"So you decided to come to the wedding after all," Oberyn said, greeting his former squire Daemon Sand.
Daemon shrugged. "The Knight of Lemonwood is here. And so is his brother. I suppose the three of us could form an honor guard of sort. Princess Arianne's rejected suitors, lining up to watch her wed and bed another man."
There would have been more than just the three, Oberyn thought. A lot more. Arianne had never lacked for suitors.
"Well, to be fair, Ser Deziel and Andrey Dalt never actually asked my brother for Arianne's hand in marriage."
"No, they did not. Why do you suppose that is? Because they knew their place too well, or because I did not know mine? The only bastard in the bunch, and I was the only one foolish enough to go to Prince Doran."
The Bastard of Godsgrace had been a proud, determined boy when he served as Oberyn's squire. Age and a knighthood had not changed that in the least.
"You were the only one bold enough to go to my brother. And he did not reject your suit because you are a bastard."
"I'm sure he did not," Daemon replied, but in a tone of voice that made it clear that he did not believe Oberyn's assertion.
Arianne was promised. Promised for the sake of justice. And vengeance. Doran would have rejected your suit even if you had been the trueborn son of the richest lord in Westeros.
This he could not tell Daemon. Only three people had known about the secret betrothal, and it would remain that way. It was a moot point in any case, with the sudden and unexpected death of Viserys Targaryen.
Viserys had died falling off a horse. What an absurd way to die, Oberyn thought. Not even in the heat of battle.
There was a sister. Daenerys. The last of the Targaryen. Trystane was too young, but Quentyn –
Daemon Sand spoke, interrupting Oberyn's recollection. "What is this Edmure Tully like?"
"Like? Do you mean his looks? Fair, I suppose. He has the Tully look. Red hair, red beard."
A young man desperate to please his father, Oberyn thought. No, desperate to prove himself worthy to his father. Or were those two actually one and the same? Oberyn did not know, never being the sort of man desperate to please anyone in his life.
She saw him walking out of her uncle's bedchamber, taller and bulkier than she remembered. He had grown a beard since the last time she saw him, close-cropped, following the line of his strong jaw. Arianne searched for the sign of his dimples, but he was looking stern and serious, unsmiling, and the dimples did not make an appearance.
She had always loved his smile. And she missed seeing his dimples.
"Ser Daemon," Arianne greeted the man who had taken her maidenhead as if greeting a stranger. In truth, things had never been the same between them since the day her father rejected Daemon's request for her hand in marriage.
It was my father's decision, not mine. You have no right to blame me.
He never said he blamed her, of course. But he drew away from her nonetheless. "If I am not worthy to be your husband, why should I be worthy to be your companion?" He had asked her, when Arianne questioned his ever growing distance from her.
"Drey and I are still close," Arianne replied.
"It is not the same. Ser Andrey is content to love you from afar."
Well, not exactly from afar. Drey would have been her first man, shared with her cousin Tyene, as they had shared many things over the years, if he had not gotten too excited and came too quickly the moment Tyene's fingers did their work. Arianne smiled at the memory, but Daemon's frowning face brought her back to her present predicament.
"We can still ride together. And share a bed," Arianne said, smiling seductively.
"The only bed I want to share with you is our marital bed," Daemon had replied at the time, unsmiling.
He was suddenly smiling now, showing his dimples to his advantage. "I must congratulate you on your wedding, Princess Arianne," he said, his voice cold and aloof, like a stranger.
Princess Arianne. Not Arianne. Or 'my princess', as he used to call her of old.
"Thank you," Arianne replied. "I am very much looking forward to my wedding."
Daemon raised an eyebrow, looking quizzical. "Are you? Looking forward to your wedding?"
"Of course. Why shouldn't I be? Edmure Tully is a very good match." Arianne wished she had not sounded so defensive.
"Well, I suppose he is a vast improvement over Lord Frey or Lord Estermont. But he does not strike me to be your type at all."
It was Arianne's turn to look baffled. "My type? And what exactly is my type, Ser Daemon?"
"Dark, dangerous and unpredictable. Someone like Gerold Dayne, perhaps. I have heard rumors of your growing closeness to him. Edmure Tully sounds more like a tame cat than a fierce tiger. Not so enticing, perhaps, compared to Ser Gerold?"
Arianne did not wish to be reminded of Gerold Dayne. Darkstar. Her dark and dangerous knight. There was nothing there. It was a brief infatuation, and she was over it. Completely, and resolutely, over it.
She was!
"A tame, domesticated cat would make a better husband than a fierce tiger forever roaming the wild," Arianne said. Not that Edmure Tully was precisely that. Arianne was not naïve; she had heard tales of his whoring and wenching. She saw nothing wrong with that. He was an unmarried man looking for a bit of pleasure. Arianne has had her shares of pleasures too.
Her uncle's advice rang in her ears. "If you would wed, wed," the Red Viper had told his own daughters. "If not, take your pleasure where you find it. There's little enough of it in this world. Choose well, though." Pleasures aside, unlike the Sand Snakes, however, Arianne must also wed, and she must wed well. She had always known that. Edmure Tully would do very well indeed.
Daemon Sand was not letting her escape from his gaze. She had forgotten how blue his eyes were. "A tame cat for you, Arianne? I find that hard to imagine," he said, sounding like a tiger ready to pounce on her.
Damn him! Damn the man to seven hells for calling her name in that way. The way he used to when they had shared a bed, and much, much more.
"You will not have to imagine anything, ser. You can see me with your own eyes taking my marriage vows three days from now," Arianne replied brusquely, taking her leave from the Bastard of Godgrace without giving him another glance.
They stopped to rest at an inn just outside the city. Sunspear was beckoning, ever so close, but Hoster Tully looked as if he could not ride even another step.
Back when they were met by the Dornish honor guards at the Boneway, Lord Yronwood had taken one look at Hoster's pale and wan countenance, and offered a litter to take him the rest of the way to Sunspear.
"Prince Doran always travels in a litter," Edmure told his father, trying to induce him to accept the offer. "A carved litter with silk hangings and embroidered suns on the drapes. It is quite a magnificent sight, Arianne told me."
"Doran Martell has been ill with gout for years. I am perfectly well!" Hoster had protested, declining the offer of a litter with alacrity.
He was not, in fact, perfectly well. The pain in his stomach was growing worse by the day. Brynden Tully had not seen his brother in years, and the sight of Hoster when he arrived in Riverrun had been a great shock. His brother had grown portly in his later years, and that was how Brynden still remembered him. But the man standing in front of him was all skins and bones, a pale imitation of the fiercely proud and stubborn brother he remembered.
"So you have decided to come home after all," Hoster said, looking at Brynden with suspicion shining from his eyes. Well, still the same proud and stubborn man, perhaps, even if his flesh seemed to have melted away.
"I came to escort Edmure to Sunspear for his wedding," Brynden replied. Riverrun had not been his home for a long time, not since the day he left to escort Lysa to her husband's home.
"Wedding!" Hoster snorted. "My brother, who ran away from home to avoid marrying a perfectly respectable woman from a perfectly respectable House."
"Ran away? I did no such thing," Brynden replied with accentuated dignity. "I left to serve my niece's husband as his Knight of the Gate. A perfectly honorable and dutiful thing to do, brother."
Hoster's eyes were searching and roaming beyond his brother. "Lysa … is she … did she come with you?" He asked, sounding hopeful.
Brynden shook his head. He had dreaded this moment. "Lysa –"
"I suppose it's the boy," Hoster interrupted. "She couldn't leave her son when he is not well."
Better to let him believe that, Brynden supposed, than to break Hoster's heart with the truth. He felt weary and tired to the bone, all of a sudden. How many times had he done the exact same thing in the past? Acting as a buffer between Hoster and his children, being the one to absorb the blows.
He had no cause for complaint, in truth. He had done it willingly, even eagerly at times. Hoster had once accused Brynden of stealing his children's confidences, during one of their many arguments when Brynden was still at Riverrun.
"It's easy enough for you to play the kindly uncle, the understanding one. They are not your children. You're not the one staying awake night after night worrying about their future," Hoster had said.
Had there been some truth to that? Would he have been different with his own children?
There was no point obsessing about that, Brynden decided. There would never be any children of his own for the Blackfish.
"He wants you, Uncle," Edmure said, after settling in his father in the best room available at the modest inn.
"See to it that Edmure does not make a fool of himself in front of the Martells," Hoster said, when Brynden entered the room. "He would mind too much, if I am the one to admonish him. He can take your criticism more readily."
Brynden snickered. "He will quarrel with me, telling me how wrong and unfair I am, you mean."
"Yes, yes, but he will not take your words too much to heart, the way he does with me."
Brynden sat down on the chair next to Hoster's bed. "Edmure wants to make you proud," he said, after a while.
Hoster looked perplexed. "He is my son. Of course I am proud of him."
"He is afraid of disappointing his father," Brynden continued, before realizing that he was speaking to a sleeping man.