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Sunset and Shadows
Caves and Light
"What are you doing here?
The words sounded less than welcoming and Arthur regretted saying them the moment he did. Somehow, he knew that Arel would not raise an eyebrow, a gesture copied by Lord Alric, and say that he felt flattered by Arthur's enthusiasm.
"The same as you," Arel said. "Looking for a chamber. With all those people, I'll be happy if I even find a cot that I'll need to share with only two people."
He wasn't jesting but something did not sound right. Arthur looked at him. "I thought Alynna had her own chambers here."
"She does," Arel agreed. "Or she did. With Errol."
His voice was even and Arthur narrowed his eyes, trying to glimpse what the situation was. The answer didn't appeal to him. Arel's eyes were hiding nothing. There was nothing to hide. He and his new wife were not with each other, had never been, although Alynna had surely recovered from the birth of her last babe, Errol Gargalen's posthumus son.
"When asked, she agreed readily to give them up to whoever needed to be quartered there. She'll sleep with Elia's ladies."
Arthur stared at him. "Don't you care what people are going to think?"
Arel laughed now, harsh and bitter, and angry. "You seem unaware of what people are already thinking. Word has it that I killed Shanai so that I can wed a woman who can give me an heir."
Arthur's jaw dropped. "What? Who says this nonsense?"
"Everyone who likes a juicy gossip," Arel replied. "Like that girl, one of Elia's northern companions. I guess now bets will go just how long I am going to wait before I force myself onto Alynna demanding my conjugal rights. To procure the heir I killed Shanai for."
There was no accusation in his voice and still Arthur felt as foul as he had faced Elia this first time since leaving Dragonstone with Rhaegar a lifetime ago. He had been so close as his brother had lived through this nightmare but instead of being there for him, he had played a nursemaid to a wild woman-child.
"Stop repeating this nonsense," Vorian's voice said behind them, startling them both. They hadn't heard him opening the door, entering the small chamber that was still two times the size of Arthur's cell in the White Sword Tower. "Just because some fools have nothing better to do with their time, it doesn't mean you should sink to their level… I told Doran both of you were staying with me," he went on, having clearly decided that he had given the rumours enough attention. "In Alric's rooms. I suggest we go there now, so people who need this room can use it. Do you need help to collect your belongings, Arthur?"
"No," Arthur said. "Arel will do."
It felt weird to think how little belongings he had after all his years at King's Landing. Very soon afterwards, he entered the rooms that Doran's father now lived in when he was at Sunspear. And he froze.
His brother and uncle noticed his reaction and Vorian nodded. "He chose it this way in person," he said, as if Arthur had said something. "It isn't that Doran threw him in this dungeon. In fact, both he and Mellario were pretty appalled when Alric had this refurnished."
Darkness. All in this solar was stark, severe, serviceable. There were no books on the shelves, no items of art spread around. None of the things that had given the late Princess' husband joy. Nothing of beauty. Not one of the faces of his family that, in the rooms he had shared with Arianne, had stared at the newcomers from all around the rooms from statuettes, tapestries, and even wood. The solar was as devoid of life as Alric had been in the few days Arthur had seen him here after their arrival.
"You and Arel can take the couches," Vorian said. "I'll sleep in his bedchamber."
Arthur wasn't surprised but quite worried to see that the bed in the sleeping chamber was a narrow one. Hasn't Lord Alric taken a woman here? Not once since his lady wife's death? Even before, more likely. Arthur had heard about the Princess' long illness. It sounded quite unlikely that she would have been able to accept Alric in her bed. And for all his notoriety, he wasn't the man who would go to another woman as she lay dying.
"Is he going to come back?" Arthur asked, his voice soft, as if Alric, the way he had been once, could hear them from somewhere and bark a scathing reply. "To himself? Ever? You've known him since childhood. Is he going to overcome it?"
Vorian didn't hesitate – clearly, he had thought about it. "Perhaps," he said. "I think he can do it. Now, if he will – this, I cannot say. But I think that Elia might help – if she can get over her own misfortune. The Seven above see that Loreza isn't doing much for his spirits. Elvar's state isn't exactly encouraging him to return to life either."
"It isn't Loreza's job to recover just to make it easier on him," Arel said sharply. "And it isn't Elia's either! Or Elvar's!"
"I am not saying that it is," his uncle said calmly. "Arthur just asked about Alric." He gave Arthur a shrewd look. "Well, I suppose you can help Alric by helping Elia. Not that it's your job, as your brother is going to say. But you stand a good chance if what I've seen this far can serve as a reference point."
Arthur felt how his cheek became warm and he cursed his fair skin. Now, his brother had come out of his brooding and looking at him curiously. "Is it true? You and Elia? Who knew! What's been going on as I was away?"
"You'll be the first one to know when I get there myself," Arthur promised most sincerely. Had he ever thought that the six other Kingsguard could truly be his brothers? At this moment, it looked impossible to him to have ever believed so and yet he had. "What?"
"It's good to have you back," Arel said and then, without thinking, Arthur reached out. He wasn't pushed away, as he feared that he would be, for a moment. Instead, Arel returned his embrace with equal strength.
"It's good to be back."
Elia woke up to the sound of weeping – deep, heart-wrenching sobs that set her to alarm immediately. What had happened? She scrambled for the candle at her bedside and lit it just when, on the couch, Loreza stirred and looked at Alynna with bleary eyes. "You still weep at night," she murmured, her voice heavy with slumber.
Alynna sniffed. "You still drink all day and night long," she replied.
Loreza agreed readily. "You want some?" she offered generously and produced a bottle. When she filled a goblet, the wine sparkled dark as death. Elia looked away.
Alynna gave the bottle a speculative look.
"No one is going to drink tonight," Elia said firmly, kicked her covers away and loomed over her sister, holding her hand out. Loreza hid the bottle behind her back but that just gave Alynna a chance to take it easily and hand it to Elia.
"I'm sorry," she said softly, her eyes cast down. "I didn't want to wake up either of you."
Impulsively, Elia sat on the couch and hugged both her and Loreza. "By the Seven, Alynna! I should be the one sorry! If it wasn't for me…"
"If it wasn't for him," Alynna said determinedly and sniffed again. "You did nothing wrong."
Neither did you, Elia thought, and yet you lost far more than I did. It was strange, how guilty she felt right now. She felt guilty even for feeling sorry for herself. She had lost her honour, her children's legacy, her crown, her pride – but her sister and cousin had lost loves. Alynna had lost the man she had turned a crown down for. What were Elia's woes compared to theirs!
"We'll get through this," she said determinedly while the three of them still held each other. Suddenly, she felt that she understood Doran's determination to keep her on the surface by the hair if need must far better. "I'll get you through this. You'll see. I'll take care of everything – starting with you."
She rose and took the bottle and goblet in the antechamber. Loreza whined indignantly.
"You can as well get used to it," Elia said sternly. "That was your last drop of wine for quite a while."
Loreza snorted. "Don't be ridiculous! You can't make me…"
"Try me," Elia said. "Doran gave me unlimited powers within this household. And my first order tomorrow morning would be that you not be served any wine. Any booze, in fact."
Growing up in the Water Gardens had showed her just how many cheap substitutes good wine had.
The other women were so stunned that Alynna stopped sniffing and Loreza actually gaped at Elia. I must look quite changed, Elia thought. "Go to sleep, my dears," she said. "Tomorrow, we rise at dawn to go to the market."
The last thing she saw before she blew the candle off was the sight of their stunned faces. She smiled and snuggled comfortably. For first time in more than a year, she was eager for the next day to come.
That night, Elia woke up a few more times, her dream troubled by the fear that she might oversleep. Almost every time, she heard Alynna's sobs but she could do little to help her. She couldn't give Errol back to her. Her father. Her brother. She could only offer comfort that was no good because at the end, they weren't there and when when Elia startled awake next time, Alynna was crying again. At least Loreza was in the merciful oblivion of drunken stupor. At least I have a father, no matter how low in spirits he is.
Finally, Elia rose a little before dawn and without hesitation nudged the other two awake.
"What?" Alynna groaned. "You were serious?"
"It's too early!" Loreza whined but Elia unceremoniously pulled their covers away.
"Get ready!" she ordered. "We're going to the market."
The furnaces had yet to stark cook the morning meals when their group of five women and three guards left the Old Palace. Coral Hightide was looking wide-eyed as the veils of morning mists retreated, turning the waking market into a magical place of abundance and colours. Even the Myrish merchants were at the ready, waiting for victims… err, clients. The girl watched, wide-eyed, as the ever so regal Princess started looking at roll after roll of silks and laces. Slowly, her sister and cousin's interest awoke, too, and Coral had to admit that there was certain charm in the chance to walk around a shop and examine whatever you want instead of being limited to what the merchant had deemed wise to bring to the castle. In no time at all, Elia had chosen two fabrics and insisted that Coral and Ashara choose something as well. The girl soon overcame her initial reluctance. She wasn't making the Princess give her gifts, right?
"And now, let's go to the fresh produce," Elia finally said. "With so many visitors, we should make sure that the kitchens are well-supplied, and only with truly fresh vegetables. The Mother knows how easy it is to get people sick because with such quantity of items, a rotten one is more likely to find its way through."
Coral's amazement reached a new high when, in the rising light, she saw how people reacted to Elia. They knew her; they must have seen here, in the markets, hundreds of times since she had been a child… "We're happy to have you back, Princess," an old man said quite incoherently through his fallen teeth. "The Seven will punish the King for what he did."
"Men can never be relied upon," a portly fisherwoman proclaimed as Elia examined her goods. "What a man would leave such a lovely woman!"
"The North will never rest easily for what they did to you there, Princess Elia," a man vowed. "We need no throne, iron or not!"
Coral could see how moved the Princess was – and how happy. Colour came to her cheeks, her eyes started shining – unlike the other lady, her cousin who looked so uncannily like her and who could barely hold her tears when people addressed her, as well. "Lord Errol was a good man, my lady. I am so sorry for your loss."
"It was the greatest love story known to Dorne. You could have been queen and you refused, all for love!"
"Your father was the greatest head this fleet has ever had. And he was so handsome."
"They will be avenged. Dorne will not forget them."
The lady was weeping again and Coral was all curiosity about this Errol. If Alynna could reject Lord Dayne for him, then he must have been at least equal to the Warrior…
As if brought over by her thoughts, Lord Dayne arrived with sunrise, tall and handsome, the sunrays turning his black hair unexpectedly vibrant. Coral barely tore her eyes off him to the man at his left. She needed a moment to recognize Ser Arthur. It wasn't that she hadn't seen him in something other than Kingsguard white but here, he looked changed. As if he were another man.
"Why so early, ladies?" he asked with the air of long acquaintance. Coral nodded. Another man, yes. She had never heard him address the Princess of Dragonstone, the short-lived queen with such familiarity. "Something that was so important to buy that you couldn't wait?"
"We have a palace to feed, after all," Elia replied. "What about the two of you?"
He shrugged, looking sheepish. "I just wanted to… feel the city, I guess. And Arel was so good to keep me company. So, except for foods, did you buy something for yourselves?"
"Some silks," Elia said and then laughed. "I'm afraid we got carried away, so when we saw some wooden bracelets, we didn't have the money for them. Alynna is still disappointed," she added, pointing at her cousin who was standing a few steps away, still looking at the cheap but beautiful straps of coloured wooden beads.
Arel went to her. "Which one do you want?" he asked and Alynna shook her head.
Her answer was too low for them to hear but Arel's next words filled the gaps. "Alynna, it's nothing, really. Let me do this small thing for you. I am your husband."
A few moments later, the lady returned with a bright string of yellow and violet on her wrist and Coral felt a vague twinge of disappointment that was cut short by the icy look Lady Loreza gave her. She looked down and didn't say a word until they returned to the palace, even when Ser Arthur offered to buy the Princess the wooden jewels that she liked and she accepted.
"I don't care what you say," Elia suddenly announced when she was done with her morning tasks. Her head was pulsing but not quite throbbing yet and she didn't have the time to lie down for a rest. She ordered a cup of tea, hoping that it would make both her head and the babe happy. Looks like she liked it at the market, she thought, delighted. After a few kicks, the babe had quieted down, as if the noise and Elia walking had soothed it to sleep. The sitting position was less to its liking, it seemed, and it couldn't get comfortable. "I am going to the Water Gardens. I want to see Father."
Doran looked up from his parchment. "Very well, I'll send some letters with you."
Elia and Oberyn looked at each other, amazed. "Very well?" Oberyn repeated. "I thought you had forbidden her to go to the Water Gardens."
Doran sighed with the air of someone who had long suffered other people's jumps to conclusions. Arianne looked confused from her father to her uncle and finally Elia. "You did forbid Aunt to go there," she said, corroborating Oberyn's doubts.
Elia was relieved to hear this. At this point, a few moments later she would have started doubting if such a conversation had ever taken place.
Doran sighed again and looked at his daughter, as if he had forgotten that she was here. He might well have – when he was working, Arianne could be very quiet indeed, or he'd evict her in the most cruel way. "Do you not want to go to your mother?" he asked. "It's quite boring here."
"No," the girl stated flatly.
Doran looked at his siblings. "I forbade her to go hiding into the Water Gardens," he explained. "Feeling sorry for herself. Going to see Father is another thing. Besides," he added and smiled, "she'll barely have two or three days to spend there. We'll have a grand reception only two weeks from today. She'll have lots of work."
"Indeed," Elia murmured, stirring so the wooden beads on her ankle rattled – a sound that delighted her no less than it had Rhaenys who had insisted that she got the same bracelet. She intended to take all sorts of books and archives with her at the private residence but even so, Doran was off with no more than a day or two.
Oberyn looked disgruntled. "When I told you that I was going to see Father, you said no."
Doran rolled his eyes. "Are you trying to compare yourself to Elia, Brother? Elia won't try to needle him out of his grief thinking that she's helping. Elia won't tell him that he's wasting his life away and isn't he going to get a grip over himself already? Elia has tact."
Oberyn snorted, reached for the closest cup available, noticed too late that it was Elia's tea and almost snorted it through his nose.
"Tact!" he spat after he got his breathing under control. "You've been nothing but tactful this far – and see where it has brought him! You still think that your way is the better way? We're losing our father, Doran, just as surely as we lost Mother, and I can't believe that you – all of you! You! Grandmother! Uncle Mikkel! – are just sitting idle and let him sink further. And when I try to do something, you actually prevent me from doing so!"
Indeed, Elia agreed inwardly.
Doran, however, looked unmoved. He only stared at Oberyn silently, not denying the accusations. No. He even smiled, weakly. "Do you remember that time nine years ago when we were in Essos? We were hunting along the Rhoyne. We saw a lion – even in Essos, it was a rare beast – and Father wounded it with his spear. We found it dead the next day in its lair. It had hidden there to fight death alone. But if it had pulled through, it would have emerged from the dark cave again in the light, strong and fierce…"
Oberyn looked down, his face stricken. Elia felt uncomfortable looking at him, so she trained her eyes on Arianne instead. Doran didn't add anything either.
"Have you seen him do it before?" Oberyn finally asked. "Pull through?"
"Yes," Doran replied. "I have."
Elia could only hope that she'd see the same thing. Because, while Doran might be right in his assessment, Oberyn was right about his as well: their father was losing all the things that made him.
"That's a lie!"
Bony fingers gripped Lyanna's hand and yanked her back to her seat. "Sit down!" the Queen Mother hissed in her ear. "Do not behave like a screeching peasant woman!"
Pycelle had paused uncomfortably, not quite sure what to do. The King, his face stony, nodded at him to go on but Lyanna spoke again, "It isn't true! Only the gods know what they're hoping to win with this lie. Elia Martell is barren and even if she isn't, the child is not Rhaegar's! It can't be!"
She looked at him to see his own rage at the accusation his embittered former wife had thrown against him. She found none.
Could it be true? No, Rhaegar had told her that he'd repudiate Elia. That he had never loved her. Why would he bed her when he had already decided to send her away? He was no Robert, unable to control his urges. He loved Lyanna. It was all a plot whose purpose she could not understand.
Now, all members of the Small Council looked uncomfortable, avoiding to look at either her or Rhaegar.
"Keep reading," her husband said again icily.
The rest of the letter buzzed around Lyanna's ears, not making its way to her head. Everything was like Rhaegar had expected. Secession. End of diplomatic relationships. Some accusations of dishonourable treatment. All Lyanna could think about was the outrageous claim about the babe that was not Rhaegar's. That did not even exist, most likely.
"Well?" she asked as soon as her husband entered her solar later in the afternoon. "What are you going to do about that?"
He gave her a dark look. "As a start, I won't let you to be present at the meetings of the Small Council."
She gaped. "What?"
He waved her handmaidens away. "How can I when you show such lack of control? The Small Council deals with important business, not little girls' outbursts."
Lyanna stared at him, unable to believe what she was hearing. Now the focus was on her behavior? Not on the fact that he was being described as a monster who had sent his faithful wife away as she was carrying his child?
"Don't you care about the things they're saying about you!" she exclaimed. Oh, she knew about all the things people said about her but they were not to break her. But this was another thing altogether. The merest hint that Rhaegar could be unfaithful to her when their love had cost her so much was enough to bring her wolf blood onto the surface in a gush of blood – hers, and not only. "Even if there is a babe – which you told me is impossible, - only the Seven know who the father is. She must have had an old flame in Dorne if she got with child right away. They're trying to blame it on you, on top of all the other things people blame us about already."
His face went red – for the first time since she knew him. She ground her teeth, holding her ground. Something very strange was taking place here and she was determined to learn what it was.
"Listen to me," he said, very softly, each word pronounced clearly. "This isn't like the things they say about us – the untrue ones, I mean. Doran Martell wouldn't say that there is a child if there isn't. Now, all the world will be looking at them. He's too smart to take such a risk. And there is no flame of Elia's in Dorne. The child is my child. And while I didn't do any of it maliciously, the fact is that I wronged Elia and my children in a most grievous way. I now must think of how to contain the damages to the Seven Kingdoms because, really, I can think of no way to contain the damages I did to her and our babes."
"What about the damage you did to me!" Lyanna yelled. "What about my babe!"
There was only one way for him to think that the babe was his. She had lost her father, Brandon, Ned's love, and the lives of all those best men of the North because of her love for a man who cherished it no more than Robert would have.
She screamed and lunged for him with fists and teeth.