The Lion Queen and the Prince of The Sun

Chapter Thirteen

It was a warm day and she had to admit that it was starting to look like a mistake had been made when it came to the choice of clothing she had decided to wear, it was possible that she had forgotten how hot the capital actually was considering that she had spent so much time in Dorne where no summer heat could compare to Dorne, even in the Autumn.

The heavy velvet gown then was a mistake but it was too late to change it now so all she could do was bare it as best as she could and thus she forced a smile on to her face as she sat the Iron Throne in front of the entire court. It still felt odd to sit here, even after all this time. It was not that she didn't want to be Queen, it wasn't that she thought she would be a bad one but she had simply never thought that she would be one at all.

The thought of her brothers still filled her with sadness, even now. She had never held much love for Joff but he had been her brother still and Tommen had been so sweet, from the moment he was born, he hadn't deserved to die. She could still remember how he had cried when it had been announced that she was being sent to Dorne.

He had come to her chambers and cried into his skirts and swore that he would not let them send her away, and then suggested that she hide herself in his chambers, under his bed to make sure that no one could find her. If no one could find her then no one could send her away to Dorne. It was the sort of logic that only a child could understand in the end but Myrcella had been half tempted to go along with it.

She hadn't wanted to leave at all, but uncle Tyrion had made it clear to her that she had no choice in the matter and that she had to be sent to Dorne to marry Prince Trystane, for the glory of her house. She had to try her hardest not to cry when he told her that and she had to do so again on the day when she left the city, not crying until she was out of sight of land.

She had to stop this, she wasn't a little girl anymore. She was a Queen now, and a married woman besides. It wouldn't be long before she was a Mother herself after all. Maybe she would have a son and she and Trys could name him Tommen, maybe if she had two more sons she could name them Tyrion and Jaime. With three little girls as well, named Sansa and Cersei and Arianne.

Yes, she would like that. She would like that very much.

But there was much more and more that needed to be done before any of that, a queen had much that weighed upon her and her people would hear from her now when it came to matters of justice. She nodded and the guards opened the doors of the Throne Room and the lords and ladies and smallfolk hurried in and Myrcella sat as straight as she could atop the Iron Throne.

The Lords always came before the smallfolk, as it had been done for three hundred years and as it was likely to be done for three hundred more. The first was a dispute between two lords when it came to the damning of a river, it seemed that neither was more powerful than the other in truth nor was either in any truth more deserving of it.

But, one of them had been loyal to the crown while the other had sworn allegiance to her Uncle Stannis. In truth, he had not done much of anything. One of the only, if not the only, lords of the crownlands to support someone other than her brother in the War of the Five Kings, he had spent much of the war huddled up in his castle instead of sending men to fight for her brother, though he had not sent men to aid her uncle either.

In the end, she allowed the Lord who came to her asking to expand the ability to damn the river to his pleasure. The other lord glared at her but said nothing until Myrcella dismissed the both of them. She had not won the loyalty of anyone today, but she might have ensured someone else's loyalty in the next war, whenever that would be. Because of course there would be another one, that had been decided long before she had been given the Iron Throne and the crown.

All that she could do, was make sure that she won it when it came. And that meant doing things that sometimes she was never going to be able to forgive herself for, Ser Davos's eyes still stared at her accusingly from the table in the Grand Maester's study after her handmaiden had come to her in the morning and told her that the Onion Knight had been found dead in his cell.

She had to do it, hadn't she? Her uncle Stannis was thousands of leagues away in the North and desperately trying to win people other to his side, if the people could see that Ser Davos was loyal to her uncle even when his head was about to be stricken off, if his final words were about his loyalty to the true king and how the vile rumors about herself and her Mother and her Uncle Jaime were actually true, then how many knights and lords who bared witness to it would find themselves wondering if it truly was and would consider turning against her.

In his death, Ser Davos Seaworth might have proven more useful to her uncle than he ever had done in life. So Myrcella decided to stop it, the septons were preaching now in the streets how Ser Davos had repented his sins all night in his tower cell and the Mother Above had taken mercy on him and lifted him up to take his place in seven heavens.

It was a sweet story, if nothing else. Myrcella had ordered that the body of the Onion Knight be given to the silent sisters for their care and then order that the bones be sent home to his wife. It was not much, and it did not make up for what she had done to him, but it was the best that she could do. She had not lied to him about his wife, however.

If she surrendered, then Myrcella would allow her to keep the castle and the lands that had been granted to her and her husband. Myrcella prayed that she would, because if she did not then that would mean having to take the little keep by force and there was no hope of that happening without bloodshed occurring, but she would have to do it.

She managed to suffer through another two hours of hearing the demands of her people and answering them before she remembered that a small council meeting needed to be held and how sad it was that she would actually prefer that to her currant predicament. She gestured to the herald to announce the end of the court before she rose from the Iron Throne and left via the queen's door.

Her small council was already waiting for her and sat at the Queen's place at the head of the table and allowed herself to examine her council, Lord Mace was not here anymore as while he was the Master of Law she had entrusted in him the responsibility of laying siege on Storm's End the day after Ser Davos had been found dead. A few words of flattery, telling him of how her Father had once said that he wouldn't have wanted to be the one to hold Storm's End against him and he was practically chomping at the bite to go.

The latest raven suggested that the siege was now well established with catapults flinging rocks at the high walls with little effect but that hardly matter, no food would be allowed into the castle with Lord Redwyne's fleet was patrolling the bay to stop resupply from the sea and Lord Mace would stop them from the land. Storm's End would yield or be starved.

Of course, Storm's End had deep stores and it would probably be at least a year or two before the castle was ready to yield to them but that worked all to the best for her, between starving out Storm's End and Dragonstone it would keep Mace Tyrell and Paxter Redwyne away from the city long enough to strength her own influence in the entire city and make it her own stronghold. The smallfolk still had a great love for House Tyrell, for feeding them even though they had been the ones who had starved them in the first place.

The farms and fields would need to be rebuilt, not just to win their love but also to increase the flow of food and to send the people back into the fields to decrease the amount of people in the city and the stress on the city's stores, some had already gone but not enough, not enough by even half, but to do that they would need the coin in order to do so and that was the first task that she had given to her new Master of Coin.

Myrcella could not deny, that she would savor the look of complete and utter shook that spread on Lord Wyman's face when she had made the offer for the rest of her life. Perhaps he had thought that when he stepped foot in the Red Keep that he would never step foot outside of it again, to be chained in the Black Cells and have his head put on a spike.

The man certainly knew how to haggle, perhaps his Mother had been a fishwife and in the end it was decided that Lord Wyman would be the new Master of Coin in exchange for her agreeing to send his son and heir Wylis Manderly back to the North. Myrcella agreed and the deal was struck and the Lord of White Harbor was given a seat on the small council.

There had been some concern from the other small council members, well, mostly it was Grand Maester Pycelle who objected, saying that it might be foolish to allow an northman to sit on the council after they had been raised in rebellion not so long ago but Myrcella, while she thanked them all for her concern, did not change her mind.

Lord Wyman had by all accounts been a more than suitable Lord for White Harbor, and while it was the smallest city in the Seven Kingdoms it was also the faster growing as well and such a man seemed likely to make a more than adequate master of coin and more than that, it was an branch of peace to the rest of the North as well.

And more than that, he would make for a useful hostage to keep White Harbor loyal. Of course, they would need to get rid of his guard as well in order to stop him from trying something foolish like attempting to force his way to freedom. Of course, she already had a plan in mind for that and all she would need would be for Ser Gregor to arrive with Ser Wylis, which he should do on the morrow which would help her to kill two birds with one stone.

The only other great changes to the council were the absence of Lord Tarly, who had ridden back out to Maidenpool in order to bring the Riverlands to peace, before he had left he had sworn to bring her back the leaders of the Brotherhood Without Banners, Beric Dondarrion and the woman, this Lady Stoneheart who by all accounts had a strange pleasure for hanging her victims, and her Uncle Jaime.

Once he had his white cloak stripped from him, not an occasion that she had taken any great pleasure in, Lord Tywin had taken his son and heir back with him to the Westerlands, once he was there her Grandfather would have him placed in Casterly Rock to learn how to rule while he rode back out to the Riverlands in order to help Lord Tarly and to lay siege to those castles that still held out against the Freys.

It was odd to be without Uncle Jaime, she had always felt that she could have a great deal of trust in him. Her Mother had put that into her, from as early on as she could remember her Mother had whispered into her ear. Trust your uncle Jaime, the Queen had always said, your uncle will always keep you safe. But now he was gone.

Her Mother was gone as well. Cersei Lannister had been sent off to the Arbor, to be wed to Horas Redwyne. She knew that Mother had still not quite forgiven her for that, but it had needed to be done and she had been able to embrace her warmly before she climbed into the wheelhouse which would take her to the Reach, where from Oldtown she would take ship to make her journey to her new husband.

Myrcella had to wait until the raven arrived from the Arbor to inform her that the wedding had occurred to remove the white cloak from her uncle, part of the reason that Lord Paxter had agreed to the match was that he thought that any children that Horas and her Mother might have had would have had a claim to Casterly Rock, if Ser Jaime stood as heir then no doubt he wouldn't have agreed to it.

But now Ser Jaime was the heir to Casterly Rock once again and her Mother had been wedded and bedded and was the future Lady of the Arbor, it would be her Lannister children that would stand as heirs to the Arbor instead of any Redwyne's standing as heirs to Casterly Rock. She had to admit, it was quite cleverly done if she did say so herself. Lord Paxter could not annul the marriage after all, they had wedded and bedded and her Mother was known to be fertile. Yes, it was well done indeed.

Her Uncle would need to be wed as well but she leave to her Lord Grandfather, there had been some talk of wedding him to Lady Margaery but she doubted that was going to happen. Lord Mace now had two of his most powerful bannermen given positions high above him with Lord Rowan as her hand and Lord Tarly named as protector of the Realm. And Lord Paxter had been snared.

To be sure to be the Lady of Casterly Rock would not be a prize to be sneered at, she doubted that Margaery Tyrell would. But Mace Tyrell might yet, he was not so much a fool that he would not notice how thoroughly he had been snared by the lions of Casterly Rock. If Myrcella was to guess, she imagined that Margaery Tyrell would soon find herself wed to one of her Father's lord bannermen, perhaps with one of the Hightowers or maybe a lord from the Vale, a Royce might make a fine match for his little rose.

"I apologies for being late, my Lords. Court ran longer than I expected it to. What news?"

The Spider, dressed in lilac robes and smelling of flowers as normal, smiled and spoke. "Your Lord Grandfather has taken control of the Frey siege of Riverrun while our dear Ser Jaime has ridden on to Raventree Hall to put down the Blackwoods. Soon enough the Riverlands shall once again belong to the Queen's peace."

"But even with that happy news, more treason yet abounds. We had all hoped that the death of Balon Greyjoy would make the Ironborn see sense and have them bend the knee but alas it seems that quite the opposite has occurred. A new Iron King has been place on the Seastone Chair, Euron Greyjoy, Lord Balon's younger brother and that is the last we have heard of him."

"And in the Vale, we have an issue as well." Her Hand spoke and handed her a scroll. "Lord Royce, Lord Hunter, Lord Redfort, Lord Belmore, Ser Templeton and Lady Waynwood have all named themselves the Lords Declarant, their purpose seems to be in wrestling the stewardship of young Robert Arryn away from Lord Baelish, and to strip him of his title of Lord Protector. They have not yet asked for the crown for aid, but we did place Littlefinger there."

"My brother and grandfather put Littlefinger there, not I." Myrcella muttered as read the letter, all of her Lord Father's councilors she knew the very least about Petyr Baelish. She knew that he was the Lord of the Fingers but that was about it, and for his service Lord of Harrenhal and a marriage to the now late Lysa Arryn had been his prize for leal service.

Lady Lysa had named Littlefinger the Lord Protector of the Vale before she had died, the raven from the Eyrie had said that the Lady of the Vale had been most distressed about something, that she had an argument with a singer that she was very fond off and in a fit of rage, said singer her threw her out of the moon door and was now arrested and rotting in the sky cells.

Something stunk, it was not hard for her to grasp what had truly happened. Littlefinger had murdered the Lady of the Vale and took control of the Kingdom and now the Lords were rebelling against him. "My realm is falling into pieces all around me." She glanced at her husband, how she wished that she had never left done. "We deal with one issue, another hundred sprout up like mushrooms after a hard rain."

The Queen rose. "Lord Rowan, my strong right hand. I leave the charge of the city, and the greeting of Ser Gregor and Ser Wylis." She glanced at Prince Oberyn, then at Lord Wyamn. "In your capable hands. I will need the Queensguard with me, as well as a host of knights to keep me safe as I make my progress."

"A progress?" Lord Rowan asked with a frown. "Your Grace, where do you mean to go?"

"To the Vale, to the Riverlands, to the Reach and the West. If I am to rule, then they must love me and they must fear me and that is what I mean to make them do."

End of Chapter Thirteen

Another chapter done and dusted.

I have to admit, I really love writing Myrcella and I hope you enjoy how I write her as well.

Next chapter, I think we shall have a more Dornish perspective on events though I am uncertain as to whose's perspective it will be told from.

Please leave a review, a follow and a favorite. Constructive Criticism is always welcome.

With a ton of love,

DiscordantSymphony