286 AC, Tower of the Hand, a few moons after the presentation of Prince Joffrey to the Court.
...
The Lord Hand had left his private suite quite a bit earlier in the mornings than normal for weeks now, ever since his young wife had started her mornings with heavy vomiting, which made not only the bedchamber but also the other family rooms smelling badly for an hour or longer, like sour milk and slightly rotten meat.
At least the rotten meat smell was not as strong anymore these days, ever since Lysa had stopped eating even the smallest piece of any kind of meat at the evening meals. If she would only stop to drink milk before she went to sleep, then she would maybe even loose the sour milk smell in her early morning vomiting routine.
He chided himself a bit for thinking these thoughts about his young wife, it was not her fault that this newest pregnancy had caused this heavy vomiting for weeks now, during her first few pregnancies she had never been as ill as she was now, so this was now a very new situation for her and him too. The female servants here in the Tower all were speaking of this heavy morning illness as a good sign for a healthy babe to be born after all.
Though of course he trusted the knowledge of Maester Coleman and Grand Maester Pycelle more, learned men as they were and they both told him not to become to hopeful about this newest pregnancy, given how the other pregnancies ended, when Lysa's body had been less stressed with morning illnessess.
It often had irked him in these last few years that Hoster Tully had seemingly tricked him, the Lord of the Vale, into marrying the lesser daughter. He had of course known that Lysa had thankfully lost her bastard child early during the pregnancy but he had not thought that this was already a warning about Lysa's inability for carrying even one child to term.
Jon sighed deeply and reminded himself that he had readily enough agreed to that marriage with the dishonored girl because of the War and because Hother had only agreed on involving his lands and soldiers on his, Jon's and on Ned's agreement for immediate marriages to both of Hother's daughters.
And now he was stuck with a young and rather unintelligent , spendthrift girl of a wife for a good four years now and despite trying his best to make sure that his wife finds her life satisfying, as it was of course his due as her Lord Husband, despite that he also always tried to fulfil his carnal duties to her and working hard to get with Child, she still was not behaving as obliging as he would like her to be and the worst thing was of course, that her pregnancies always ended in miscarriages.
Oh, how he sometimes wished that he would have gotten the older sister, she had born dear Ned already two healthy children after all, the heir and a sweet girl too. But no, he should wish for another man's wife, especially not for the wife of his beloved fosterson. He would have to live with this faulty wife of his and he will hope that for once the Maesters were incorrect and the female servants were correct.
Jon forced himself to stop thinking about his own unfortunate marriage and reminded himself about his duties as Robert's Hand.
Every day anew, this was the most important part of his life after all, to make sure that the reign of his dear fosterson and now King, was going well and without trouble.
...
Many moons later
He was in the Great Hall, holding Court in Roberts stead, as one of his private servants suddenly entered the Hall from the small side door and gave him a sign. He nodded in understanding and the servant left the same way as he had come.
So the actual birthing process now had started for Lysa, not that he, Jon had not had found out already already in the morning that this would be the day, just from Lysa's screaming and panting alone, loud enough as she was since the hour of the Owl already.
Jon forced his mind back to the Court and the problems which were currently presented to him and reminded himself that there was nothing he could do to help his wife in her matters anyways, he could only hope that the enormous child in her body, which had
forced her to spent most of her pregnancy abed, would come now into this World alive for once.
Just one living child, hopefully of course a boy, would really be a gift from the Gods in this unhappy marriage.
Then he really forced his mind back to task at hand and gave sign for the Court matters to proceed.
...
And just a few hours later, he looked with unbelieving eyes at the healthy and strong twin daughters which his wife had born him.
Living, healthy, strong and very loud, twin daughters.
And slowly he felt something close to happiness blooming in his heart.
Living children, finally living children.
And now that she had given him living daughters, she would soon give him a living son too. Her mother had after all given Hoster Tully two daughters first before his boy Edmure had been then born, maybe and hopefully it was the same way for the daughter as it had been for the mother.
And Jon Arryn smiled at these thoughts.
Living and healthy daughters and soon surely a strong Heir will follow.
The future for his ancient and noble House looked brighter already now.
-
Such a loving and caring guy, this Jon.
No wonder that Lysa is so in love with him, right?