Sansa retires early in the evening after spending most of the day wrapped up in blankets beside a roaring fire despite the heat, but the maester, a fidgety little man with eyes that seem too big for his face, is confident that the tincture he left for her will break her fever within two days.
"Do you know," Garlan says lightly as Willas closes the door to the bedchamber as quietly as he can. "I don't think I've ever seen you this concerned about someone else's health since I had redspots."
"Oh, be quiet," Willas laughs, shaking his head. "I suppose I'd better go find Father, hadn't I?"
"He will expect an apology," Garlan agrees. "Although he was rather out of line, him and Grandmother both."
Willas scowls and tightens his grip on his cane.
"Grandmother and I will be having serious words," he promises. "She- I cannot even begin to understand how she thought Sansa and I might set aside our marriage."
"She knows full well that Aegon Targaryen will likely refuse Margaery as his queen," Garlan points out. "But she still wants to be able to influence him through his wife – doubtless she was sure that Sansa would be so grateful to her and Marg for getting her away from the Lannisters that she would do whatever was asked of her." He grins suddenly. "You're a bad influence on your lady wife, brother – I'll bet she was putty in Grandmother's hands before she was left alone with you."
"My bitterness towards House Tyrell does have a nasty habit of rubbing off on people," Willas agrees mildly, pausing in the corridor to exchange a word with the guard on his and Sansa's rooms before limping alongside Garlan as quickly as he can. His leg is aching something terrible, worse since his exertions earlier in the day, but he knows better than to let Garlan see his discomfort – Willas loves his brother, but the moment Garlan senses that Willas is in any sort of pain, he turns into a fussing nursemaid that would shame any matron. Willas sometimes thinks that Mother is the only person at Highgarden who understands how important his independence is to him, how much his pride suffers when someone tries to do something for him on account of his leg.
He is thankful that Father's rooms aren't far from his and Sansa's, even though in a strange way he wishes they were further away so he might put off doing this for a little while longer.
Grandmother is, of course, sitting in Father's solar – he has yet to move to the Tower of the Hand for whatever reason – with her feet propped up on a little stool, Margaery sitting across from her with Meryn Trant lounging idly against the wall behind her. Willas spares a moment to glare at the false knight – what sort of man strikes an innocent girl? – before turning to the table on the far side of the room.
Father's left eye is purple and red and black and almost swollen shut, and Willas feels guilty and smug in equal measure.
"I owe you an apology," he says, letting the guilt rise to the fore. "I should not have struck you earlier today, Father. Nor should I have spoken as I did. I- I am sorry."
"As well you should be," Grandmother grouses from her place by the fire, sniffing her disapproval. "After the way you spoke, an apology is only the start of it-"
"Mother," Father cuts her off, waving a dismissive hand that leaves Grandmother's mouth hanging open in shock. Willas is surprised, too – he cannot remember Father ever standing up to Grandmother. Ever. It simply doesn't happen. "Enough. I will speak with Willas alone."
Garlan raises his eyebrows, but he takes Leonette's hand and leads her out of the room with a grim smile at Willas. Margaery and Grandmother are slower to leave, fussing about their skirts and sewing baskets and any distraction they can lay hands on before finally they have no choice but to walk out.
"Father?" Willas prompts as soon as the door closes in their wake. "If I offended you more seriously than I imagined, I do apologise – my temper-"
"Your temper had nothing to do with it," Father says. "Sit. Would you care for a cup of wine?"
"I- No, no thank you," Willas says, utterly nonplussed. "Father-"
"You seem to be under the impression that I despise you," Father says, sipping his own wine and looking down at the papers on the desk before him. "No doubt your grandfather and uncle helped foster that misapprehension, but your mother has always been of the opinion that I did little to disillusion you of it."
Willas says nothing. He doesn't know what he's supposed to say.
"You are my son," Father says after a long pause. "Mayhaps it was wrong of me to send you to Oldtown when you were a child, but I never intended for you to stay so long – your grandfather wished to meet you, and then, when you were due to return home there was an outbreak of the sweating sickness and… By the time it was cleared, you were more settled in the High Tower than you had ever seemed in Highgarden, and you always seemed so happy there…"
"I would have been happy at Highgarden. It is my home, Father. It always has been."
Not entirely true – there have been times when Willas has considered the High Tower more his home than Highgarden, but that had more to do with how welcome he feels in the two than anything else, and telling Father that would improve neither of their moods.
"That's something, at least," Father sighs. "Your mother and your brothers missed you more than I did, I admit – we were on shaky ground with the King after laying siege to Storm's End during the rebellion, after all, and there was much political manoeuvring to be done to ensure that Highgarden would still be ours for you to inherit."
"I-"
"Loras is my favourite and always has been," Father says bluntly. "Garlan I find easiest to talk with, and Margaery is my only daughter. You are my heir, though, Willas. My eldest son. My firstborn. I fathered no children by any woman but your mother, of that I can assure you, and so you are undeniably my firstborn. We have never been close – there is too much of Baelor bloody Brightsmile in you for that, and too much Tyrell in me, I fear."
"I have only ever wanted- Father, I-" Willas, for the first time in a very long time, finds himself completely tongue-tied. He wishes desperately that Mother were here – she seems more capable of translating Father than anyone else, and surely Father can't actually mean what he's saying?
Father's hand is heavy on Willas' shoulder.
"You are my heir," he says again. "And, for her sins, Sansa Stark is your wife. I, too, spoke out of turn this afternoon. Bah, you've always been too intelligent for your own good – your grandmother worries that she won't be able to use you the way she uses me when you take my place."
"Mayhaps Grandmother will predecease you, Father."
Father snorts in an unseemly show of amusement.
"That old harridan will live forever," he says flatly, shaking his head. "We will put this afternoon aside – and yes, I am willing to do so rather than punishing you for striking your lord as is my right-"
The thought alone makes the blood drain from Willas' face. In the Reach, the punishment for striking your lord is to be flogged in the square of your nearest town by that lord's chosen guardsman, thanks to Randyll bloody Tarly and his fervent devotion to cold, hard justice.
"- and so I hope you will do the same. You are still going to Storm's End at your earliest possible convenience. As soon as your wife is fit to sit a horse-"
"I'm bringing Garlan and Leonette," he blurts out abruptly, startling Father. "If- The Faith has yet to name a champion to stand against this Robert Strong in Cersei Lannister's trial. I worry that they may choose Garlan because I intervened on Margaery's behalf and they can't name me, for obvious reasons."
Father sits back sharply, paling at the thought. Willas shared everything Baelor told him about this Qyburn, including the suspicions that could be taken from the report, and while Father had dismissed the notion of the Mountain's headless corpse wearing Kingsguard white, the idea had planted a seed of queasy fear in the back of his mind.
"And Garlan's presence will be a greater recommendation of House Tyrell's fealty," Willas adds hopefully. "We-"
"Very well," Father says, rising suddenly. "Sansa Stark will remain your wife, and you will bring her and your brother with you when you go to treat with the Mummer's Dragon."
"You do not believe that he can truly be Aegon Targaryen, Father?"
Father's mouth twists in disgust.
"Of the Targaryens, Willas, I will believe anything at all."
It is not until later, while climbing into bed beside Sansa, that Willas realises he has been manipulated into doing precisely what his father and grandmother want once more.
Then again, considering the last decision they made for him was to marry him to Sansa, mayhaps they do occasionally know best.
"What did your father say?" she asks, rolling over into his arms and pressing her face into his throat. She's still far too warm, but she's not giving off those alarming waves of heat anymore, which is a relief.
"He apologised, and made some attempt at explaining why precisely I was never brought home from Oldtown," he tells her, pressing a kiss to the tangle of hair at her crown. "And then, when Grandmother came back in, he didn't open his mouth while she and I fought over her treatment of you."
"You didn't have to do that," she murmurs, matching his kiss with a brush of her fever-dry lips against his pulse. "But thank you."
"Bugger her if she thinks she can take you away from me," he grumbles, wrapping her tighter in his arms and pulling her closer, until she's entirely on top of him. "The gods were good enough to give you to me, and my grandmother can holiday in each of the seven hells if she thinks to stand between us."
Sansa is drastically better the next morning, but still weak – the maester visits again and prescribes four days of bedrest and plenty of hearty food to build her strength back up.
"The King was stricken with the same illness just last week," the little man confides as he packs up his bottles and vials. "Five days and he was right as rain – it is a mercy that Lady Tyrell is not with child, else I fear her situation may have been considerably worse."
"Excuse me?"
"Such fevers, if a breeding woman contracts them… They thin the blood, my lord, so much so that miscarriage is almost inevitable, and that can often have a dire effect on a lady's health, especially one so young as Lady Tyrell- but pardon me, my lord. I speak out of turn."
He bows and excuses himself, and Willas lowers himself into the nearest chair with a heavy sigh.
He and Sansa agreed to wait before even considering having a child – Sansa is just gone three-and-ten, is still grieving for her family, and much as they would like to deny it, they are still not secure enough in their marriage to be comfortable with the idea of bringing a child into it – but the strange looks and unwelcome opinions offered on the subject are wearisome. On the one hand is Grandmother, constantly badgering them for an heir, and on the other is the likes of the maester, quietly disapproving of a man Willas' age having a wife Sansa's, and suggesting without saying a word that they mayhaps put off having children for the foreseeable future.
He knows that it bothers Sansa even more than it does him – she, after all, was raised to think that her only true duty in life was to bear her husband's children. To him, it's more important that she finds some measure of genuine happiness again, something more than the safety and peace he has offered her thus far, but he knows that that niggling doubt is always present in the back of her mind.
He sighs again and leans his head into his hands, wondering when things will start to make sense again. He loves Sansa – he's not afraid to admit it – but having her in his life makes things incredibly complicated.
Garlan, of course, is ecstatic at the idea of joining them at Storm's End.
"A fine adventure!" he laughs, clapping Willas on the shoulder when he raises the subject over dinner the following evening. Sansa is sitting with Leonette on the other side of the table, poking half-heartedly at a bowl of what Aldwin and Marian reported as being "hearty broth, milord, so says that fat old bitch of a cook, but we had a good poke at it and it don't seem to hearty to us, milady" when they brought it up from the kitchens. She smiles faintly at Garlan's enthusiasm before catching Leonette's wry gaze and having to stifle a giggle.
"Mayhaps I should just stuff you in a sack and tie you to Florian's saddle so you can't make a fool of yourself," Willas suggests dryly, leaning back in his chair and absentmindedly swirling his cup of wine. "Behave like this with the Mummer's Dragon and he'll have us all on the cookfire."
"Oh, he's young enough that he'll doubtless be bored of stuffy old farts kissing his boots. Mayhaps he'll play a game or two of cyvasse – you can embarrass him into doing whatever we want that way. You're ruthless."
Sansa's hair is still the most beautiful thing in Willas' world save perhaps her smile or her eyes, and so it is with the greatest of pleasure that he shifts all his weight onto his right leg and stands behind her to help her brush it out for bed that night.
"I might be a liability," she says suddenly. "With Prince Aegon. I- His father and my aunt-"
"You will be at Storm's End as the future Lady of Highgarden," Willas murmurs, humming in disappointment when her hair starts to stand up of its own accord. She always makes him stop when it does that. "And, once we can assure ourselves of his relative sanity – always remembering that he is, after all, a Targaryen – we may or may not reveal that you are a Stark of Winterfell by birth. I won't allow any harm to come to you, little wolf," he promises, setting down the hairbrush – a pretty thing back with silver and mother-of-pearl, a gift from Mother so Sansa wouldn't have to bring her good heavy silver-backed brush and mirror with her to the city – and gently pulls Sansa back against his chest, his arms around her shoulders. She lifts her hands and holds tight to his wrists, closing her eyes and sinking into his embrace, and he finds himself oddly proud of how safe she feels with him.
"Do you swear it?"
"Sansa, my love, I shouted at Olenna Redwyne for you – Aegon Targaryen is nothing after my grandmother."
The third day of Sansa's convalescence is spent sitting in the window seat of their solar with her feet tucked under her and her sewing in her lap. Marian and Leonette volunteer to keep her company, and even Margaery offers – an offer that is quickly refused, of course, because with Margaery comes Meryn bloody Trant – but it is with Marian tucking a quilt around Sansa's shoulders and Leonette chatting over the lip of her teacup that Willas and Garlan leave the ladies for a day spent riding out with Father.
"You tell him that, with Margaery in the capital, we cannot move openly against the Lannisters just yet. We need to be sure that we haven't another Renly-"
"If we declare for Aegon Targaryen, Father, he will have Sunspear, Highgarden and Storm's End all in the palm of his hand. Doubtless Dragonstone would be easily taken again now that it's been taken once, which would leave a good lump of the realm under his control," Willas notes. "The North is in shambles, the Vale is maintaining a very careful silence, and nobody seems to know who precisely is in control of the Riverlands."
"Lysa Arryn is dead," Father says, seeming surprised by the words coming from his mouth. "She married Petyr Baelish recently, apparently – he's acting as Lord Protector for her son."
Willas grimaces, wondering if this is one more revelation that will break something else in Sansa – he knows that she met her aunt only once and barely remembers the woman, if at all, but she was still kin, still family, and Sansa has precious little of that left.
"Littlefinger," is Garlan's less-than-pleased response. "That bastard. I trust him even less than the eunuch-"
"Mind your tongue," Willas says sharply. "The Spider's web has no end."
"Bugger him," Garlan huffs, but he says no more on the subject of Varys the Eunuch, the only man Willas is certain would smile as his paid assassin slipped a knife between your ribs. "Willas has the right of it though, Father – if we could somehow get Margaery out of the city without the Lannisters realising…"
"You did it for Sansa," Willas points out. "And at the time, she was just as valuable as Margaery is now – although I do not think we would need to resort to subterfuge to get my sister to Highgarden."
"What do you mean?" Father asks, nonplussed. "She's watched like a hawk-"
"It would be a simple matter of my going to the High Septon and offering to take Margaery into my custody – we would of course have to remove ourselves from the den of sin and iniquity that is King's Landing, of course, and I might have to promise to take her to Oldtown for a time, but it should work well enough. Still, I think the Red Keep is the safest place for Margaery for the moment. Better her here where she can help influence King Tommen than at Highgarden where she can do little more than fume-"
"What of Storm's End?" Father suggests, and he seems surprised when Willas and Garlan exchange a look of astonished amusement before laughing so hard Garlan has to cling to Florian's neck to stop from falling and Willas only stays upright thanks to his extra-secure saddle.
"Father, please, leave Storm's End to Garlan and I," Willas says, wiping away an errant tear of mirth. "Given how precarious our position will inevitably be with this scion of House Targaryen, I imagine Margaery's particular brand of subtlety may work to our disadvantage."
"How do you intend convincing him of our loyalty, then?"
Garlan grins, fingers drumming on the hilt of his sword as they do when he's anxious about something, and Willas commends him silently for controlling himself so well in front of Father.
"Willas will take him apart on the cyvasse board until Aegon gives in and does as we tell him," he says with a raised eyebrow. "There'll be no need to prove our loyalty if the king is eating out of my brother's hand, Father."
Father is less amused by their japery than they are, but it is better than telling him their actual plans, which involve giving up rather more than Father would stand for, Willas knows.
Aegon Targaryen is Elia Martell's son, after all, and there is a long-standing enmity between Houses Tyrell and Martell that Willas and Oberyn, Seven bless his marvellously wicked soul, were the exception to.
The Lord of Highgarden has always been the Warden of the Reach. If allowing the Prince (or Princess) of Dorne to assume the title of Warden of the South is what it will take to prove that the Tyrells are fully in support of their "rightful" King (as they were with Renly, against Willas' advice, as they were with Joffrey and now are with Tommen, the poor – literal – bastard), then that is what the Tyrells will do.
But Father cannot be told that, and so Willas and Garlan will quietly assume plenipotentiary status without actually clarifying with Father and do whatever it takes to keep the Tyrells in Highgarden.
He's barely in the bedchamber with the intention of bathing before dinner but he's hit by the not-rosemary scent of Sansa's hair and skin. She's bathing behind a screen of pale blue silk set up in the corner of the room, and he's settling into the deep copper tub behind her before he even remembers crossing the room.
"Good evening, my lord," she says archly, not objecting when he pulls her back into his lap and drops his mouth to her shoulder. "How was your day?"
"Reasonably pleasant," he tells her, his voice muffled against the sweep of her collarbone. "And yours, my lady?"
"The same," she sighs, letting her head fall back over his shoulder. "I feel much better."
He wraps his arms tight around her and nuzzles into her neck for a long, long moment, luxuriating in the feel of her skin against his and resolutely ignoring his arousal until she is completely limp against his chest, and even then all he does is lament that he isn't alone to deal with it.
"We will be leaving in a few days," he murmurs into her neck.
"Have you ever been to Storm's End?" she asks, reaching up one hand to scratch at his scalp until he purrs – his scalp, they've found, is incredibly sensitive. Her hair is twisted up into a towering pile of copper on top of her head, pins glittering everywhere to hold it in place, and he wishes it were loose so he might bury his face in the silk of it. "I have not."
He has been to Storm's End, of course, several times, and he has always found it…
"It's very big," he says honestly. "There is a reasonable sized market within the walls, but the town is perhaps half a mile away. The castle itself, though… I honestly cannot describe it much beyond big, Sansa. Huge walls of yellow sandstone, Baratheon stags bloody everywhere – although I imagine the whole place will be hung with three-headed dragons, now."
"I've never seen a Targaryen banner," she admits, her voice hushed.
"You've seen the sigil?"
"Of course I have! I did study with Maester Luwin, you know-"
"I know, little wolf, I know," he laughs, lifting his head to look into her eyes. "The banners… I remember visiting the capital with Grandfather and Baelor when I was quite young, before the rebellion. Mad Aerys was still on the throne, the dragon skulls still decorated the throne room… The entire city was hung in scarlet dragons. I was terrified of them – all I was used to was Tyrell roses and the High Tower and the other portsmen's sigils, none of which are near so threatening as a great big scarlet dragon with three heads roaring everywhere all over the city. Half the furniture in the Keep was destroyed when Robert took the throne, because Aerys was obsessed with dragons – he had them carved into everything. Most of the decorative stonework was done during his reign, all that awful nonsense around the entrance and the like."
"Awful nonsense" of three-headed dragons feasting on direwolves and lions and trout, swallowing the sun and stamping down roses, burning falcons from the sky and tearing krakens from the sea. Willas always wondered why Robert Baratheon didn't have the damn thing done away with, monstrosity as it is.
"Enough about dragons," she whispers, twisting a little further to kiss behind his ear, her hand sneaking down between her legs for his pleasure rather than her own. "I see our agreement is weighing heavy on you, husband," she teases, fingers closing around him before he can raise an objection. "It is a wife's duty to attend to her husband's needs."
Willas usually argues when Sansa brings up her duty as his wife – she has some funny notions that he generally goes out of his way to disabuse – but he finds himself entirely incapable of speech just now.
He returns from a meeting with Father and several of the Tyrell bannermen who have come to the city the following afternoon to find the hulking mass of this Robert Strong standing guard at the door of his and Sansa's rooms, and immediately feels sick.
"He never leaves Cersei Lannister's side," Garlan murmurs, his brow creasing into a deep frown. "You don't think-"
"I do," Willas says grimly, marching as effectively as he can past the silent knight and throwing open the door.
Sansa is all but cowering in the window seat, her back flush against the diamond-paned glass, and Cersei Lannister is sitting nearby, leaning forward in her chair, the light glinting on her over-exposed scalp.
"Your Grace," Willas says, crossing the room with only the smallest, most perfunctory of bows and sitting beside Sansa. "To what do my lady and I owe the pleasure?"
Cersei's smile poorly hides the malicious intent she clearly had in mind, and she rises carefully, watching him with hard eyes.
"It has been long since last I saw Sansa," she says, her voice warmer by far than those bitter eyes. "I wished to enquire after her health – is it not natural that I would be concerned, Lord Willas? She was to be my daughter before your sweet sister usurped her place."
"Natural," he agrees. "And you, Your Grace? I hope that you are in good health after your… ordeal?"
Her jaw tightens visibly at the reminder of her shame, but she maintains that smile-that-is-not-a-smile.
"Exceptional health, my lord," she assures him, sickly sweet, before turning to Garlan. "I have heard your name mentioned as the Faith's champion in my trial, ser – will you raise arms?"
"Alas, Your Grace, I cannot," Garlan says, bowing his head as though it truly is a pity. "Lamentably, I must be gone from the city within the next few days – my lady and I must return to Brightwater, to stamp down the last of the Florent loyalists. There are unfortunately many."
A blatant lie, but one Cersei is likely to believe.
"They must be eradicated," she says with a surprising fervour. "Very well, my lord, Ser Garlan – Sansa." She spares an especially cutting smile for Sansa before sweeping for the door.
It clicks shut in her wake, and Sansa clambers over into Willas' arms the moment it does.
"She wanted- She tried to make me-"
"Forget her," Willas says firmly. "She is ruined, Sansa – there is nothing she can do to you. Remember that. She is powerless now, sweetling."
"She wanted me to find out your plans," she whispers into his jaw. "She- she thinks that you're plotting to kill Tommen and usurp the throne through Margaery. Willas-"
"I will do everything in my power to save Tommen, Sansa, I promise you that," he says, nodding over her head to Garlan as he takes his leave. "You know me, little wolf – I'd never allow a child to come to harm, especially not one so sweet as Tommen."
"I know, but the Queen – the Dowager Queen, I mean, Willas, she won't believe that, she won't, I know her-"
"Hush now," he murmurs, stroking her hair until the trembling subsides. "You're still not well, sweetling – come, back to bed with you and rest some more."
"Oh, but I don't want to go back to bed," she grumbles, winding her arms tighter around his shoulders. "Sit with me a while? Please?"
He sighs and pulls her closer, settling her better across his thighs so she can nuzzle against his throat as she likes.
"A little while," he concedes, pressing a kiss to her hair and drowning in the not-rosemary scent of her. "Just a little while."