Chapter 1: The Guardian Angel
Summary: The Queen of Thorns is far from helpless when Robert wins his rebellion, and fearing retribution for siding with House Targaryen, Olenna takes drastic action to secure the future of her family. But a blood-stained letter from Gerold Hightower, Lord Commander of the Kingsguard, might just be her salvation.
Or, Olenna Tyrell knows the truth of Jon Snow from day one, and sets about curating the perfect weapon – a King capable of restoring a dynasty. She wants protection for her family, she wants peace and unity, she wants power… and she wants revenge. However, every King needs a Queen, and Olenna has a certain candidate in mind.
What happens when a genius girl and an honourable boy find out their entire lives have been manipulated from the day they were born?
More notes at bottom of page.
Eddard Stark, like many a man before him, underestimated the cunning of Olenna Tyrell.
For even as he knelt by his sister's bedside in the Tower of Joy, having the words of a dying mother burned forever into his mind, dark wings made their way across the rolling hills of the Reach. Ser Gerold Hightower, the White Bull, Lord Commander of the Kingsguard to Aerys II Targaryen, never appeared on the field of battle during Robert's Rebellion. Not once did that deadly warrior, renowned across the Seven Kingdoms of Westeros, do battle for King Aerys or his son Prince Rhaegar. Instead, he stood guard at a tower in the Dornish foothills. He had sworn an oath to House Targaryen, and would keep that oath until his death at the foot of that same tower.
But thanks to Ser Gerold, the secret Lord Eddard had hoped concealed forever was carried away from the tower where Lyanna Stark died.
Into the hands of the woman known as the Queen of Thorns.
Ser Gerold's family, the Hightowers of Oldtown, were one of the most powerful houses in the Reach, and so as a youth, he had naturally come to know the children of those other families. Stern-faced Randyll Tarly of Horn-Hill, unmatched in contests of strategy; Axell and Alester Florent, brothers of a single mind and lovers of the art of the jape; Lord Luthor Tyrell, one of the few men who could actually back up the tales of his bedroom conquests; the eternally cheery Rongar Redwyne, now dead, his son Paxter succeeding him as Lord of the Arbor; and Rongar's sister – Olenna Redwyne.
These things together, fascinating without a doubt and influential to be sure, were not what saw the last written words of Ser Gerold Hightower arriving in the hands of his once friend Olenna. It was not some grand manoeuvre of the Great Game to benefit his house, nor a desperate plea for help. The final straw that would ensure Lord Stark's secret never stayed hidden arose from something far more mundane than that.
The simple fact that Ser Gerold had not risen to the rank of Lord Commander by being an idiot.
He was a damn good tactician, but above all, he was a good man. Or, at least, he had believed himself to be once. Before he had been faced with a horrible, horrible choice. Stay true to his vow or listen to the screams of Queen Rhaella as the King raped her, night after night. He and his brothers had done their duty, as well as they could. They guarded his Grace from those who would seek to harm him. They could not protect people from him. But Gerold and Barristan and Oswald and Arthur would care for Rhaella's wounds and keep the children as far from his madness as possible.
It had been for nothing in the end. Kings Landing was fallen, the Targaryen dynasty in ruin, Rhaegar and Aerys both dead, and Gerold knew in his heart that, had he been with them, all four of those truths might be different. But Ser Gerold kept to his vow, and even as Lord Eddard Stark came to claim his sister, he fought to defend all he had left; the Princess of the Seven Kingdoms and the future king or queen safe in her womb.
Gerold was not an idiot. He understood the odds of his survival. He didn't know how many men Stark had with him, but they would all be skilled and out for blood, and Gerold was not getting any younger. So, he and his brothers, Ser Oswald Whent of Harrenhal and Ser Arthur Dayne of Starfall, had each sent a raven to one person each. Ser Oswald's raven, bound for his brother the Lord of Harrenhal, was shot down over the Trident, its contents lost in the Green Fork. The raven of Ser Arthur reached his sister, the Lady Ashara, who sent him in return a wet nurse, Wylla, to care for the child. That left one.
The raven that reached Lady Olenna Tyrell.
Ser Gerold had been in touch with the Queen of Thorns for many long years. He had warned her, as he'd deemed it his duty to family and his old-friend, of King Aerys failing health. Of his fears for the realm and hope for Rhaegar. He did not trust this information to Mace Tyrell, Lord Paramount of the Reach, who did not have a stellar reputation when it came to discretion. Neither did he inform his brother, whom he knew to be rash and of a greedy mind. Instead, his letter made its way into the hands of the smartest person he knew. The only person, Gerold believed, who could match Tywin Lannister in a battle of the mind.
Ser Gerold Hightower, Lord Commander of the Kingsguard, died at the Tower of Joy. He did not get to see the new King open his eyes on the world, but it was thanks to him that House Targaryen would survive. Even in death, he fulfilled his oath to the Seven Kingdoms. Only the gods know if that was enough to absolve him of the crimes he stood back and watched.
By the time the words of the Lord Commander reached Highgarden, the war was over. King Robert Baratheon the First of his Name, King of the Andals, the Rhoynar and the First Men sat the Iron Throne in Kings Landing, and nothing was going to change that any time soon. Olenna's lackwit of a son, Mace Tyrell, had already bent the knee. The Tyrell host returned to the Reach, angry at being cheated, furious at sitting outside Storm's End, almost entirely useless to the campaign. Perhaps, if the Tyrell army had advanced north and met with Rhaegar's Loyalist forces at the Trident, the outcome there would have been far different. But they did not. So Olenna sat in her solar atop Highgarden's greatest tower, looking to the future and the next chapter of Westeros.
The calculating and cunning mind of the Queen of Thorns was put hard at work in those next weeks. While Mace and Randyll Tarly and Paxter Redwyne bartered with Jon Arryn and Tywin Lannister, she reached out with all the feelers she could. Now was the time to act. She did not have a concrete plan. Not yet. But if the Lords failed, and Robert and Jon Arryn demanded harsh penalties, the Reach needed insurance. In the upheaval of a new dynasty, now was the time missing records and perhaps important information could simply vanish.
Her agents found their way into the Citadel in Oldtown. There they found a diary detailing the notes and business of the High-Septon, and within, the confirmation she sought. A second marriage performed in secret within the Starry Sept itself. Just waiting for someone to find. A copy was made, brought back to Highgarden in the utmost secrecy, and the original hidden away. To be retrieved at the opportune moment. Builders arrived at the Tower of Joy, pulling it apart stone by stone for some sign of hidden documents. They found nothing, so reduced the tower to ash. By the time Ned Stark reached Winterfell, nothing remained of the tower Lyanna Stark had died in. Spies were strategically placed amongst the staff and retinues of the Northern Lords, places Olenna had never imagined she'd needed them before. They would follow the lords' home and settle in their keeps. There they would keep watch over the 'children' of Lord Stark. And if they happened to whisper of the bounties and beauty of the Reach to the ears of young Jon Snow as he grew up, all the better.
Finally, Olenna's people journeyed to Starfall. The Dayne's held court there, one of the oldest houses in Westeros. Olenna wished, more deeply than anything in those first few weeks, to discover just how much Ser Arthur had told his sister, and who, in turn, she had whispered too.
The answer she received was, quite possibly, the best she could hope for. Ashara had told only three in the Palestone Sword of the letter she had received. Her eldest brother, the Lord of Starfall, his wife, and her sister Allyria. Olenna asked them via raven what they intended to do with the information. She received a single sentence in reply.
'Dawn will remain sheathed in stone until the true King comes to Starfall.'
The Daynes were content to wait for Stark's next move, and so she would have to be as well. Fortunately, Lord Eddard Stark, dunderheaded warrior of the North, was far more intelligent than Olenna had ever dreamed he could be. King Jaehaerys Targaryen III became simply Jon Snow, a bastard boy whose birth mother none could confirm. The single smudge on an honourable man's impeccable record, fathered in the heat of war and grief. Easy to understand and easy to believe. Maybe the lie would have been more concrete if Stark claimed the boy as his elder brother's, a known womanizer. But that would have increased the tension at home. A bastard of the dead elder brother would undoubtedly complicate things with the Northern and Riverlands Lords. Forever a threat. Instead, Lord Stark made certain the world knew the child was his and that his trueborn son would inherit.
That, for most, was the end of things. The Lords of the Reach returned home, humbled but not broken; Robert Baratheon sat the Iron Throne with his Lannister wife, and 'Jon Snow' travelled north in swaddling cloth, safe from Armageddon and certain execution.
King Jaehaerys would not be useful to Olenna for a long time yet. He needed to grow up, and she needed to know the measure of him before she put all her chips in the one basket. She told no one what she knew. Not her son, nor his wife, nor any other Lord of the Reach. However, she was not one for leaving things entirely to chance.
Olenna Tyrell became the secret hand in Jon Snow's life. A guardian angel he would never know existed. Winterfell's chief-librarian came down with the pox? He was replaced by a new appointee from the Citadel who just happened to be a Hightower bastard eager to teach the baseborn son of his new lord. Cooks were carefully placed to introduce Jon Snow to southern-style foods and courtesies, while a Florent trained horse master instructed both Robb and Jon to ride and care for animals. When Catelyn Stark lashed out at the little boy for something beyond his control, there was always a washerwoman or maid in Olenna's employ to hold him as he cried.
Olenna had never been one to believe in the gods. Old, New, Burning or Drowned. But even she had to admit as Jon Snow grew older and older, it seemed some divine power had granted her this gift. Every report said the same. Jon Snow was a kind boy with the heart of a true knight. Desperate to embody his father's honourable ways, to prove he was just as valuable as Robb, he was always courteous to the castle staff and polite to those he met. He didn't seek trouble or unnecessary risk, but was willing to follow others into it with careful consideration, and he was more than capable of using his brain to solve problems, even if he did not display a propensity towards mathematics or language. His only detractors, it seemed, were that he was prone to bouts of sullenness and brooding and had low self-esteem.
Then there was his supposed skill. Olenna thought these reports probably exaggerated, but all confirmed that Jon Snow was talented with a blade. He was better than his 'half-brother', the Greyjoy ward, and any other children he trained with. If he had been a child of the Reach, he'd already have knights lining up to train him. Good. He would need a quick mind and a quick sword if he was ever to sit the Iron Throne.
Olenna's secret king was coming along nicely. However, all good kings needed a queen to sit beside them.
This, Olenna was certain, was her second miracle. She would not get another. Because less than six moons from the birth of King Jaehaerys, Margaery Tyrell was born to Olenna's son. His first and only daughter. The Queen of Thorns' influence on King Snow was distant and subtle. She could not directly intervene in his life. He would have to grow up a northerner, steeped in the ways of the Old Gods and the First-Men, try as she might to open his eyes to the world beyond the frozen waste. His Queen, then, would have to be the perfect compliment. Where King Jaehaerys would be bold, inspiring, stern and loyal to a fault, Queen Margaery would need to be the subtle hand and whispering wind, mistress of information, wisdom and cunning.
She would need to be, in short, the next Olenna.
Well, never let it be said that the Queen of Thorns wasn't up for a challenge.
It quickly became clear that little Margaery was an intelligent and inquisitive child, making Olenna's task all the easier. She was talking by her first name-day and had seemingly mastered sentences before her fourth. Once she started proper lessons after her fifth name-day, it became increasingly clear that Margaery had been blessed with an incredible gift. Everything she read, she could remember. With perfect accuracy. And the information didn't degrade or vanish. She could recall the oddest detail months later with only slight prompting. If it were written down, Margaery could remember it perfectly. The gift extended only to things she could see – her hearing and other senses were entirely normal – but it was still an incredible boon.
So Olenna extracted from her son exclusive privilege over the teachings of his daughter. Mace was not completely stupid, despite how he acted. He knew his mother was a genius, and there was no-one better to teach his daughter. From the age of six, Olenna started teaching Margaery everything she knew. Letters and numbers were easy for her, and so Olenna – feeling practically giddy – instructed her granddaughter in sums and angles instead of religion and prayer as was proper. By the age of ten, Margaery could perform all the basic mathematic functions with ease, and had stunned her mother and father when she filled out the Kingdom's tax-statement without a single mistake. Olenna had never been prouder in her life.
Languages, she left for now. If she wished to learn High Valyrian, Margaery could hire a proper tutor later. Rather, Olenna focussed on drilling the names of Houses and Lords and lands into Margaery's incredible mind. Maps with labels and illustrations proved utterly invaluable, as Margaery could simply copy them perfectly into her brain and recreate them with the finest accuracy. What Maesters spent their entire lives studying to do, Margaery could accomplish in mere days. By twelve, she'd memorised every single great, major and minor house in Westeros and could draw a map of the continent freehand with no guide.
Margaery's lessons and school life were Olenna's to control with an iron fist, but the girl's life outside the classroom was more organic. Margaery's inquisitive nature didn't stop at maths or politics. She wanted to know how things worked. She would follow her elder brothers, Garlan and Willas, watching as they practised and learned swordplay. Over and over, she convinced Loras to race with her through the hedge maze. Poor Loras, not understanding, never realised his sister kept beating him handily because she had memorized the pattern of the maze itself. Sewing came to her as easily as breathing. Watching another lady for five minutes was enough for her to recreate their entire design.
Creating was where Margaery struggled. For all her intelligence and analytical mind, Margaery was not very imaginative. She could copy things so easily that originality became her greatest weakness, and unfortunately, Olenna didn't know how to break it from her.
Olenna's greatest trial with Margaery came not from within, but from without.
Margaery had been one of those perfect babes. Quiet, a restful sleeper, curious and gorgeous. The type of child that made other people want to have babes of their own. She kept those traits as she grew. She was not a loud person by nature, and her intelligence taught her how to manipulate her family early on. A simple bat of the eyes had her mother and father buying new dresses the next day, and her three brothers would no doubt slay each other without question should she word the demand right. Persuasion. A good trait for a future queen to possess. But as she aged, young Margaery quickly realised the other staff members were just as easy to manipulate. Often for the most trivial of things. It didn't help that the more she grew, the more obvious it became that Margaery would undoubtedly become a great beauty. At ten name-days old, she already had lines of suitors begging for her hand and landed lords and knights bending over backwards at her word.
If Jon Snow, the honourable bastard with a rigid moral compass, was to be Margaery's King, Olenna needed to temper that impulse. Ensure that Margaery didn't see others as beneath her. The art of manipulation was a skill as much as swordplay. The best cuts were those you didn't see coming, not the hammer-strokes visible miles away. For Jon Snow to be attracted to Margaery, infatuated even, Olenna needed to ensure her granddaughter had something of value no other southern lady he met was likely to have.
A conscience.
So Olenna took ten-year-old Margaery Tyrell, the Golden Rose of Highgarden, in secret out of the castle. Down the streets they walked, in rugged brown cloth with no finery to be found. Margaery, inquisitive girl that she was, was far too distracted by the sights and sounds and smells of the city to search for any deeper reasoning behind the trip.
As has been noted several times, Olenna Tyrell could never be called stupid. There was never any real danger. Tyrell guards, disguised of course, surrounded them at all times. But the lesson that followed was invaluable. Olenna took her granddaughter through the market district, explaining how to buy from a merchant and how to haggle. They visited the garden district, with its scents and perfumes and garden parties. As night fell, Olenna even showed Margaery one of the travelling shows that performed in the theatres. The girl was entirely enraptured.
Then came the punchline.
Olenna guided her granddaughter outside the city's north-western gate in the dead of night, and together, they approached the shantytown clinging to the edge of the squat stone wall. The Warrens.
Wooden shacks, refuse filled dirt streets instead of carefully cleaned cobblestones with gutters and sewer drains. There were no markets or fine silks to be found here. Just miners from the Westerlands, the refugees of the last war, and farmers whose lands had been salted by the enemy or taken outright. They all came here in the end, working in the Warrens smelting steel or chopping wood to feed the hundreds of fires within the city itself.
The Reach, alone of the Seven Kingdoms, had a minimum pay threshold. It incentivised work and brought people at the edges of society to do the jobs the Reachmen hated doing themselves. People came from across the Kingdoms (particularly the Westerlands) to clean Highgarden's waste and sweep their streets and smelt their equipment, knowing they would be paid a flat rate that no employer would dare undercut for fear of House Tyrell's wrath. They had only their reputation after-all.
"This is your final test, Margaery," Olenna told her granddaughter. "You wish to truly understand Highgarden and the Reach? Then you have to look beyond the perfumed walls and pretty gardens. The Warrens are just as much a part of Highgarden as you or I. Your task is this. Survive three nights with no name and no coin in the Warrens, and I will answer any and every question you ask me, truthfully and without deception, for the rest of my life."
Margaery had been genuinely and utterly terrified at the prospect, which Olenna could certainly understand. But to her credit, after about five minutes of staring in horror at the shantytown before her, Margaery squared her shoulders and pulled her shoulder-length golden-brown hair into a tight bun. Mouth set in a thin line, she started walking down the mud-stained path to the Warrens without once looking back.
Three days later, after hours of hounding from Mace and Margaery's mother Alerie, during which Olenna refused to divulge their daughter's location, Margaery came trudging up Highgarden's main promenade at sunset. Olenna hadn't slept a wink, kept awake by her fears, despite knowing her hidden guards would ensure nothing terrible happened. She hated herself, regretted ever coming up with such a horrible idea.
When the guards announced that Lady Margaery had been seen approaching, Mace, Olenna, Alerie and the three boys all raced to the castle's main gates. Margaery still wore her brown smock, hair a rat's nest and eyes accented by deep bags. She had lost her shoes, and her skin was covered in soot and dirt. The gaze looking back at them from Margaery's young and pretty face was not one belonging to a girl only ten name days old.
She stopped a few paces from the family, all of them too stunned to speak. A crowd was growing now – servants, city-goers and guards alike watching with confusion and interest.
Then Margaery revealed a thin cloth sack clutched in her hand, which she dropped at her father's feet. Hesitantly, a dumbfounded expression plastered on his face for all to see, he picked up the sack and poured out its contents.
A single copper penny fell into his palm.
"A single loaf of bread costs three pennies," Margaery said, voice hoarse and croaky. "And to fill a flask from the clean fountain is two. But the minimum pay is one copper a day. I worked two jobs: one smelting, one writing numbers. It took me three days to earn enough for one loaf of bread."
She pointed to the coin in her father's hand.
"That's my taxes; one fifth what I earned in a week, close enough."
Margaery tucked her hands into the poorly sewn pockets of her ragged woollen clothes, and her lips crooked into a small smile.
"We can do better than that. We have to do better than that."
Olenna beamed.
After her experience in the Warrens, Margaery took to reading more about economics and business. How the treasury worked and how taxes were collected and redistributed in the different Kingdoms. Each one had a slightly different system, though the Reach, Stormlands, Crownlands and Westerlands systems were mostly the same, based on the old Valyrian model. Margaery, however, was more intrigued by the North.
Unlike the Valyrian system, which had two tiers based on landed lords and non-landed peasants paying fixed amounts, the North used a progressive tax system. The more money you made, the more you paid to the collective coffers in Winterfell. The correct fee was then levied to the Crown, and the rest used to purchase grains, wines and other goods the North couldn't make or grow itself. The more money you contributed to the overall pool, the larger your population and the more resources you most likely needed, and the more you got back. A good system for a land where loyalty was stronger and feuding amongst regional lords was less common.
It would never work in the South. The aristocracy would never consent to paying more than the common people, and any Lord Paramount who tried implementing such a system would soon find himself without a head. Olenna didn't tell Margaery this, instead waiting to see if the girl would come to the conclusion on her own. It took her a few days, but she got there, and Olenna pounced on Margaery's newfound curiosity and fascination with the North.
Within a week, Lady Mira Forrester of Ironrath, eldest daughter of Lord Gregor Forrester, was on her way south to become a lady in waiting to the first daughter of House Tyrell. Six moons after that, the two girls were practically attached at the hip.
Olenna's first contact with Lord Stark came a few moon turns after Jon Snow's twelfth name-day.
She had been hoping Lord Stark would foster his 'baseborn' son in the Vale sometime after he turned ten, as he himself had been years before. Lord Yohn Royce would have been perfect, the Arryns slightly less so. But no plans or whispers of a potential fostering reached Olenna's ears. She waited a year, but nothing happened. She knew nothing would come from the Riverlands thanks to Lady Catelyn, but she had thought the Vale or elsewhere in the North a certainty. Another six months passed, and she breathed a sigh of relief when her spies whispered to her of offers from both the Manderlys and the Mormonts. The Manderlys were the best bet. Jon might learn seamanship and see a real city for the first time in White Harbour. Lord Manderly was certainly hoping for a marriage contract between Snow and his eldest granddaughter Wynafryd, but that could easily be fixed with promises from Olenna (through Mace, of course). Then her hopes were dashed again when Lord Stark refused both, without even speaking to Jon or anyone else in his family if the words Olenna heard were to be believed.
By the time Jon's twelfth name-day passed, Olenna realised the truth. Lord Stark intended to keep his sister's son held close to his breast. Hidden from the world. Maybe forever.
Olenna couldn't allow that.
King Robert was growing worse by the year, the Crown's debt exploding with each Tourney he held. He wasn't even pretending to honour Cersei any longer. Jon Arryn did his best, but a Hand could only do so much when his king was a drunk. That was to say nothing of the Prince.
Joffrey, by all reports, was the literal opposite of Jon Snow. Brash, quick to rage and even sadistic if the latest stories concerning the treatment of his sister Myrcella were to be believed. The girl was only two years Margaery's junior, but was apparently already doing more to curb her elder brothers' tantrums and fits than either his mother or father. She warranted further looking into, but most of Olenna's attention had been fixed on Jon Snow and grooming Margaery. A thought for another time.
But if even the mundane stories about Joffrey were true, he would be but a puppet of Cersei and Tywin should Robert die any time soon. And Jon Snow was still not ready to seek any crown. He was too young, too green. He needed experience – in battle, in the world, in cultures not his own, and with women in general – if he were to make a good king in truth.
None of that would happen if Lord Stark held the boy to his bosom.
Seeing no other option, she got to work concocting a new plan. One that would bring Jon Snow out of the North and set him on the path towards becoming the King that Olenna and the country needed him to be.
About the Story:
This endeavour, believe it or not, was inspired originally by my apparently false conception that Tommen Baratheon was autistic.
I had always assumed, based on his character in the books – and to a degree the show, I suppose – that Tommen's odd quirks, attitudes and mood swings were probably a form of autism that was obviously undiagnosed because fantasy world and all that. It was then pointed out to me that this is, in fact, not the case canonically. Which got me thinking about all the other characters that we can potentially infer possess some form of mental or physical disability. Arya obviously suffers from some major PTSD, which then evolves into mild MPD once she reaches the House of Black and White. Likewise, the reason Sam struggles to reduce his weight might be due to type 1 diabetes or a similar glucose-related problem.
And why is Margaery Tyrell so smart?
My older sister is studying for her PhD in neuroscience. Though studying is perhaps a strong word – yeah, that's right, Stel, I went there. You see, my smug ass sister is one of those precious few individuals who genuinely possess an eidetic memory, and as a result, has never had to study for anything in her entire life. She can recall events years in the past with perfect accuracy, but only things she can actually see with her own two eyes. Spoken words, sounds, or, oddly enough, things seen through something else like a mirror or television don't work for her. Coupled with an insanely high IQ and OCD, you get a crazy ass and incredibly clever prodigy type. Not so fun when you're the little brother, and the only thing you got was Social Anxiety Disorder and low-grade ADHD.
Back on topic, my sister is studying mental conditions like her own, so I sent her my copy of 'A Game of Thrones' as a kind of thought experiment (Fun side note, I tricked her into reading all thirteen books of a Wheel of Time by talking about how well Robert Jordan tackles Rand's mental health problems). She returned to me days later with a list of annotations and a demand for the next book. She was, ah, annoyed to say the least, when she reached the non-existent Winds of Winter.
Now, this is part one. Part two comes from my time at Oxford, where I got the chance to study several primary sources and old texts concerning the Great Fire of London and all the aftereffects it had on Britain and Europe.
Take those two ideas, splice it with my own studies of political theory and structure (NOT 'Politics' as in politicians! Go read some Machiavelli, then explain to me the difference between rights-based vs systemic-based constitutional construction, then we'll talk. The number of times, I swear…), and you get this!
Okay, rant over. I've finished the entire first book (80,000 words) and am thinking about also recording an audio version if anyone is interested. Be a fun thing to try, I think.