DEFIANCE
OLENNA
The gardens were filled with the rich odor of roses, and the light summer wind blew amidst the trees. In the air was a heavy scent of lilac, or the most delicate perfume of a flowering thorn.
Lady Olenna Tyrell watched as her granddaughter, Margery, stooped and picked a white daisy from the grass, examining it carefully. She fingered the petals absentmindedly for a little while, and then some thought seemed to take hold of her, and she glanced up abruptly to the two people that sat round a table under the shade of a tree a little way away from her, her round face shining.
"It is rather wonderful," she said. "A female ruler – achieving all of this."
Olenna Tyrell rolled her eyes. "You've been sniffing one too many roses, child," she snapped, tapping one gnarled finger on the table surface. "There's nothing men dislike more than a woman with power and there's a reason that Blackmore girl isn't married."
"And it would solve all our problems if she was," added Mace Tyrell, who sat across from his mother. "She needs a man to bring her to heel, not men that will surround her encouraging these radical claims."
"You're just saying that because you think all woman are good for is marrying and to giving their husbands children, father," Maragery teased, approaching them and sinking gracefully into a seat beside her grandmother, taking her hand and patting it once. "You never say a moral thing, and you never do a wrong thing – it's very confusing."
"One of the many virtues of being a Tyrell, my dear," said Olenna. "One must take their sigil quite literally, it seems. Lannister's must be brave as lions, Stark's as honorable as wolves and Tyrell's must act like roses. Whatever a rose acts like. We must hide our thorns behind our beauty – you see, dear, subtlety is everything. Being overt is just crass."
"Gael Blackmore has declared herself the rightful heir of the Iron Throne and has declared open war fare on Robert Baratheon," noted Mace.
"You see," said Olenna, to her granddaughter. "Crassness."
Margery laughed – a pleasant, smooth sound. Not too loud, not too quiet, Olenna noted, and very carefully controlled. Oh, her granddaughter definitely had the right of things. She was more of a Tyrell than any of them, and Lady Olenna preferred her a great deal to her obtuse son or grandson.
"Besides," the old lady continued, waving for a servant who stood nearby to bring her a glass of wine. "One does not win thrones by waving sharp sticks in the air and making a scene of things."
"I was under the impression that was exactly how it was done, mother" her son said, gruffly.
"Oh no," said Olenna, taking a sip of her wine – "thank you," she added, to the serving boy, dismissing him from their presence – "there is a saying, my boy; 'every rich man's house has a servant's door'. Why make all the fuss of banging down that expensive, impenetrable oak door, when there are easier ways of entering the house?"
Margery smiled, raising her own goblet of wine and toasting it with her grandmother's. "Subtlety."
Olenna smiled. "My nature may be as blunt as a hammer, my dear, but I understand the need for it."
Mace shook his head. "I understand your ambitions, mother, for the Iron Throne – and I share them - but we have more pressing problems right on our boarders. The Blackmore's are but a few miles to the South of us. To get to King's Landing, they must travel through our lands. We must make a decision on where we stand."
Olenna gazed carefully at her son. Margery had fallen silent. Though her expression was still that of a faint, disinterested amusement, Olenna could detect something more intense stirring behind those pleasant brown eyes. Mace Tyrell stared back at his mother. He could be, she reflected, another Robert Baratheon. He had once been a handsome and powerful looking man, but had since run to fat. An idiotic oaf about some things, too, with out so much as a shred of intelligence – yes, the Tyrell subtlety had somehow missed her son. The decision on what to do about the Blackmore's, however much he like to think, would not ultimately be made by him, but carefully manipulated by her. These matters of politics were far better left in a woman's hands, anyway.
Olenna leant back in her chair, resting an elbow on one of its arms. "And what decision might that be?" she asked.
"I will tell you."
She smiled beguilingly. "Please, I am all expectation."
"There is very little to tell," he said, taking a gulp of wine, smacking his lips in appreciation after he had swallowed the rich, red liquid. "We will do what we have always done and side with whoever is most likely to win the conflict; the Baratheons and the Lannisters."
Olenna raised one eyebrow and Mace frowned. "You do not think they will win?" he demanded.
"Oh, I believe they could crush the Blackmore's with out a problem," she said, calmly. "But I will not argue with you on this, my son."
He frowned, his quick temper roused. "Say what you must, mother!"
She smiled thinly – how easily he had taken the bait. How quickly he had become unsure of his actions. "You clearly did not pay well enough attention to your history books as a child, Mace. The last time we swore our allegiance to a House - to the Tarygaryan's - our army and resources were taken advantage of – tied up in that ridiculous siege on Storm's End."
"So what do you propose we do, grandmother?" asked Margery, a slight frown on her face.
"We wait," she said, simply. "We will remain silent, and in that silence, Blackmore will see indecision, and in that they will see a potential and valuable ally. They will want to appease us. As will the King, as our land is all that stands between King's Landing and Blackmore. If we were to declare allegiance to the enemy, they would have one of the largest armies in the Seven Kingdom's right on their doorstep – they will want to gain the House Tyrell as an ally too. To put it plainly for you, my son, though we stand in the most dangerous position, though we have the most to lose, we also have the most to gain. You ask what I think we should do, and I say we should wait to see which of these buffoons has the most to offer us – I refuse to enter another war where we gain nothing."
A/N If you are confused as to where Blackmore lies, google a map of the Game of Thrones houses. Blackmore lies to the West and North West of the Sea of Dorne.
Thank you to the reviewer LadyKatherine29 – who writes the longest and most tactically observant reviews I have ever read!
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Last Of The Lilac Wine