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The Daughter of the Sun

Chapter 10

A few weeks later…

"Do you see something?" Arthur asked upon entering the small room at top of the tower.

Ashara looked through the window one last time and stepped back. "There is no one coming, Arthur."

"Sit down," he said, and she smiled faintly.

"By the Seven, Arthur, I am with child, not sickness." But secretly, she was pleased that her brother showed such concern about her condition. After the less than glorious start, he was turning out to be even more affectionate than usual. He would do not harm to her son. She never really thought he would but still…

But she did sit down. Her belly had started swelling so rapidly that it actually weighed her down… and she was nowhere near the end of her pregnancy.

"Where is your new best friend?" Arthur asked, and Ashara glared.

"Don't joke about that, Arthur," she said. "Ever."

Ashara and Lyanna fought like cats, clawing at each other with polite malicious remarks that sent Oswell Whent scrambling for another voluntarily watch and the Lord Commander pretending that he had suddenly gone blind and deaf. The only time they seemed to get along was when they took turns at the window at the top of the tower, watching in vain for a messenger who would tell them how things were going.

A grey cat made her way into the room and Ashara's lap. She stroked it absent-mindedly. Arthur made a face. "She must have visited the kitchen," he said. "I think I smell your dinner in her breath…"

Indeed, the cat was smelling of fish. Why it should be Ashara's dinner, instead of anyone else's, however, was a mystery.

"I wish I knew what was going on," Ashara said, not for a first time. "Arel is there, along with the Prince and many other of our people."

When most people at court said 'the Prince', they meant Rhaegar, the prince who would one day – hopefully, soon – be king; when Ashara and Arthur talked among themselves, by the Prince they meant Lewyn Martell, the prince of the family they had been born serving to.

Arthur's rough hand covered Ashara's smaller one. "I worry about them also," he said.

After that, they went silent. There was not much they had to say to each other since nothing really happened at the Tower of Joy but they sought countenance in each other. Arthur's gesture in the courtyard of the Red Keep had built an invisible wall between him and the other two Kingsguards. Now, he only had Ashara.

"I dream of Starfall all the time," Ashara suddenly said. "Of how it used to be. Of us."

"Do you?" Arthur asked. He had suppressed these dreams years ago, little by little, forcing himself to forget how it had felt like before the longing for glory had consumed him.

"I dreamed of it last night, once again."

He looked through the window. There was no one there. Only Ser Oswell's white cloak in the yard. Arthur turned again at Ashara. "You know Arel's wife," he said. "I mean, you knew her before you came to King's Landing. What is she like?"

She shrugged and rubbed her belly. "A woman like any other, I guess. Nice, smart, well-mannered…"

That was Arthur's impression, too. And it didn't reveal anything.

"I wish she treated him better," he suddenly said. "He deserves better than what he gets from her."

Ashara slowly shook her head. "Arthur, she loved him in the first years. They were very happy together. I suppose all these miscarriages changed her, made her too scared to try again." She placed a hand at her stomach, protectively.

He considered this. "Maybe you are right. I only want him to be happy. He isn't like us. He didn't do anything to make a muddle of his life."

Here. Finally it was, spoken aloud. They had both wasted their chances. They had both made a muddle of their lives. They had had so much, yet they had always aspired for more, for what was unreasonable, for what would destroy them. He and his quest for glory; she and her inability to wait or at least, take measures to ensure that there would be no consequences of her passions. Arel was different. He had never aspired for more than what he could reasonably gain. Yet he was the one who was now at the battlefield because of a man who was engrossed in romantic notions and unclear prophecies that could be or not be real. A man who was making a muddle of the life of everyone in the Seven Kingdoms right now.

It was only when Arthur reached to wipe her face with his palm that Ashara realized she was crying. He silently took her in his arms and rocked her a little. She reached for him, trying to give the same comfort that she was receiving.

So day after day, they kept waiting.

A few days later…

Lyanna Stark found the book by chance. She had been sitting in the solar with Ashara Dayne when all of a sudden the woman lashed at her again. And because of such a silly reason!

One of the two maid-servants had gone into the room with a comb in her hand. "My lady, you said your own comb broke this morning," she said. "I found this one for you. It was in one of the bedchambers that haven't been used for a while. I washed it for you."

It was a silver comb in excellent condition, with small circles engraved in the handle. Lyanna was just about to take it when Ashara Dayne beat her to it. "This belongs to Princess Elia," she said. "I don't think she gave you permission to use her toiletries but then, you were never shy of taking what is hers without asking, aren't you, Lyanna?"

Lyanna drew her hand back, as if the cold metal would burn her. "I didn't know the Princess had ever come here," she said.

Ashara went to the window and looked through it. From this floor, she could not expect to see anything but the outer walls. Still, Lyanna often did the same. They were all desperate for news that weren't coming.

Ashara turned back. "There are many things you don't know about a life of a princess," she said and smiled. "There is more to it than getting with child by the prince."

Lyanna felt the blood rising to her head. The woman looked at her as if she was the most despicable thing on earth. Who did she think she was? With this belly of hers, she was no better than Lyanna. How dared she pass judgment on her?

"Are you going to tell my brother that he is going to be a father?" she asked sweetly.

Ashara seated herself again, gingerly. "This has nothing to do with him," she said, and Lyanna's jaw dropped.

"Ned isn't… Isn't he the father?" she finally managed. Gods, the woman was worse than she thought!

Ashara looked at the silver comb and placed it on the table next to her.

"Ned has a wife," she said crisply. "The day he wed her, he cut off any ties to me. I don't want anything to do with another woman's husband. I'll never play second fiddle to anyone! My child will never be inferior to another woman's children! He'll be mine and only mine. In Dorne, we view bastards differently. My son will have anything I can give him. I am sure it will be more than he'd ever get in the North."

Lyanna bit her lip. Ned would never let his child grow up in the South without ever seeing its father in person. Never. Ashara should have known that.

"And if I tell Ned?" she asked.

Ashara laughed. "Go on," she said. "You'll spare me the trouble. Ned will be welcome to Dorne to meet his son – but he will be Dornish and a child only of his mother."

Lyanna recoiled. "How cruel you are," she whispered, stunned.

"No crueler than a man who promised the world to me and then wed another woman to gain an army," Ashara said calmly. "No crueler than a girl who started a war because of pangs of love." The way she said it, 'pangs of love' sounded like something unclean. Lyanna bolted out of the room before she could further disgrace herself with crying.

This afternoon, she kept to her room, not feeling up to going outside and meeting someone's eye. Did they all think she was… what Ashara Dayne had called her? They probably did. Ashara was the only one who'd say it to her face, that was it. And they were right. She was the one to blame – for the war, for the fact that Ned had had to marry the Tully girl, for Father and Brandon's deaths…

When her tears finally dried up, she looked around the room for something to engage her mind with. She had personally cleaned up each corner; she had read each book. Except for the one at the far end of the rack. Now, she pulled it.

It was a record of tournaments that had taken place at Dorne, starting with the one at the wedding of Prince Maron Martell and Princess Daenerys Targaryen, almost a hundred years ago. The champion had been a Ser Balan Gartnar who had crowned the new Princess of Dorne Queen of Love and Beauty, as it was to be expected. Without much interest, her eyes flew over the names of knights and ladies until the last names suddenly caught her attention. The scribe had stopped taking records about eight years ago, so the last tournaments mentioned were quite old. The names were hard to miss, though. Ser Arthur Dayne. Princess Elia Martell. Ser Arthur Dayne. Princess Elia Martell. Ser Manfred Fowler and Lady Lyenne Fowler. And Ser Arthur Dayne and Princess Elia Martell yet again.

What is going on here, Lyanna thought and checked the years again. There was no mistake. Before taking the white cloak, Ser Arthur Dayne had won three tournaments in Dorne and each time, he had crowned Elia Martell Queen of Love and Beauty.

Lyanna shook her head, as if to clear it. An old memory suddenly came to life. Elia will forgive me soon, Rhaegar had told her. And it isn't as if she hadn't had her fair share of laurels. After all, each time Arthur wins, he gives her the crown. And that had been after Rhaegar and Elia wed. Probably the reason no one had thought twice about Ser Arthur's very consistent behavior. It was entirely proper for a Kingsguard who could never take a wife to honour his future queen.

Still, it did not explain the pattern before Elia's wedding. Who was Rhaegar's wife, truly? Was it possible that she was as faithful to him as he was to her?

Lyanna really didn't know.