Andromeda:
I sit in the stuffy carriage with my sisters, trying not to inhale the stench that is already wafting in from King's Landing, which still lies a mile away. Narcissa is peacefully sleeping, as she has been throughout the voyage, a bit of drool on the fine gown of red silk and black Myrish lace that Mother had commissioned especially for her, and in her curled and styled hair. I cannot help but smile at our small, lovely family favorite.
I should have continued pretending I was asleep.
"She is a beastly little thing, isn't she?" Bellatrix proclaims, sneering down at her. She prods at Cissy's cheek with a bony finger, as if testing to see if she will wake, then pinches her when there is no response. The little one stays sleeping, but no longer looks untroubled. I sigh.
"Why must you torture her so?" She scowls like a petulant child.
"She deserves it. Besides, we all know no one else will." At this, she crosses her arms over her chest, as if daring me to challenge her. I am not one to back down from a challenge.
"The reason no one is unkind to her is because she is a sweet, good child, not to mention your sister! What has she ever done to make you hate her so?"
"She is a filthy blood traitor!" she shouts, hysterical. "If you would open your eyes, you would see it! Have you ever seen the way she looks at that boy! The squire!" I roll my eyes at her antics.
"I have seen it. If that is all that worries you, have no fear. It is but a silly flirtation, harmless. I went through much the same." She inhales deeply, then exhales.
"Your dalliances were always with knights or lords. Those you could have married, had the flirtation escalated. But this boy, he is not of the blood. If she thinks she loves him, if he gets it in her head that she must prove that…"
"Nothing will come of it, Bella. And if it does, she must know that we are here for her. We will be the ones to bring her moon tea, to bring her to hedge witches for cures." She wrinkles her nose in disgust.
"I will do no such thing. If she lays with him, or any like him, she is a blood traitor. I will not have my family feel the shame of the Weasely's." She spits on the ground, spattering Anni's dress, and I begin to feel the fury I have tried to suppress bubble up inside of me. "If she wishes to dirty herself with that mud-" I slap her hard with the back of my hand, my ring connecting with her teeth.
"She. Is. Your. Sister. And more importantly, it would seem, she is mine. I swore by the Seven when she was born that no one would ever harm her, Bella. You swore the same oath at our cradles. And for me, that oath includes protecting her from you." I am silent for a moment, and so is she.
"The Lady Merope was King Morfin's sister," she says. "I wonder if he swore the same oath." And before I can respond, the full smell of that heap of shit we call a capital hits me, and Bella turns away.
I sit in front of my mirror, in the room provided to me by His Grace. I have seen the rooms of the lesser branches of my family, and mine is far larger and more opulent. Every wall is covered with elaborate tapestries, the floor with a luscious rug. The furnishings are hand carved and the mirror is made of glass, not bronze. It is perhaps the most beautiful room I have ever stayed in.
I do not like it. My mother and father taught me in my youth that lords do not give ladies gifts for nothing and it would be a lie to say that I do not know what our new king wants. I have been told since I was old enough to understand what beauty was that mine would bring me far in this world. My sisters were taught the same. For a time, all we knew was the flirtations and courtly love one will find at a court such as Hightower. And then some fool minstrel wrote The Black Flowers, about the beautiful maiden daughters of the Reach, and suddenly knights and lords flocked to my father for our hands. Father has yet to accept any of these proposals, perhaps because there are too many of them, or perhaps because Bella must be married before us. And if he chooses wrong for her, she will send him her lord husband's head in place of a son.
Someone knocks at the door, startling me out of the dark thoughts that always accompany Bella's name.
"Come in," I say, and a fleet of maids obey my command. They help me into my gown, an almost identical one to that Cissy wore on the carriage ride, except that mine seeks to accentuate my woman's figure. The lilies of House Black are embroidered onto the sleeves and skirt and pearls line their edges. It is beautiful and painful and it takes an hour to put it on correctly. There are hours of dressing after that, where the maids pile my hair upon my head, cover my face in powder, and add dabs of perfume behind my ears, on my wrists and on any other place that could possibly transmit the smell of lily-of-the-valley. It is only after this torturous preparation that I can walk outside of my bedroom.
I walk down the stairs with my perfect posture and a courtier's smile, barely able to breathe. As I reach the bottom, Mother smiles.
"Andromeda, you are lovely," she says, with a delighted smile. I bow my head in acknowledgement.
"Thank you, Mother," I reply. I am turning around to see if Bella is coming down the stairs when a small body runs up and hugs me from behind, nearly knocking me over.
"By the gods, Dromeda! You look beautiful!" she exclaims. I remove her arms from my torso and turn around to look at her.
"I find that hard to believe when I look upon the image of the Maiden herself." She grins and blushes, tucking her hair behind her ear.
"Oh, I wouldn't say that, Dromeda dear." Cissy's face falls as Bella comes sweeping down the stairs, yards of white and red fabric trailing behind her. She reaches down and pats the younger girl firmly on the cheek, then turns back to me.
"Cissy is very pretty, but we mustn't be blasphemous." She looks down at Mother with a stare that is somehow both innocent and condescending. "Right Mother?"
Mother is confused for a moment, then smiles and nods.
"Yes Dromeda. We must be certain to honor the Seven, even above our own families." She hugs Cissy and kisses her forehead.
"Even if that family includes the loveliest ladies in all of Westeros," she says and pulls me and Bella close as well, kissing us on the cheeks.
"My girls shall be the greatest ladies in the land." she says, smiling at us. Bella tosses her hair.
"Who knows, Mother?" She grins. "Perhaps one Black lady shall be the greatest in the land."
Mother looks around frantically, making sure no one is listening.
"You mustn't say such things here, Bella," she murmurs. "In the Red Keep, the walls have ears."
It is obvious that Bella doesn't care.
"Let them hear. What can they do? I will marry him or I will not. I will be queen or I will not. I have no control in the manner. Varys' little birds have no control in the manner. It is only the king who can decide." I stare hard at my mother and sister, for what they say is madness.
"If I recall correctly, the king is married. To Queen Rhaella." Father snorts from behind me and I jump, startled.
"The king's marriage to the queen is a sham. It was orchestrated by Morfin, and none of his decisions have ever been accepted by the lords or the people." He tuts, and makes a motion as if to muss Bella's hair, then pulls his hand back as she glares at it. He smiles nervously, and then regains his composure as the Lady of Winterfell comes sweeping down the stairs with her two younger children.
"What man would choose to stay married to his sister when he could marry a Black flower of the Reach?" he booms. I try not to roll my eyes, and Lady Potter raises her eyebrows slightly at his words, before entering the carriage with the little ones. Father sees this eyebrow raise and stiffens, mortally insulted.
"Our girls are pure perfection, the very definition of a good Southern lady. All of them are far more beautiful than any other woman in the land, and they know a woman's place. They sing beautifully and are still more beautiful when they dance. Their sewing is perfection and they have such wide hips, that they will bear many children to their husbands. In short they will be wonderful wives." As the carriage sits waiting, he begins to stage whisper. "I have heard that women of the North are absolutely barbaric. In fact, I have heard that Lord Potter's oldest daughter acts as a man, only not as well!" He roars at his own jest, and slaps his knee. James Potter comes running down the stairs and into the carriage, and as it drives away, Lady Potter looks at us through the window. Her face does not change, but I can tell from her eyes that the Reach has gained an implacable enemy today.
Father has always thought that he must be the best at everything, and that he must have the best of everything. He wanted to be the best father, so he piled gifts upon us when we were good and beat us within an inch of our lives where no one would see when we were bad. He wants to be the best liege lord, so whenever his vassals pay him tribute, he throws a feast for them which wastes half of the resources we gain from these trips. He wanted to have the best castle, so he nearly bankrupted us on repairs to Hightower. And now he has decided that his daughters must have the best husbands. He is a good man, or at least a decent one, but he is foolish and prideful. And now some idiot has put the idea of his daughter on the throne into his head and he has made an enemy of the wife of one of the most respected lords in Westeros. All he ever tries to get is the best, and often his grasping means that he loses it.
Bella, Cissy, and I climb into the carriage with Father still blustering about how his daughters will be the greatest ladies in all Westeros, and how many sons we will bear our husbands, talking on and on about the large size of our hips and the small size of our stiches while Mother tries desperately to shush him. The carriage driver sits waiting for them to finish their bickering and get in the carriage. Bella leans forward and taps him on the shoulder.
"You may take me and my sisters to the Sept of Baelor." The driver looks at our parents and opens his mouth to protest. Bella laughs, with an amount of cruelty only she could imbue into a sound that is normally happy.
They shall not be done for a while. We are the reason our family is here anyway." He still looks unsure. She sighs dramatically and throws herself back into her seat. "They have another carriage you know! Situations like this one are the entire reason we brought it!" He shakes his head, finally having made up his mind.
"I'm sorry milady. I can't leave without milord in the carriage. I have orders." Bella's eyes narrow, the laughter gone out of them. She gives a tight-lipped smile.
"What is your name, boy?" she asks.
"I'm Theodore Tonks, milady. But most folks call me Ted." Her smile spreads across her face.
"Well, Ted, if this carriage does not start taking me to the coronation of the man who will be my husband very soon, I will be supremely displeased. More concerning, I think, for you than for my parents." He is confused. I sigh. Why must she always do this?
"You see, they are my parents after all, no matter how useless they be. I can't do anything to them. But you." She pauses to take in the fear beginning to show in his eyes. I feel an odd urge to protect him, as I always do with those who attract my sister's wrath. But I keep silent, as always, and let her continue. "You are only a servant. Barely a person really. You practically belong to me. Yes, I can do whatever I want to you. And have you heard, Ted Tonks, what I do to those who displease me?"
"No milady," he says, not looking at her.
She is out of her seat faster than I can see, her lips next to his ear in a motion as quick as a viper.
"I flay them." He turns white and turns around. He clicks his tongue at the horses and flicks his whip.
"Yes milady," he says. She flops back down into her seat, then goes to the window with me to see our parent's reactions to their only chariot leaving without them.
Father doesn't even notice that the carriage has left. He is deep in conversation with his brother Orion. Mother sees, and goes white as a sheet, before discreetly whispering some orders in one of the servant's ear. She then goes back to listening to them speak, probably about what good, and obedient daughters he has.
"Sometimes, they are truly ridiculous," Bella says plainly. Cissy laughs and so do I, all of us unified for once, as sisters should be. And the situation is so absurd, that we have gone from listening to whispered threats to mocking our foolish parents, that I laugh all the harder. By the time the hysteria had died down, I am gasping, thoroughly out of breath. I loosen my stays, and turn my face back out the window, looking once more at the decidedly silly pair. I then turn towards our destination, trying to calm down so I am not red-faced when I meet our new king.
The king, whose elder brother Aegon died when Tom was thirty-nine, of an illness after forty-eight years of perfect health. The king, who was born of incest between sister and brother, who has given his own sister two children, and quiets the traitorous words against him by killing those who are even rumored to have accused him of any perversion or bastardry, whether they be whores or septons. The king, a sinner and a perhaps a madman, who, if my parents have their way, may well be my brother in law, or even my husband.