WILLIAM XIII
Once the young King reached the Lion's Gate, where he could no longer hear the cries of his wife over the chatter of a massing force outside his city gates, he dismounted.
"Your Grace," the guards addressed.
"Open the gate."
"But, Your Grace, there's..."
"I know what's out there, my command remains. Open the gate and shut it once I am through."
The man looked at him with strange eyes through his helm, but Will only needed to nod toward him to make it clear that he was leaving the city walls and walking into the Tyrell siege.
"Gods be with you, Your Grace," one of them said as the portcullis rose.
"And you," he returned, ducking under it and taking the bravest steps of his life. And possibly the last, he knew. He placed his hand on the hilt of his sword, knowing he made a dangerous move by even bringing it with him. He looked to the sky in its blackness for a moment, and hoped that his father was looking down on him with proud eyes. Autumn was no matter as humidity and clouds as black as the night they were in filled the air. A storm is coming, he realised, in more ways than one.
The King, free of crown or royal garb, navigated his way through the enemy tents without such as a word of notice. This could be a good thing, he attempted to reassure himself, this could serve me well. He commended himself on his choice to wear only his regular black breeches and boots with a creme coloured undershirt that shone brightly against his black Baratheon hair.
As he got deeper in, however, William noted something that turned his stomach around and around, as with his head.
"Your Grace," "Your Grace," "Your Grace," was all he heard. Men had begun to notice him, and men were exiting their tents and kneeling — bending the knee — to him...in the camp of their liege lord, the camp of his enemy. Disturbance crept up his spine, and he began to pray silently to any god that was willing to hear him.
Vile betrayers, he thought, or rebels turned cowards.
"Your Grace," "Your Grace," "Your Grace," they continued, clearing a path for him and bending to the ground, bowing their heads. The words began to sound foreign to his ears, and once again, he wished the Crown had never befallen him. Help me, father, he looked to the black sky again, guide me.
"Your Grace," "Your Grace," "Your Grace," he heard, almost waiting for one of them to stand and plunge a knife into him, and then the rest to follow.
It had been almost half of an hour that he continued walking through to the tune of false surrender, and he'd seen nothing of Mace or Olenna. Find me them, father.
Just as he'd asked, a tent flap opened.
"Your Grace," the Queen of Thorns uttered, her entire camp turning silent, "join me for supper?"
Will nodded, stepping inside to a small table with three seats, one occupied by Mace Tyrell and another Lady Olenna, when she sat. The last chair, a crude replica of his Throne, was reserved for the King. A cruel joke, indeed. He sat, noting the absence of any guards or Mace's sons. Then again, it weren't really Mace running the show at all.
He wondered for a moment if their intent were to poison him, though that seemed far too obvious a choice. He drank their wine when the Lord of Tyrell poured it for him, trusting enough in his own intuition. No guards, no poison, no assassin...do they mean to murder me with wit? he wondered.
"You've come for Lady Sansa, yes?" Olenna began, "how gallant of you...putting your life at risk for your brother's betrothed."
"Not the betrothed you wished for him, though," Will noted.
"True enough."
"What do you want with Sansa?"
"It's not what I want with her...it's what I hope to gain from holding her," she spoke with a calmness that left him lost at her angle.
"Which is?"
"My granddaughter, of course," she scoffed.
"Your granddaughter is being held in the Black Cells for conspiring to commit treason," Will reminded, angrily. And if no one had forged that letter.
"Margaery has been as in the dark as you," Olenna informed, surprising him.
"It certainly did not appear as such in her many attempts to seduce me..."
"I cannot speak for her virtue, but she knew nought of the plans we were enacting."
"And what were these plans, exactly?"
"See, Mace, it's just as I told you...he's a fool," she taunted. Her son sat silently, and William could almost hear him quaking in his boots.
"A living fool, thanks to your botched attempt to have me killed."
"Oh, sincerest apologies for that, next time we shall be much more careful as to succeed in the task."
Will grew impatient.
"Where is Sansa?" he demanded.
"You want to see her? Good, I hoped you would," she seemed satisfied, "guards, bring in the girl."
Outside the tent, the King heard quiet sobs. And it's only been hours.
"Please, please, just let me return to the castle. I've done nothing against you, please, let me go. I won't tell anyone," she was begging. William closed his eyes for a moment. Not her burden to bear, yet she is crushed by the weight of it.
But when he opened his eyes, he saw a sight he couldn't have prepared himself for. Sansa was beaten, her arms and eyes purple with bruises from this night alone. Her dress didn't go past her knees, and a few streams of blood had dried down her leg, confirming the worst.
"How dare you?" William seethed, his voice deeper and darker than he knew possible.
"How dare we what, William?" Olenna teased, "how dare we take her? How dare we have her beaten? How dare we have her raped? Ask your mother about that one."
"You lay hands on my family," he shut his eyes to try contain himself. If you kill them, you'll be slaughtered in an instant.
"She's not your family, she's a girl from a land very far away," Olenna mocked, "and when they hear what happened to her in your care...that's a battle I'm sure to enjoy."
"And on whose behalf is it that you do this?" he tried to think.
"Daenerys of the House Targaryen...why do you think she sent such a small force onto your Blackwater?"
William's pit of despair only grew deeper and deeper with every word, and now he felt all the shame in the world.
"You never came to save us," he realised. Sarafine, my mother, Tyrion...they were all right.
"Oh no," she shook her head, "and now you're in it as deep as we needed you to be."
"If you're going to kill me, do it. Here and now," he insisted.
"I'm not going to kill you...I'm giving you a taste of what's to come. Look at her."
The Queen of Thorns lived up to her name. William felt like she was the King, and he only a helpless subject, along with poor Sansa. I'm so sorry, his eyes said as he looked into hers.
"Sansa," he breathed, ashamed of how he could let this happen.
"Now, Sansa already means something to you...this we know. But what if this was your sister, Myrcella? Your mother? Your wife, Sarafine?"
Images of a vile nature plagued his mind. He saw Sarafine in the hands of the treasonous guards, dishonoured and helpless...and all his fault. He saw her eyes black, her hair matted and her skin caked with blood and dirt. And worst of all, he saw her tears: the salted ones and those of redness from in between her thighs. She wants me to break, to burst and murder them all only to murder myself. Think, William, think.
"What do you want?" he managed, his hand shaking over the hilt of his sword.
"We demand nothing but Margaery," the woman stood, "and know that if we do not get her, your beloved family will face the same fate as this one," she pointed to Sansa before directing an instruction to the guards, "take her away."
"Please don't make me go back, my lady, I never did anything, I swear," she sobbed.
"I don't care," Olenna waved a hand nonchalantly.
"Please, Your Grace, please, you have to help me, I beg you."
"I'll be back for you, Sansa," William called as she cried in the arms of her brutalisers, dragged away from him.
He stood, his legs unsure, and towered over Lady Olenna, looking down upon her weathered face.
"Your crimes are past forgivable, but hear me now: if you lay a hand on my mother, my sister or my wife in the way you have Sansa, I will torture you, and take your heads myself."
"I would hope so," she smiled, "Mace, I'm rather tired. Let's retire for the night."
Without a word, the pair left the tent and the King in it. He was physically unharmed, but the sight of Sansa had destroyed him...and now I have to tell my family, and give the Tyrell girl back.
Deeply disturbed, he began his journey back to the city. His heart yearned to hold his wife in his arms, to know that she was safe and unharmed, but his duty told him he had other things to attend to prior. The portcullis was raised for him, and the dangerous false courtesy of "Your Grace," from the Tyrell soldiers faded into the distance. He mounted a horse, and rode back to the Keep in silence, a full compliment of guards behind him. He said nothing to any of them, and they didn't dare utter anything to him.
When he entered the mounting yard of the Red Keep, his wife was stood there, a night robe around her. A smile and flood of tears accompanied her when she saw him and ran toward him.
"You're back," she cried, and he jumped from his horse and wrapped his arms around her. She's here, and she's alright, "how?"
"It doesn't matter," he patted her hair and held her face, "all that matters is that you're okay."
"And Sansa?" Joffrey ran to him, "how is Sansa?"
"I can't say," Will lied, the images filling his head again.
He reluctantly met with the small council soon after.
"My son," Cersei greeted him, glints of tears in her eyes as she held his head in her hands, "never do that again."
He smiled at her and she him, and they hugged again before the real work commenced.
"They want Margaery," he declared, "for Sansa."
"We can't give up Margaery, she's our only valuable hostage," Littlefinger offered.
"We have to," Joffrey insisted, angrily, "we must do anything and everything we can to get her back."
"And we will. The Tyrells are working for the Targaryen girl," Will informed, marching around his table, "this presents a great weakness."
"How so, my King?" Varys asked.
"Daenerys sent that force into Blackwater knowing they would die...she's not worried about a Tyrell maiden."
"But the Tyrells are," Pycelle suggested, "they are the imminent threat."
"Only until Daenerys instructs them otherwise. This either destroys their alliance if the Tyrells disobey, or relieves us of the threat once they march home."
"And Sansa?" Joffrey asked, eyes childlike.
"That's another story," he began, with a smile. The group began to plot and plan until William's eyes were drooping. He returned to his chambers.
In the early hours of the morning, with darkness soon to fade into light, he found his love still awake. She sat in a silken robe, wine coloured and complimentary to every feature she had. Her brown eyes stared into the dying embers of their fire, and somehow, even in her exhaustion, she seemed more beautiful to him than ever.
"My love," he knelt before her in her chair, "my love, why are you still awake?"
He leant to kiss her forehead.
"I couldn't sleep without you," she admitted, squeezing his hand in hers, "I thought I might lose you tonight."
"I'm here now. And here to stay. Let's rest...we can talk about everything on the morrow," he pleaded, beginning the walk to their bed.
"Not everything," she stopped him, standing, "there's something I have to tell you."
Her eyes were full of concern, wet with emotion. Even in the low light of their dwindling fire, he knew.
"Are you alright?" he asked her.
"I'm pregnant," she smiled. William's heavy shoulders lifted in an instant, and his spirit with them.
"Sarafine," he breathed, his own eyes stinging with tears of joy, "are you certain?"
"Our wedding night," she nodded, "I'm certain."
In a moment of overwhelming happiness, he lifted her in his arms and spun her around, lowering her into a kiss of more love and passion than he had ever known.
"You're pregnant," he laughed through tears of indescribable elation, "you're pregnant!"
"I am!" she cried, smiling and laughing with him.
"I love you," he declared, "I will always love you."
"I will always love you," she tangled her precious hands in his hair, sending tingles up his spine. He kissed her again, and again and again until they found their way to their bed and out of their silks and wools.
After her assurance that it was safe, he slid inside of her and let everything go. Forever and always, he knew when he watched her head fall back in pleasure, I am yours.
- A/N -
This is one of my favourite chapters I've written so far so I hope you all enjoyed it!
How do you think William plans to get Sansa back? And how cute was his reaction to Sarafine's pregnancy aw...Let me know what you think in a review!
Have a lovely week :)
