved her hand dismissively. "Please. That entire household has less wit than two of us Lannisters, and I'm the better part of it. Let me tell you, if my Emmon was half as clever as I was, I'd have taken over the Twins by now, or at least booted that toad Walder back into his rightful century."
Joanna's throat worked a burlesque laughter, not unkind. "You would wed him in an instant if it would place you at the head of that toad castle of his."
Something in her belly shifted and Joanna doubled over. Her hands flew blindly to the source of the fickle cramping.
"Perhaps you ought to leave the accounting to me and that peculiarly charming, tiny bald man," Genna suggested quickly.
Joanna shook her head. "No. It is bad enough I cannot circle the castle. I need the work."
It was her lord husband Joanna needed in truth. Tywin, hurry back. Over the years she had learned to draw confidence and understanding from the uncultivated iron in his eyes, ease the taut metalwork in his cheekbones, spin that sternness of his into a shared affection. They had taken to marriage with mutual respect for each other, but overtime, they had also learned to love each other. He could not be more different from Aerys, Joanna thought, gladly, grimly, and wished for the day she would not think of that at all.
Her husband's arrival was not due for another fortnight, and Joanna had rarely willed time to go faster. You hurry home, husband. Come rescue me from my thoughts, even if you don't know all of them.
The distinct noises of young children interrupted their stroll. Joanna stiffened, and straightened. Rimmed a protective arm around her belly by some strange instinct.
Though some thoughts you do know of, don't you, Tywin? And flee from them to the capitol. You leave me here with them, to feed them, raise them, make them into something we can look at. But I fear, husband. I fear I do not know how.
Joanna did not allow her step to falter. She gave herself a neutral expression, whilst her nails carved slow furrows in the meat of her palm. It's been years now. I cannot lose my nerve every time I happen upon him.
"There goes the little one," Genna remarked carefully.
Indeed.
The little half-dragon, three of age, sat clad in Lannister colors at the edge of an alcove near the fishpond. Beneath his dangling feet, two servant boys waded through the clear waters, trampling over reed and fish, splashing, yelling and pulling at each other.
"Pulling hair's for gals, hit him," the dragon-child was urging, a ribbon of dried meat hanging from his mouth as he chewed loudly. He used to be such an ugly babe, Joanna thought. Looking at him now, she could not help but feel as though he were aging backwards, grey hairs slowly heating to a strange ash-red, the wrinkles of his first year pulled back from his round little face, those gangly limbs inevitably filling with meat.
The scuffling young things beneath the boy seemed eager to indulge him. The brawl exacerbated, and Joanna watched her beloved pond fill with dirt, mud, and blood-tinged saliva. It was hardly a fresh sight to behold. While Raemon wielded ink feathers and wooden swords as he was told, the boy appeared to enjoy passing sentences best of all.
"Little dragon and his improvised arenas again. Odd little hobby he's got there," Genna crooned eventually, when Joanna did not speak or move to break the squabbling boys apart. "Some would call it wayward."
Joanna shrugged into her pelts. "You know how children are. They'll turn the world upside down to find new games to play."
"Yes, yes, young minds are blessed fonts. Although I reckon we have a font here that's about to part with a stone. Or is that a conch? I can hardly tell with lads these days."
"Please, Genna, it is perfectly innocent play."
Her cousin fell silent, though it did not last. She gave a sigh, one of those long, horribly stretched sounds that dragged a wagon of ill-timed wisdom behind them. "You have no love for the runt. So be it, you owe him none. You don't need love to raise men, dear, that's what we bear daughters for. For boys you need but a firm hand, and all of a woman's patience."
Joanna stared at this boy who was not her son. A brew of guilt and fear battled inside her, as always.
Why did I not kill you, Raemon? What held my hand?
A quiet coldness slowly engulfed her, and she let it, even though she was certain the child had been sensing it recently. I ought to stop him. Teach him better. She thought of Aerys, of his hands roaming her flesh in the dark, unpermitted, unforbidden, unasking. She thought of the life that was mellow within her. In her mind's eye she saw herself drown in an ocean of bloodied linens. Thought of Tywin raising this tiny life by himself. Then she thought of a deathlike laughter, of old words hissed in the bizarre hours between wolf and nightingale, of foul blood crawling down a sacred stone, and her stomach turned.
The world will bring out the brute in him either way.
Joanna gathered her skirts, and walked on.
263 AC
She slid out of the King's arms in a slick, fluid twist. In a nest of serpents, a lion must play the eel. He grunted, stirred, but did not wake. He's never stayed the night. Men grew tenacious when they felt their possessions were about to be snatched away.
Joanna dared a glance over her shoulder.
Aerys Targaryen was an undeniably handsome man, and in his slumber, his face let fall most of its troubling shadows. On a good day, in fact, the King could be generous, charming and wholly forgiving. If she knew a bit less, Joanna would think herself a fool for seeking a way out. But one did not frequent in the King's close company without getting their fill of the bad days, too. Joanna had seen too much, pretended not to see too much. There was a strangeness to King's Landing—the longer you lingered, the more its charms went lost on you. It was no different with the man on its throne. Joanna had too much fear for the man Aerys was turning into, and too little respect. If I stayed, I would not survive him. We would not survive each other.
She shuffled on a linen shift, anxious to fend off the cold and place more matter between herself and the King's grasping hands. She circled the heavy table and tipped the gilded flask over the throat of her chalice, only to find the contents running dry halfway. No wonder he is not waking.
She glided a finger over the wood, to memorize, or perhaps to forget, and made for the window. In the nightly gloom, she took in the dozing city scattered down below. Roofed markets, warehouses and barns, timbered stables, kennels, mews and taverns, all piled on one another. For every two unlit buildings there stood the dim red lightings of a brothel at the peak of its busy hours. What was the saying? Whores pray in the day and work in the night. She wondered if Aerys ever took to brothels past twilight, before he was king. Now he had no need for it, of course, all a King needs is brought straight to him, but before that… She imagined Aerys bedding a dark-skinned, foreign woman on a bed overgrown with plush silk pillows and red linens. The image did not come to her with difficulty, but in her mind's eye, the wench's moans were more pained than pleasured, and the King's own growls echoed like the grunts of a wild boar.
Her gaze wandered back to the city, seeking a distraction from her thoughts. Across the low carpet of sheds and lodges, three monuments peaked higher than all the rest: the Sept of Baelor paled white as a gem, crowning Visenya's Hill; the Dragonpit, jagged and black with sot as it mounted the Hill of Rhaenys like the creatures of its namesake; and the Red Keep, Joanna imagined, tall and crimson and slender as the Maesters' chronicles painted its kings, covering the shore's rockiest slice, facing the onslaught of the high currents with aloof indifference.
In the distance, the city walls rose, high and strong and not at all reassuring for all the things they were supposed to be.
The city does reek—Aerys is not wrong there.
Joanna shifted, and stepped away from the carved handrail. Dragons mocked her from there, and from the wall-mounted silverstone, and from the very bed she had just left. She gathered her torn up gown and fumbled into it. Downed the rest of the wine, and blew the candles to maimed sticks. For an instant, she was tempted to glance at the King's sleeping shape once more.
Aerys shifted in his sleep. Mumbled something, something small and indiscernible that suspiciously formed like her name. No, Joanna thought firmly. Casterly Rock awaited her, and Tywin with it. A lioness did not dismiss her own. Not even for a wicked, dashing dragon.
She pulled the door open, ready to dismiss herself from the scrutiny of the guards standing watch. Instead, she found herself facing a svelte column of silver.
Joanna took a quiet breath, head tilted slightly up. She was tall, but the Queen stood taller.
"Your Grace," Joanna curtsied.
A subtle scent of sage and cold jewels filled the air. She smells like Valyrian steel, Joanna thought, not for the first time. She was glad for the pale moonlight that streamed only through a high lancet across the hallway. Her surprise could remain a vague stroke dragged across her features, and so did her shame. Even to her own self, perhaps.
"He is in there, I presume." The Queen was not asking. There was no warmth in her eyes for the would-be answer.
"He is," Joanna replied nonetheless, no modesty or glee in her words.
Fine fabric shifted, and when Joanna lifted her gaze, the Queen had stepped to the side. Joanna took the hint, and treaded outside the chambers, quietly dragging the heavy door shut behind her.
She looked around for the guards, but found none. "You hardly need them," the Queen spoke sagaciously, sharp enough to make up for a hidden dagger.
Words are blades, and women wield them no worse than the Faceless Men of Braavos do theirs.
"How may I be of service?"
Even in the smokiness of the cold moonlight, the Queen's glow ran deep and chilled. She had donned a slick silk robe that caught color from its surroundings, wide-sleeved and trimmed with white fur to match the whiteness of her hair, and the bloodlessness of her long face. Joanna could not help but notice the beauty in her, the hidden intensity in her eyes, the quiet strength it took to shoulder a lifetime spent at the side of Aerys Targaryen. I've learned a lot from her. Surely the Queen was not to blame if the lessons had been bitter.
"You may listen carefully to what I am about to say to you," the Queen intoned, a thin smile haunting her lips for the briefest of moments, perhaps to mask the severity in her voice, perhaps to enhance it. "You were my lady-in-waiting, once. I took care of you and your every need. You repaid me by opening your bed to my husband." Joanna's gaze slipped sideways, carefully, in time to shield her pride from taking a blow. "But I've been told you are leaving all of that behind."
Joanna raised her eyebrows. Truly nothing goes unheard in this castle. "News travels quickly," she responded vaguely enough to test what the Queen might or might not know.
The Queen was clearly in no mood for word dances. "The Hand only weds once. Mostly."
Joanna dipped her head, recognizing her disadvantage. "I was honored by Lord Tywin's proposal. Yet more so to accept it."
Whatever shards of politeness had loitered in the Queen's eyes before, they withdrew now. "It must be exciting, being able to flit from one duty to the next, to whichever court you fancy."
Joanna lowered her head. If only.
She recalled the first time she'd laid eyes on Aerys. Gods, had I ever seen such a man. Slender, silver-haired and kingly, and all a dragon should be, and he'd looked at her as if her duty to the Queen did not matter, nor his. And for a time, it didn't. And then, like all times, that too was over. I was as naïve as the maidens in the songs to not see what stood right before me.
The first time she'd come across another woman laid nude across his bed, she had not wept. I had too much pride for it. The day she'd witnessed the King sentence a man to mutilation over an ill-timed remark, that was when she'd wept in earnest. She had not only misjudged the manhood, but the man who wielded it. I was foolish, and my sentence was a prison of my own creation. The capitol was not a place easily fled, after all, not without good reason, and she'd found herself stranded in a city of intrigue, in the bed of a king she thought less and less of with each passing day.
Despite everything, Joanna knew enough sense not to begrudge the chain of events that had shaped her stay in King's Landing. All I know of politics, I've learned here. I may have been foolish, once, but I've been clever since. She had remained still as a lion stalking, awaiting her opportunity for a bloodless withdrawal.
"I fear my duty in the capitol was never one of fancy," Joanna said to the Queen, even though she knew her words would fall on deaf ears. The Queen was not to blame, either, for wanting to protect what was hers. "I imagine we are very much alike in that. Pity you won't see it."
The Queen's lip twitched in the dark. "All I see is a climber that will climb no further."
Joanna resolved to take a gamble. "I am to be the Hand's wife. Some would argue there is no higher step to climb."
"True," the Queen breathed. "For you there isn't." Deep violet eyes narrowed at Joanna, over her, as if appraising a sculpture. "You're a clever one. I missed it completely, the first day you came in. I wonder if it was there at all, back then. But no matter. The past is not what brought me here."
"Of course, Your Grace."
The Queen's lips pressed together. "The child," she sibilated. No further explanation would be given, not even here, now. "My husband likely tells you more than he tells me these days, so this should not come as a surprise. It is to leave the capitol."
'It'. Indeed, the queen had no reason to be fond of the bastard, no more than Joanna herself.
"I've heard," Joanna nodded. The Queen would not stand for a child like that to mingle with her court. "The King had very little interest in its fate before. Now he does not wish to keep it around. He speaks of a restless court."
The Queen's expression was indiscernible. "I suppose that's what happens when a King secludes himself from his subjects. Misunderstandings arise." Joanna's eyes went narrow, curious, chin tilted slantwise, a mere implication. Has she truly? The Queen's face was neither a denial nor a confirmation. Her next words were less ambiguous. "You don't seem surprised."
"I wouldn't think to insult you with such," Joanna admitted with careful honesty, heedful not to prod the veil of formality that hung between them.
The Queen stared at her for a brief moment. Joanna saw weariness peek behind the steel of her gaze. She is as tired of this dance as I am. "So, the boy," the Queen tackled her point anew. "I wager Aerys is looking for places to send him off to. What does he tell you?"
"He tells me nothing. He has hardly mentioned it to me." And then, just to remind the Queen out there lived a sinner greater than her, "I am not the child's mother."
"No," the Queen agreed, and something about her voice made Joanna wish to back away. "But you will be."
A chill crept up Joanna's spine, sharp like flesh peeling, like gowns tearing. She means to brand me. Her fists bunched in her skirts, knuckles straining to ease the torrent that raided her chest. And what of Tywin? It will be an insult to him. It will be an insult to me as well, though I could never tell a soul. My pain would be my own to carry.
"Your Grace. I ask that you reconsider."
It was folly to await mercy from the Queen, yet after all this time Joanna had at least hoped for some mutual understanding. I paid for my offence to you. Yet the Queen would have her keep on paying.
"You will take it back to your Rock, and all your schemes with it. I have already set arrangements in motion. Aerys will want to humiliate your betrothed, he'll see a way in this child. You will all be gone from my court. You in particular are not to set foot in this city again, under any circumstances. I have endured you this long, but this has been it for you. If you have been looking for a chance to walk away from this in one piece, this is it. I suggest you take it. I can promise you there will be no other."
Cleaning the slate of all pieces in a single sweep. The Queen had done what she could in the name of her family, to protect what was hers. Joanna could respect that. Slighted as she was, she could respect it.
"…I understand."
"I have not come for your understanding, you insolent wench. I come to ask but one thing in this life of you: do not try to fox your way out. I know it to be well within your... skill to make my life difficult, if nothing else. So here I am, warning you. For both our sakes, do not."
The Queen did not wait for the inevitable consent. She swept her skirts and glided away into shadow, quiet as a cat and merging with darkness far too easily for the whiteness of her. It is a talent, Joanna thought, and then she could not think of much other than the fate which awaited her.
The Queen had made her move. Swiftly and with no undue delicacy, that much Joanna acknowledged. She could play the game a last time, of course, but not with Tywin in the bigger picture, not with him this close to her now. She wouldn't risk it. She wouldn't risk him.
The life sprawled ahead of her would not be easy if she chose to go down the route of complaisance, not that she had been delusional enough to hope for such. This was but the first of many trials, and Joanna Lannister well intended to rise above it, weather the storm with a head held high. I can make this child my own. She would do her duty, as all women did. It is no different than with the man who fathered it. What the Queen is too frightened to look at, I must embrace.
Yet even as she packed her belongings in silence and sought Tywin's chamber and rested her head on a pillow for a last time in this city, Joanna dreamt of a life where she was mother to four children, yet only loved three.
266 AC
The child began to push out of her on a cloudy afternoon, whilst she was managing some twelve maids' work down in the kitchens. It's early, was Joanna's first thought. Too early.
It hurts, was her second. By the Seven, it hurts as badly as they say. She was not surprised, though her lack of shock did not seem to lessen the pain.
"Genna—" she managed, and added in a silent Tywin, even though she knew her cousin to have made herself busy with bookkeeping or stockpiling or servant-goading somewhere aboveground, and her husband, by latest accounts, to be making headway through Hornvale still.
A convulsion overcame her, and she staggered back into a pair of hands, whom they belonged to she did not know. Joanna grew aware of the low ceiling spitting dust and grit down at her, hard stone walls pressing in, air thick, far too thick for her lungs to cough up. The square trammels of the kitchen became the most dreadful place on earth.
"Genna," she repeated, grappling for breath. "Bring me to Genna. Bring her to me."
"You need a Maester, m'lady," a voice came through, then died down like the tail of an explosion. Joanna felt herself get yanked hither and thither by alien hands. Stone steps raced under her, cold and slippery and not quite touching her feet.
In her weakened state, old words swam up in her mind, uninvited. Words she dared not repeat, words that frightened her more than anything in this world. The horrors. Skirts of blood. You will be nothing to them.
Torch flames blurred, hissed and quavered in the wake of her passing. Jagged gravel flattened into carpeted corridors, and Joanna watched them bend and twist their redness all around her. Such long bowels. I've been devoured by a snake. I'm about to die. I know it.
She grew hot, then cold many times over. Her teeth clanked with the spinning of the seasons taking place somewhere deep within her. Her lower belly was a Dornish desert at one point, then a wildlings camp a moment after. She felt herself begin to come apart, not knowing if the babe would freeze or boil to death first.
Two shall serve and one shall reign. The words echoed in her head, old but not forgotten. She clung to them, unsure if they were a comfort or a madness. Two shall serve and one shall reign.
Just as the tremors grew closer and more ravenous, Joanna felt her backside drop into a clasp of softness. I can rest now, she thought, briefly, but what rest was to be had at a time like this? She found no comfort in the linens. Mollusks of silk pooled around her ankles, engulfed her arms, her hips and nape so that Joanna attempted to rise before they drowned or suffocated her.
"I need to walk," Joanna managed, how she knew that would be helpful she did not know.
They lifted her up and she circled the room for what felt like a long time. Each hair on the hearthrug was a needle, and each exhale irritated her gut. Her womb surged and relaxed intermittently, until the pains grew wild and hot and sent her tumbling to her knees.
"Be strong, my lady," Maester Creylen's voice cut through all the rest with some effort, like a dull blade plodding though butter. "It is early, that we realize, but not extremely so. I have every confidence your ladyship is going to endure this." The Maester's ghostly face swam closer, a single drop of sweat rolling between those pale bushy eyebrows, betraying a worry otherwise well-hidden. "You can handle this, my good lady, as you do all else in this strange castle. Be brave."
Brave, Joanna wondered, surprised she could think at all beyond the pain. I'm hardly brave. She'd never thought herself the coward, yet bravery was not the opposite of cowardice. I am proud. Proud and surviving. A lioness is not brave as she stalks and hunts and kills. She is only stronger than the prey.
Her lip trembled and her eyes watered. I do fear this. And I well intend to survive it.
Joanna grabbed on to Maester Creylen's arm, and roared.
A girl. Joanna sank back in the pillows as Cersei cried in the arms of the wet nurse. Congratulations rained down, kind and insincere. She wondered if the joy may have been fuller had she died giving birth to an heir. Not for Tywin. The thought warmed her.
"Give her to me." Joanna spread out her arms, doing her best to calm the shake in her blanched fingers. Stale sweat crawled up and down her skin, cold and slick. Stray wisps of matted hair trickled down her face. Her thighs slipped on a film of dark nether blood. The Stranger's breath came close, Joanna thought, and shuddered. "Hand me my daughter," she repeated when the wet nurse hesitated near the bedpost.
Cersei toppled into her arms in a warm pink bundle. She looked up at her mother with Tywin's eyes, and hers. A lion's eyes. The crying ceased, and Joanna smiled down at her daughter, overwhelmed by a fierce sort of tenderness that commanded her never to let another touch her little one. Motherhood is a devastating, jealous love. I must take care not to suffocate her with it.
"Send word to my lord husband," Joanna spoke, not daring to take her eyes off the babe. Her strength was linked to this little creature, now, and she could feel her energy oddly replenish with each passing heartbeat that she held on to her. "Inform him he is now a father." There is time for sons, she decided. Genna spoke right. A daughter is to be loved. She watched Cersei's tiny feet kick up in the air, and laughed gently. Who knows? Perhaps this is to be the son we wished for.
Hushed whispers carried off her gaze sideward. A short little thing, black and gangly in the backlight, was trying to fit through the doorframe. It was held back by a tangle of hands for a time, but found a way through under a larger servant's stretched arm.
"Raemon," Joanna managed thinly as the blackness swam back up on the inside of the chamber, red hair ruffled and unshorn. "Where did you come from?"
The boy nodded towards where Cersei rested, standing up on tiptoes, neck craned as if to see better. Joanna's grip on Cersei tightened instinctively. "Did she come out already?" the boy asked curiously. A pang of guilt surged through her at the cold response that coiled at her lips. He is only a child.
And yet, every time he looked at her with those terribly mismatched eyes, it was as if he remembered.
It wasn't possible, of course. He was a babe, just a babe, Joanna told herself over and over, and every time the words failed to fully put her mind off the unsettling thought.
Joanna swallowed, aware of the sudden silence and the many eyes. She could not show what she felt in front of them. "She did, just now." She eyed the people around her, then. He knows it's a daughter. News already traveled the castle?
The boy frowned, a strange look upon his face. "What about him?"
Joanna narrowed her eyes, slowly. An eternity stretched between them, until something, something drew a razor over her belly, and suddenly she felt it come to life again. She gasped, sharp and sudden. In her arms, Cersei thrashed and screamed. With a blink she flew out of Joanna's arms, snatched by a pair of bony, ownerless hands. No, Joanna thought frantically. Return her to me. If I'm to die, I owe her as much of me as I can give her.
The cramping surged through her anew and she fell back into her silken hell. Some fresh liquid spurted from between her thighs, and she felt her legs kick against it. She was only vaguely aware of passing shadows draping over her at different times, telling her things that never quite reached her. What is happening to me? Joanna wondered, fleetingly. I thought I had survived it.
Two shall serve and one shall reign. Two shall serve and one shall reign.
How she wished for Tywin to be there, next to her. "Focus, my lady!" Something collided with her cheek lightly and she blinked, in her throes, suddenly aware of her husband's name, not just in her mind but quite real on her tongue. I never knew his name to taste so strangely… She strained her ears, and listened for those things that were a mindless buzz around her.
Not strong enough…
Much bleeding…
There is a second one…
Pray for your brother, Cersei, Joanna thought, for she knew what was about to push out of her could only be a warrior. Pray now and pray well, for your mother will need every bit of it.
"Push now, my lady!"
Her fingers sought the curve of Maester Creylen's arm once more. She could hear his muffled voice resound somewhere far away, too far away. Joanna twitched and writhed, smelling more blood. Her hand flailed helplessly, until something, something cold and slippery snuck into her palm, twined itself between her fingers.
She was too hysterical to think of what she felt. He was there, a comfort, and she held on to him. She let the boy hold her throughout her wrestle with the life inside her, squeezing at the little hand as hard as she would at Tywin's. At some point he must have leant in, and Joanna almost feared he might kiss her. But his lips missed her cheek and went for her ear.
"Don't worry. If you die, I promise I'll take good care of them."
Mismatched eyes drifted before her, green and purple, twisting buried memories back to life. The ends of his hair smothered her, forcing the smell of something burning down her throat. It's so red now, gods be good, as red as hers…
Joanna froze, then smoldered, then dreamed of red.
263 AC
King's Landing was sparsely lit during the Hour of the Wolf. The brightest lights welled out from the foggy windowpanes of the whorehouses, and the Red Keep itself, which pillared behind her like some vain bright garland.
Joanna's eyes wandered up. The sky was black and moonless, and sounded like high winds. If there were clouds crowded upon it, they were as black as all the rest, and one would only know of them if they cast down rain or thunder. It's cold. Joanna shrank into her rough patchy sealskin, ever glad for the plain brown traveler's cloak pressing down on her shoulders. Even so, she felt exposed. Could not help looking about for the slightest of unforeseen movement.
"Stay low, ladiness," the sellsword beside her urged. "Tis ain't no maidens' garden." I should hope so, Joanna thought dryly. Her departure with Tywin was due on the morrow. She would not risk a discovery. Why am I risking it?
The truth was she could not help herself. She needed to take a look at the child before they thrust it upon her lap as though it rightfully belonged there. One look, and she would know. I need to see for myself if I can be a mother to him. If I have it in me to do as the Queen wishes.
The array of establishments on either side of the narrow pathway slowly folded away to expose Rhaenys' Hill. Joanna's gaze roamed up its seven-pointed crown, its whites muted by the nightly shade. "Wait here," she ordered the hired blade, slipping some of the coin into his expecting palm.
"How long?" the man wanted to know. Joanna stole an oblique glance at him. Frowning, tall and muscle-studded, with wide-meshed teeth that were sometimes missing altogether, the man stood clad in leather and as dark as the city he ranged on a nightly basis. He bore all the scars Genna had told her about, and more. A true mercenary. Perhaps a bit too true.
"You've been hired for the night, yes?"
The sellsword crossed his arms. Even his leather sounded peeved. "But only paid for half."
"So wait half the night," Joanna advised with an inclination of her head that could have meant anything, and swept her skirts.
She had not climbed the steps of the Great Sept since she had last accompanied the Queen on a prayer, and that had been some time ago. I'd forgotten how many there were. She pulled the cowl lower over her eyes and climbed further. The night was no time to take rest. Not for those with secrets to manage, anyway.
As soon as she reached the top, she was met by the faded bulk of a roving septa. Shadows played strangely off the planes of the knifelike face, the swaying lantern less yellow and more green. "What seek you here at this hour?" the septa asked.
"Purgation," Joanna intoned, lending her voice the necessary tinge of lament. "Repentance. The presence of the Seven." And let the septa make of that what she will.
"Well received, then. The Mother's altar stands reachable to sinners at all times."
The septa's face was gone back in the cowl long before the lantern had lost itself in the nightly mist.
Joanna treaded into the Great Sept, this high temple of naked crystal and white granite gods. No Kingsguard stood to defend its honor, no house-bound knights protected its riches, and no brothers of the Nightswatch took oaths to patrol its edge. The treasure vaults were kept locked and sealed, and surely there lived no man foolish enough to think the Red Keep would pay half a coin's ransom for the snoring High Septon.
Finding the altar of the Mother was no difficult task. It was there, at the feet of a great pale statue, one of seven, fresh and old candles asmolder at the footing of hard stone skirts that would never shuffle. It was finding her way beyond it that proved some challenge. Past the main sanctum chamber the flickering lights grew weaker and rarer. The sole ribbon of light wound up a narrow staircase which would be difficult to spot in the half-dark had Joanna not busied herself with interior maps earlier. It was quite easy to tell most of the Great Sept slumbered unlit, undisturbed. Joanna did not fancy losing her way in these uncharted, strange halls.
Her step was quick and light, measured. She wondered if this was what assassins felt like on their nightly errands. If with time it grew easier to become one with the silence, the murk. Perhaps for some. She thought of the Queen, how fluently Rhaella Targaryen would vanish around the castle and breeze in on strange places during stranger hours, how well she truly ought to know the formulas of her domain. Joanna only prayed Casterly Rock would prove as good a friend to her as the Red Keep was to its mistress.
The chamber she was looking for had to be located on an upper storage, a septa's cell with a dragon carved lid upon the grate. The moonlit staircase was narrow, twisting and slippery. Had a septa walked down her path, there would have been little place to hide. Joanna's eyes searched the dark. She was growing less certain with each passing door, but this was no time to rethink.
After a time, as she was losing track of her steps and the doors and the hour, it finally swam out of the darkness. A small dragon carving sunken in the wood. A shaky breath escaped her. Whoever had done the cutting must have had better things to do, for they had clearly made a quick work of it. Sadness pierced Joanna, unbidden. Bastards only ever get half-honors, and that is if they are lucky.
She made for the knob, then stopped. Her hand shook under the heavy cloak. Dove into an inner pocket, thumbing the cold edge of the stiff-bladed dagger. Dark thoughts circled her mind. She tossed her head clear of them. She had not come for that. She was yet to see, yet to know.
With an exhale she pushed in. The old hinges moaned their shifting. Cold air wheezed past her, out of the room, as if it had awaited the opportunity. The threshold crawled under her feet, creaking, and then all grew silent.
Redness was the first thing to meet Joanna's searching eyes. Not the muted maroons of silk and cotton, nor the liquid wines swirling the bottom of a chalice. No, before her rose a blood-filled hourglass, flowing up into womanly shapes.
"You're not the wet nurse," Joanna spoke cautiously.
The woman turned, slowly, as if she had been expecting the visit. Joanna's eyes went wide, heedful.
"Nay. That much we have in common."
Her voice was deep and thick, and almost did not sound like the common tongue. Her hair was as red as her gown, and the candle flames threw specks in her eyes that were redder than either. A red-gold choker set with a large ruby rested about her throat, light bouncing off the precious stone in fickle glints. Something about the woman made Joanna think of serpents, great, wise and glacial.
Just then she took notice of the babe nestled in the woman's arms, mouth pressed to her bared chest. "I am visiting—"
"The wrong place." There was no ill will in the foreign voice, no malice in those bright red eyes. Only a deep understanding, one that did not bode a great deal of kindness, either. "Go home. The answers you seek are not in this room."
Joanna shivered, feeling nude. Her nails went into the meat of her palm, steadying her. "I seek but a glimpse of this—this infant. For better or worse, my future is bound to him." The truth was not a luxury she could normally afford, yet for some reason, under this woman's strange gaze, it felt like her only option.
A cryptic smile played across the woman's dark red lips. "Your future… A shorter story than you think, that. I could tell you. Or you may leave now and not come back. The choice is yours."
Joanna narrowed her eyes, knowing, even if she had no evidence to shoulder her presumption. "I've heard of women like you. I am surprised you have strayed so far from home." Asshai was a long way east, yet hardly a child in the Seven Kingdoms had grown far removed from tales of its pale, copper-haired priestesses.
"You know nothing of home, lion. Mine or yours. R'hllor had only blood for me. I abandoned him long ago."
The babe made a sound and shifted, suckling on the woman's breast. Joanna's lip twitched disloyally. "So you sought haven in the arms of a foreign king?"
The woman's full lips pulled back like a curtain. No sound of mirth left her throat. "Your jealousy is misplaced, if rather dear. I am no concubine. The child was always my destiny. It is R'hllor's way of reminding me we were all cast into the inevitable, the day we were born. Flee as I might I fulfilled my role in the end. I bore light from darkness and darkness from light."
Joanna combated a frown. Kept her voice formal, unbending. "I do not know the things you speak of. I reckon it is not my place to know. If you do not mind, I should like to see him. Will you not grant me this little kindness?"
The candles quivered to a wind Joanna did not sense, and she swore the ruby at the woman's throat shone brighter.
"Fine. I grant you a look. But you said yourself: the child is your future, and your future is in that child. You cannot look at one and go blind to the other. I ask again. Will you look, or will you walk? Your choice."
Joanna cast the woman a skeptical eye. Then she outstretched her arms. I did not risk the way here for nothing. "Let me have him."
A shadow darted across the priestess' long pale face. "Greedy. All your lot. Here. Have at it."
The creature tipped over into her hold. It was not like holding other children. Whether that was a good thing or a bad one, she was yet to know. She risked a peek into those unfocused round eyes. Jade and amethyst stared back at her, one bitingly reminiscent of Aerys, the other foreign as the woman who had borne the boy.
You could have been mine. Would that have been more or less of a nightmare? Joanna did not know.
The babe gave a small whine. Petite hands groped the ends of her golden strands. Plushy lips nipped around the lace of her bodice, pressing for entrance. Joanna held her breath.
A thin whimper told her it hadn't found the thing it had probed for. Gingerly, she offered the bundle back to the eastern woman. "Here. I… I expect he needs his mother."
A sure palm rested atop her own, ringed fingers clanking against the gold of her bracelets. "I realize that they are taking him away, lion." Joanna noticed her nails were also painted scarlet, crooked long and sharp towards the flesh. Her skin bore ink markings too small and too countless to interpret. While her flesh was cool to the touch, her many rings slid warm against her wrist.
Joanna averted her gaze. Repercussions of the Queen's decision beyond her own family had not been much on her mind until now. "I had no part in it," she muttered quietly. This woman had to know.
"Oh, but you have all the part in it." Joanna's brows arched in question. The foreign woman released a light chuckle. "You misunderstand. I am not bitter. The child was never meant to remain by my side. I have done His bidding. I can go in peace now."
Joanna's face fell. She did her best to conceal the emotion, yet the red woman's head fell to the side, adopting a curious look. Her eyes had gone wide and clever. Her hair slanted the slope of her shoulders in wild tresses that seemed to curl in towards the gemstone on her neck.
"You are judgmental," the woman breathed. "How little you understand. You shall do much worse than me. Just you wait. The lion-ring shan't save you. You are to while away your days fleeing a shadow that's winged and crowned. But you are doomed to fail. Worse you shall do, for the sake of that which is yet to come. Ah, but therein lies your tragedy. For that very thing is bound to the dragons you run from."
Joanna's heart skipped a beat. Her feet itched to back away, yet she drew closer, eyes trained on the foreign woman. "You speak of my children. That is what you mean, is it not? What of them?"
"When you play the game of thrones you win or you die," the woman crooned in an alien voice. "You will be nothing to them. Those cubs, they are marked for it. They're made for the dragons, and the dragons are made for them. Two shall serve and one shall reign. Oh, the horrors they'll witness. The horrors they'll cause! All shall reunite over a golden grave long after you've donned skirts of blood. You shan't know your flesh and blood for the shape it shall take."
The smell of something burning singed Joanna's throat. At the tip of their staves, the torch flames danced wildly. The room filled with quick, jumping shadows. I've heard too much. She thrust the child into the woman's arms, but the priestess stepped deftly to the side, sweeping her red skirts along. "I've heard enough," Joanna murmured. "Here, take it, take it back. Take it, I give it back to you."
The woman growled. Slithered a flat smirk through crooked lips. All of a sudden, she appeared much older, lips gone bloated like a marsh frog, teeth yellowed, elderly wrinkles creasing the skin around her glazed eyes. They are green, Joanna realized. It must have been the torchlight tinting them, for now they oozed the same poisonous shade as the boy's. Joanna backed away, mouth wide agape. In her arms, the child wailed.
"You think you are the first to try this?" the woman chanted. "Can you unspill wine? Can you make a river flow upwards? Can you send lightning back into a storm? The night is dark and full of terrors. You chose this and so you shall hear it, for you have made it a fate for you and me."
Even the voice had grown deeper, darker, full of hatred. Joanna shook her head and clutched the stonework on the wall as she let her back hit the hardwood door. Her golden locks caught in jutting, rusty nails. Her jaw clenched tight as a vice.
"You are a witch," she breathed lowly. "You word poison. Take your infant and let me be on my way this instant."
If the woman had appeared aged before, she was now a crone. Her teeth spilled to the floor on a terrible string of muted raps. The ruby on her choker burst to pieces, and the pieces soon joined the teeth. The witch's hands went scratching at her throat though they only seemed to feel for the gemstone. She spoke some words in a tongue Joanna did not recognize, then lunged at her.
Joanna gasped and made to cover herself, but then she remembered the child was still in her hold. She looked down only to find her clutch empty. "Where…" she began to ask, only for the witch to shove her down to the ground with strength that went beyond her feeble body.
"Foolish girl! I warned you, you would not listen. Now you will sit here and take it!" She was pacing the room before long, gangly arms flailing about as though she were a madwoman talking to herself. "Nothing will be as it seems. Not for you, not for your kin. Lies, lies and treachery. Wretched love. So much pride and blood! Beware the dragon, the two-colored one. You won't know to fear him, but should you do! Oh, but I am saying too much!" Sick laughter chilled Joanna's bones. "Perhaps I'm afraid, too. I thought I'd be ready, you see, after all this time. But look at me, raving to you like a mad bitch. No, no, we're all fashioned to fear the unknown, are we not? Is that why you fear the dragons so much? Is it? How about this, then: a dragon shall stand watch over your offspring, and a dragon shall snatch the life from you!"
Joanna blanched. The words resounded deep in her bones, like the bedtime tales of her childhood, magical and terrifying in their vagueness. I am cursed. My children are cursed. What have I done?
The witch was doubled over with laughter and pointing feebly with a shaky finger. She had begun to sing, Joanna realized faintly, a shrill, ululating tune like a piglet screaming.
Detachedly, Joanna listened to her own voice pleading. Shut your mouth, I beg of you. I do not wish to hear more. Stop it. STOP. The woman did not listen. Perhaps Joanna did not hear.
In some horrible dream she saw herself reach into her ruffled cloak. Watched herself skewer her dagger, her hidden, untried dagger, through a stream of redness—nothing should be this red, she reckoned, and yet it all was. She saw her fist tangle into that same globe of red—so many threads bunched, so many knots to untwist—bash the woman's head into the Mother's chapel, as if to silence this terrible future from coming to pass.
I never knew death could be this messy.
Her knees caved in and she slumped against the wall, slick and breathless, spent as a corpse.
I know what happened. She bewitched me. She bewitched me to kill her.
Red arms wormed up and down the walls, the ceiling. The hard floor slid sticky underfoot, drenched her skirts and arse. Her ears told her there had to be noise, a buzzing of sorts, yet nothing inched past the thrumming in her head, the dragon shrieks of her breath.
Her gaze skidded to the babe sitting in the crib next to her, painted in the witch's blood, laughing, same, worse than the mother. It sounded so very wrong. You should be crying. Screaming. Don't laugh. Don't laugh. The laughter was somehow that much worse than any scream could ever be. The candle light swirled horribly in his eyes.
Beware the dragon, the two-colored one. Joanna looked into those pale, mismatched eyes, and suddenly, she was staring straight into her doom.
She crawled on all fours up to the crib. Pulled herself up, remembering the knife in her trembling clutch. Angled it down towards the laughing babe, still drenched in the blood of its mother. All was still save for her uneven breathing. The babe reached for her, then. Reached past the blade, past her shaking hands. Caught her matted hair in its tiny fingers and tugged. Gave a feisty roar, hiccuped, and burst out laughing again. He had such a thin little voice. Her doom had such small, puffy fingers.
Joanna stilled. Backed away. The blade fell to the side with a dull clank. I cannot do this. The Seven help me, I cannot do this.
She fingered for the dagger. Shoved it back up her skirts and stood up on wobbly feet. Swept the bloodied hair from her face. You might be the death of me, small one, she thought shakily. But I cannot be the death of you.
And then Joanna Lannister ran as far as her feet would take her, although she knew in her heart this was a night she'd be running from until the day she died.
I realize it's been ages since I first posted this story, but, uh... we all know how life can get. I've had this chapter collecting dust on my laptop for a while now and I finally gathered the willpower to give it a little edit. So here it is, I hope you enjoyed. Thanks for the support on last chapter! All the feedback and the faves and the views really helped me push through with this second chapter. I want to say I really like the premise of this story, and it's the one most likely for me to continue. With the final season of GoT just months away I might get inspired to develop it further. In the meantime, thanks for reading, as usual. Comments make my day! Ciao.