Margaery
Each day's ride along the Blackwater saw the sun last longer in the sky than the one before, and she could only hope that this augured well for her. After all, if the Starks were winter, shouldn't spring bring forth the roses? Then she chided herself for clinging to such foolish hopes, but what was the harm in hoping, better her last days be brightened, better to slip away from life in a happy trance than depart for the realm of the Gods kicking and screaming.
As Renly had advised, they'd sent letters proclaiming their intent to attend the Council in good faith, guaranteeing the safety of King Baelor, or Prince, or whatever they'd call him until the Council's conclusion. But then they'd waited. Perhaps it was a sign of the Gods for Sansa in that the Northmen, already deep in the Crownlands when the Council had been called, had been the first to arrive, setting up camps on either side of the two villages bordering the crossing, Eastwater and Westwater, those were their names. Then came letters from Brigette Rowan, who'd accompanied her father, newly pardoned by a newly merciful Queen, who wrote to tell her that most of the northern bannermen had returned back north, that it was only Benjen Stark and his lords who'd remained south. Letters then heralded the Queen's arrival, a few Lords of the Vale passed through King's Landing first, before continuing up the Blackwater, Margaery holding court for them out of courtesy, though she dared speak little of politics, much less sit on an empty throne, no, she fed them and poured them wine and assured them that the Tyrells had nothing to do with Rhaegar's plots, his religions, that her father bore no grudges against the Queen, that they'd remain loyal to whomever the Council would choose.
Finally word came that the many Dornish lords and ladies accompanied the Lady and Regent Ellaria had emerged the other side of Prince's Pass, so then they departed the capital with a hundred armed men, enough to protect themselves against a small roving band of assassins, not enough to be threatening to a Queen who'd very likely order their deaths at the slightest provocation. It was the Dornish camps they rode through, on the furthest outskirts of the small yet burgeoning half city arising amidst empty fields still barren and dry from winter.
"Maj'ry. Maj'ry?"
"What, sweet child?"
Sansa Stark's silver haired son opened his arms at her the moment she emerged from her wheelhouse, Baelor already standing on his own outside, accompanied by one of her ladies. Handing Aegon off to another handmaiden, Margaery walked over and took the older child into her arms.
"Maj'ry," Baelor said contently, wrapping his little arms around her neck, resting his head against her shoulder. "I'm hungry, Maj'ry."
"Look over there," Margaery said, pointing towards a small tent being set up by the servants. "Do you see that, Baelor? No more riding, that's where you're sleeping tonight, tomorrow too! Come! Let's walk there together, be a dear boy, be patient, I've heard they've got some pudding for you if you're good, do you hear?"
"Pudding," the boy exclaimed happily, taking her hand as she walked him towards his tent. "'Nilla, Maj'ry?"
"Of course, vanilla, your favorite!"
She'd long learnt how to cater to the tastes of this little thing they'd proclaim a King. Seeing Baelor happily settled in, Margaery found herself wandering. She'd nursed Aegon earlier that day, her ladies were taking care of him now, though she thought it a strange feeling, that Aegon was her first born, yet he felt like her second child. Baelor tried calling her "mama", when he first began speaking, but she'd carefully but firmly rebutted him from the beginning.
"No Baelor," she'd chided gently, waving one finger before his purple eyes. "Not mama. Margaery. Margaery, can you say my name Baelor? Margaery."
He really was a sweet boy, as happy as any child could be, Margaery thought, considering he'd never properly met either his mother or father, not with any lasting impression or memory of them anyhow. But he was also surely a Targaryen, not just by look. His tantrums, though rare, could shake the whole castle...except they'd all learned soon enough that it was only Maj'ry could make the crying stop, putting the little dragon to rest as easily as one quiet whisper, a story told, a song, when he was at his worst.
"You're going to see your mother soon, Baelor. Aren't you so excited?"
Her words had only drawn confusion from his eyes. "Not Maj'ry?"
"No. Your mother. The Queen. Queen Sansa."
"Lady Margaery!"
"Oh Brigette," she said, taking the younger girl into a fierce hug. "How fares you, how have you been, this war, it's so awful!"
"I just thank the Gods papa lives," Brigette answered, one of her oldest friends, whom she'd remembered playing in the gardens with when they were both so young. "It's not been bad, Lord Ashford's been kind. But...," the freckled, brown haired girl looked away, "I think of home...they saw if you walk into Goldengrove you'd think it's been abandoned for a hundred years now...but, but...papa lives, we all live. So many of us aren't so lucky..."
Brigette's voice trailed off, as Margaery squeezed her friend's hands. "The war's been so cruel to all of us, from the simple farmer to the greatest lords to the Queen herself. We can only give thanks that it's over, that no more blood will be shed."
If Margaery feared what the Queen herself would do to her and her family, she found herself surprised by the...well, the lack of reaction from Sansa when they finally met again. She hadn't expected her old friend to joyously embrace her, or thank her, when they brought Viserys before her makeshift court on the opposite side of the Blackwater, bound in a cage, covered in his own filth. The Queen merely nodded, and as her men took the cage away to the Gods knew where, Sansa's cold, dead eyes did not blink, observing the tense scene as if merely reading the tedious scrolls of the taxes collected from this village or that. She'd expected her old friend to scream at her, launch into a furious tirade, betray her at least a single dirty look, at least let her know what to expect...yet she failed to find satisfaction in even having the worst of her fears realized.
"Your son Baelor," she presented, careful to not bring any mention of his title, or House name.
There had been no reaction either, though Margaery was sure Sansa could not have missed how scared Baelor had been, clinging to his Maj'ry whilst meeting his mother for the first time since the boy possessed the ability to meet anyone. But the Queen merely nodded, then that awful girl Jeyne took the whimpering child away from her. Edmure, captured in battle by Randyll Tarly, Renly thought it better not to make a big show of his release. They'd instead let him go early, shortly upon their arrival, her father personally accompanying the Lord of Riverrun to where his other Riverland lords were camped, the ones who hadn't fought against him at least...most of the latter she'd heard remained in the cells at Casterly Rock.
"It would seem we were indeed amongst the last to arrive," Renly said after supper that night, having walked through all the grounds before the evening, dining and drinking with all his old friends from court and past tourneys, as if the war had never happened, as if he'd not straddled both sides of the war, as Margaery suspected. "All the claims will be presented tomorrow. The Queen expects the voting to occur the day after that. Lacking a winner, further arguments will be placed for each claim drawing some semblance of support, and then a second round, and such and such we go."
"The Queen's rules are strange," Monford Velaryon noted. "If it comes down to who gets the most votes, I'd think she has a good chance of winning with the first go at it."
"But if she loses the first round of voting," Margaery pointed out, "then it's over, she has no further recourse."
"No doubt," Renly agreed, before explaining, "it's going to be her or Baelor. But with more than two claims at hand, likely neither one of them will receive the half they need to clinch things. Done this way, she'd have a better sense of where she stands, and what she needs to do to, whom and how many she needs to win over still, without risking losing her crown with the first vote."
"I've heard word the Dornish are openly championing the claim of Prince Joffrey," Margaery added. The whispers came alongside a most enjoyable evening of food and wine with her old friends from the Reach, hearing more than enough to give her a decent grasp of the matter, as if she'd been present for a fortnight already. And it was just so pleasant...how easy was it for her to imagine that she'd stumbled back into her happy past, that she had a home, that she did not need to constantly fret about her life and the survival of her family, her son.
"The Dornish hold out, then that ensures no one gets more than half after one round," Renly said thoughtfully. "It makes perfect sense. Sansa gathers her levels of support, tallies her count, then the Dornish change their minds, the Council's over, vengeful Queen back atop her throne."
A nervous chuckle, because Renly knew the stakes. Perhaps that was why she'd called the Council, just to watch them struggle, scurrying like rats to save their own lives, grasping at the faintest straws of hope.
"Is it really such a disaster if she wins," Monford asked. "Seems Her Grace has been in a forgiving mood of late, what with the war being over. You won't get Highgarden back, my son might lose Driftmark altogether...but...seems if we support her now, it's still better than defying her."
It was not a foreign thought to Margaery. Then she exchanged a look with her father, and they both understood why.
Father signed the invitation to crown Rhaegar. He'll be lucky if he lives out the rest of his life on the Wall.
Yet, that thought didn't stop her from stumbling her way across the bridge later that night, praying the Queen had yet to sleep. Most of the wine had left her body by the time she'd approached the Sansa's tent. Recognizing her little sister, Margaery withstood her death glare long enough as they both waited by the entrance, before the Queen's young lover...no, Prince and husband, she corrected, beckoned her inside.
Robb's little sister had grown. Sansa had always been tall, now she seemed a giant, behind her desk, the dim light of the candles on either side of her bathing her pale skin in an eerie glow, giving the Queen a near mystical aura, as if she were some strange witch of Asshai with the most unnatural of powers.
"Your Grace," she bent her knee properly, "I thank you for seeing me at this late hour..."
"Shut up," came the cross reply. Finally, honesty, show me your truest heart. "Why are you here?"
Give me your poison now, all of it, let me be the one to bear the burden.
"Your Grace," Margaery began again smoothly, having fully expected the admonishing from Sansa, "whatever, complications, which may have arisen..."
"Speak what you came to speak of, no more, or I'll have Edric take your head here and now."
"Very well," she said, remaining on her knee, bending her neck down towards her feet, as if she would invite the blow herself. Yet, the fact that the Queen had not ordered her executed on sight seemed...seemed promising? "I...Baelor is a sweet child, a bright child. I believe he will grow to be a good king...a good man...but, you did win this war, didn't you?"
The Queen's cold stare beckoned her to not mince words, her silence somehow an even more urgent inducement to truly get to the point of it all.
"Your Grace, I don't expect Highgarden. I don't expect my father to retain any titles after all this. But...spare his life, let him live somewhere...somewhere warm, not at Castle Black. Take my life if need be, but my son, I beg you...we have some influence still, Lord Renly as well. If you can promise that...all will be forgotten...then all will be truly forgotten. Whatever remains of House Tyrell, we won't bother you ever again. Just let us live, in peace...and...and...between what influence we have left, I'm sure we can ensure that this Council will decide in your favor, quickly."
It was not the deliberating eyes of the Queen which terrified her now, but that of the Young Star behind her, whom they said was the Stranger himself when set upon the battlefield. Two swords hung at his belt, one belonging to Sansa's father, Margaery knew...and the other she'd recognized as the Valyrian blade which once hung astride the hip of Randyll Tarly.
"If this Council proclaims in my favor," the Queen began, "and it will, I assure you, your father would be lucky to eke out what life he can on the isle of Skagos. As for you, my dearest Lady Margaery...I suppose Bear Island is as much mercy as you'd deserve, for everything you've done."
Everything I've done?
You bitch.
I wasn't the one flaunting my affair with a Kingsguard before all the court, I wasn't the one who killed my own brothers out of my negligence and stupidity!
Control yourself, Margaery. "And my son?"
The Queen ignored her. "Even if the lords select Baelor, do you think I won't have my influence in my son's court? You're right, I did win this war, my dear Edric has not met a battle where he hasn't eviscerated our enemies...so, do you think they won't appoint me a regent out of reconciliation's sake? Do you think I won't demand the same punishment for traitors, do you think they would not accede to my demands all the same, because who cares for what befalls a shrunken house of stewards? Are you truly so foolish as to believe that your fates are not already long sealed, whomever this Council chooses?"
"Your Grace," Margaery nodded politely, knowing that her trip had been made for an entirely futile cause, that there was no convincing the sheet of ice before her otherwise.
You bitch.
I tried to give you what you wanted.
By all the Gods...by my life, by my son's life, I'll see you humbled, I'll have this crown torn from your head, we're not finished yet, let it be the last legacy of House Tyrell.
Sansa
"I don't understand."
Her uncles were befuddled. Her uncle Benjen, finally reunited with his wife and children, looking much far stouter, aged, than she'd remembered, though Sansa pitied his plight, having been amongst the earliest victims of Rhaegar and the Spider's treachery. Her uncle Edmure sat similarly confused as well, spitting his ale back into his glass as he spoke.
"Release the Dornish votes now," Benjen added, "I don't see why you won't do that."
Beside him sat Cersei, husband and wife looking as close, even tender, than Sansa had ever remembered seeing of them, on those rare outings to her father's castle.
"You'd lost ground that last round," Edmure saw fit to remind her. "Aye, it shames me to say it, but my own lords are defecting over...it embarrasses me, the Lychesters, the Deddings...even fucking Theomar Smallwood, he can resist a damn siege, but not the honey from that Tyrell bitch's tongue."
"Fucking Robett Glover," Benjen spat angrily. The Lord of Winterfell's contingent of highborns numbered amongst the fowest compared to the representatives of the other more populous kingdoms...so even one defection from the North rankled more than dozens from more southerly lands. Granted, Glover and his son had voted for her uncle Benjen rather than Baelor, an act which the Lord of Winterfell had been quick to disclaim and denounce immediately.
The number of lords and heirs who'd attended this Council numbered over five hundred. The votes tallied two hundred thirty-four for her after the first round had been cast, only seven more than Baelor's number. Ellaria's block of Dornish nobles counted forty-seven for Joffrey, with four hold outs from the Vale strangely determined to prop her cousin Robin, no longer a tiny lad, upon the Iron Throne. Lastly, one senseless old man, a Grandison, had decided to cast his vote for Robert Baratheon, though the Young Stag had been dead for four and twenty years now. An appropriate number, Sansa thought, because it was exactly four and twenty more votes she still needed to claim the Council.
Then the lords argued the next two days, most of Baelor's proponents learned maesters, surely ones who'd been carefully prepared and nurtured by Lady Margaery, whose fervor for the cause of her son by Rhaegar was now being openly marveled by all gathered...exactly what Sansa had intended, in turning away the woman so rudely. The Queen's two uncles were the ones to champion her claim that afternoon...rather ineffectively, they all agreed behind their backs, but again, all part of her plan.
Before the second round even began, old Hugh Grandison died of a stroke, thus losing the long dead Robert Baratheon his sole vote on the Council. But so did Rickard Karstark as well, who drank so much he choked on his own vomit, thus losing her one vote. As Benjen said, two votes deserted her from the Glovers' camp. Sweetrobin's votes split, two to the Queen and two to the Queen's son, but somehow Margaery and Renly had been able to talk another nine men into switching their allegiances from her to Baelor. Adding the Qorgyle's, who voted with the Tyrells to Ellaria's fury, along with the ten Westerlands votes she'd instructed Daenerys into ordering to vote Baelor, the final tallies of the second round left her significantly behind, two hundred ten to Baelor's two hundred forty-four, her son needing only another eleven votes to secure a crown he could not even understand.
"I'll tell Lady Ellaria to switch over Dorne to my side," Sansa conceded. She was sure Baelor wouldn't clinch the magic number on the third tally, yet there was no point in tempting fate. "Daenerys's ten will vote for Baelor again though, that will not change."
Which would leave her still two men shy of keeping her crown. She looked over to Benjen.
"Don't say anything to the Glovers, let them persist in their treason." All her northern family frowned in consternation, from her uncle to Cersei to Mycella. Tommen looked uncertainly to Jeyne, who squeezed his hand in reassurance, because Jeyne was one of the few whom she trusted with her plans, along with Arya, Daenerys and, of course, her beloved husband, whom she'd instructed to do little besides walk around the camp, look pretty, and carry two Valyrian swords by his side to scare the shits out of anyone tempted into joining Margaery.
Minisa slept in Jeyne and Tommen's tent that night, along with her son and rival Baelor, so that she and Edric could make love, both of them thinking eagerly as they fucked towards the results she sought on the third vote.
The morning dawned bright, interrupting several days of cold rain and drizzle. Sansa saw an optimstic hue in the eyes of all around her, friend or foe, a curious excitement bubbling, one way or another, that these great men and occasional women would end the day with a new sovereign they could worship again. Highborns or not, she'd realized, all the greatest lords and ladies of the realm were, like the mobs, like the commoners, the villagers, the beggars of Flea Bottom, sheep to be herded at the end.
She would know. Just as she and Edric dined with their soldiers and drank in the taverns during the war, so she made the effort to, if not dine, then give each lord and house whom she did not know already a few private minutes with the Queen. The time spent was not for the purposes of gaining for herself votes, if anything she made an effort to remain aloof and regal, haughty even, some would say. The Queen questioned them not as her peers, but as her subjects, asking them their histories, their thoughts on the realm, the war, their lands...provoking them if they seemed too friendly, or too guarded. And if she wished to give less credit to Margaery and Renly and their camp, Sansa could believe that it was her own cold demeanor, rather than the eloquence of her enemies, which had cost her so many votes the second round.
But of course the third round would swing in her favor, with all of Dorne placing their chips before the maesters for her claim. Well, nearly. The Ullers joined the Qorgyles in favoring Baelor, though their loss was matched by the Glovers, who'd abandoned their lost cause and returned to her camp. Somehow Margaery had been able to convince another house into declaring for Baelor, the Sunderlands of the Vale and their three votes, Lord and two eldest sons.
"It's over," Cersei said with a smile that night, all her camp in a celebratory mood as they drank the last barrels of Arbor Gold in the Queen's tent. "Your Grace, you've won in war and council, once the Princess commands her lords to switch over to your side. Truly, you will be the chosen one of the Gods."
Sansa raised her glass in her aunt's direction, feeling guilty that she did not trust her enough to confide in her yet what Daenerys knew already. Hopefully Cersei would not be too cross at her when it was all said and done.
"To Sansa Stark," Edmure raised his glass, "the once and future Queen!"
They all drank and laughed, but Edric's face remained stone. "Once and future," he challenged her uncle, rising from his seat. He'd had a lot to drink already, his temperament more perturbed after the wine. "The Queen's always been the Queen, always will be the Queen. Never for one minute has she not been your rightful Queen, from the day she was crowned."
Sansa squeezed at his shoulders, understanding his heightened anxiousness. But she could not fault Edric, however more belligerent he became in her defense, the more wine or ale he'd had. And it was not the Lord of Riverrun who perturbed him, Sansa understood, but what was to come the following day.
"Aye," Edmure said, backing away from her husband with a nervous chuckle, "always the rightful Queen! Hear hear!"
"Thank you uncle," Sansa said politely.
The final count from earlier that day had left her with two hundred and fifty one votes, far exceeding her count from the first round of voting. But her margin was slim, only two more this round than those cast for Baelor...and still she remained five short of securing hers, and more importantly, Minisa's inheritance. All she'd need was Daenerys's ten, but thankfully it would not come to that.
For the second night in a row she and Edric made love furiously inside their rain splattered tent. Then, they laid in their cot, both of them pretending to sleep, both of them failing, their blood pumped full of fear and anticipation. Yet, she'd awoken first, Baelor seconds afterwards, at the sounds of blood curdling screams and yells from outside. Their bodies still bare beneath her wolf's pelt blanket, rather than dress, Sansa pulled her husband atop of her, then, gripped at his back as he fucked her one last time for good measure.
"I hope you haven't worn yourself out," the Queen said, stroking her husband's cheek as they emerged from their tent. "Tonight will be a good one too, I imagine."
Edric near cackled at her words. "Let's get through today first, and I promise you...Your Grace, you'll get your just rewards."
The scene outside was not as chaotic as she'd expected. Only a few tents had caught on fire, and what little resistance given had already been subdued. After so many nights of peaceful deliberating, drinking, and damn near celebration, all of the realm which had survived the war gathered together on the rarest of occasions, it would seem few of the lords saw any need to post more than a couple sentries by their tents, wary at the most of a stray drunken brawler, rather than nearly ten thousand men of the Night's Watch flocking upon the Blackwater.
They watched men being dragged from their tents barely clad, forced upon their knees, whipped at, cursed at, bound, and broken. Few struggled, few fought the strange invaders, and why should they, having been lured into complacency after nearly a fortnight of drinking and friendly fraternizing, celebrating this new peace which had seemingly blessed the land. There was just a sense of shock, from both her allies and her condemned, the most dignified men and women in the realm emerging slackjawed from their tents still clad in their bedclothes.
By the bridge she saw the silhouette of a lone man upon a horse, blocking her view of the first rays of light along the eastern horizon. Tugging Edric's sleeve, they approached the dark form, who dismounted gracefully, despite his advanced years.
"My Lord Hand."
Tywin Lannister bowed but did not kneel. Hidden by his father's shadow before, she saw Tyrion Lannister plopping his feet on the ground, glaring around at the scene before them, mouth agape in horror like most of the others bearing witness to the scene. Yet those whose reactions counted as shock were the lucky ones, for they were not the men lying bound, bruised, and prostrate on the cold, wet dirt.
"Your Grace."
Did he not tell you to expect this, she thought, watching Tyrion stumbling about even as his father addressed her, did he not believe you capable of stomaching it?
"I trust you received my list in good order?"
He handed her the sheet of parchment, and Sansa squinted her eyes, recognizing the same names she'd either approved or crossed off the night before.
"Your cousin is busy with the Glovers," Tywin informed her. "As for my son, he has a quite a few intransigent Stormlanders to wrangle with ."
More and more figures emerged from their tents, the blessed, the uncursed, those who had cast their votes on her behalf, yet Sansa did not need to look into their eyes to feel their horror, staring aghast at the sanguine scene before them. Even the villagers stirred, from their huts by the river, and Sansa welcomed them, the more to bear witness to this day, the better.
Her table and chair they'd prepared along the banks of the Blackwater, atop a small bluff just outside the village of Westwater. One chair was placed for her, alone, one sole throne for a Queen at the head of all seven kingdoms, lords and ladies and princes and princesses who would all stand obediently in fealty to their rightful Queen whilst as she sat in judgment during her true coronation, an event which would not be forgotten by a single soul for the rest of time.
Standing upright, the Queen continued to wait, her posture proper, as rigid as any noble knight's, one hand holding at the edge of her makeshift throne. Slowly more and more men gathered, all of them her supporters, Sansa knew, because they walked freely after all was said and done. The last to arrive was Daenerys and the Westerlings, the Princess whispering in her ear that she had the full attentions of the entire realm by now.
"To deny your Queen is treason. To deny your Queen is heresy against the Gods. To cast your vote against your Queen is treason, to seek to usurp her birthright, and that of her chosen heir's, is to spit into the faces of the Gods themselves. There are no claims, except the sole and rightful claim preordained in the heavens, thousands of years before any of us were born.
There is no Council, no right to any gathering of men, not when it contradicts the very wills of the Father, the Warrior, the Smith, the Stranger, the Crone, the Mother, the Maiden, for that holy Council above is the only one which matters in this world.
I would've thought that the bloodiest and most horrible war since the Dance of Dragons would have hammered in this lesson for all of you, but let me repeat my words, so that they may remain unforgotten for the next one thousand years. There is fealty, or death. Nothing more, nothing less. There is only the will of the Gods, indiscernible from the will of your Queen, the will of House Stark, to whom the Gods have bequeathed the right of rule, the right of the Crown."
Then the Queen sat, the sun rising behind her back, blinding the sight of the first traitors brought before her. The frontest rows of her audience were her prisoners in actuality, bound and knelt forcibly upon the mud, each with at least two or three brothers of the Night's Watch guarding over them, behind them the lucky ones who'd remembered their fealty, though their expressions remained as grim as those who were about to die. A table was set perpendicular to hers, where Arya sat, along with her uncles, Jeyne, the Princess Daenerys, and Cersei and her children. But the Queen sat alone, one hand holding the list handed her by Tywin Lannister, who stood behind her, the brooch of the Hand already pinned to his vest.
Edric began. "Lord Mathis Rowan."
The bearded old man, whom she'd captured at Oxcross and set free at Casterly Rock, was brought before her by two crows, one of them the boy Pyp, she'd recognized from Horn Hill.
"Your Grace, please, I beg you, I won't..."
"Treason is treason, Lord Mathis. I'd thought you'd learnt your lesson at Oxcross. I was wrong, yet the mistake was yours. It will be your last mistake." With one nod, Edric took his head, and the Queen crossed her first name off her list.
So it continued. Edric bloodied his swords with the first dozen or so, then came Ser Balon, then came Aerys Oakheart, then came Ser Sandor, who finished most of the condemned. The Queen had indeed approved every man on the list...nearly each and every one who voted against her. There were exceptions, of course. Daenerys's ten, who'd voted for Baelor on her orders alone, obviously would not die. They'd followed their orders and served their purpose, along with the Dornish lords...to prolong the Council as long as possible, luring her enemies into complacency, before the support of any claim, hers or Baelors, exceeded the votes needed to end the gathering.
Thus she'd drawn out as many of her enemies as possible, who'd think her weak, and losing faith, defect their way into treason...not just ones who would oppose her now, but those as well who could be so tempted in the future. Such were the Qorgyle's and Uller's, who died by Edric's sword. Such were the Glovers, who had their heads carved off by Jaime Lannister, the tips of his golden mane still frosted by the air of the frozen north, the Queen observed, despite the fact that the lords of Deepwood Motte had ultimately switched their votes back on her side, because treason considered then abandoned still measured treason just the same.
The ordeal lasted through mid day. Each man was brought before her, each man heard the final sentence from the Queen, before crows dragged the heads and bodies and tossed them ungracefully into the river. The Queen made sure to check her list before she nodded her sentence, to ensure that no mistakes were made, that none of the condemned had been mistakenly taken, or mistaken for another. Nearly every man who'd cast their vote for Baelor on the third and last ballot would lose their heads, though the Queen did make her exceptions, based on the personal impressions each lord or lady made upon her.
Lady Anya Waynwood she spared, because the woman was old, and Sansa could tell she'd been pressured into her vote by her sons, whom she chose to spare the younger, execute the elder. Same too with the likes of the young Renton Mullendore, who'd voted for Baelor only because his father the Lord Martyn had pressured him into doing so. The son lived, the father lost his head, though Sansa did not need to remind Tywin that the family would bear watching in the years to come. There were even the rare likes of Lord Morgan Wylde who, though he'd cast his vote for Baelor, after meeting with the man Sansa could be confident that not only did he cast his vote only out of loyalty to Renly Baratheon and his purposefully absent puppet, the Lady Shireen, but of whom she'd heard these last nights his kindness and gentleness towards his wife and daughters and the smallfolk who'd lived on his land, so she'd spared in one of the fewest exceptions to her wrath.
But aside from the men she'd personally pardoned, her chosen condemned worked as a team to color the Blackwater red that day, nearly each and every man who'd voted or even considered voting against her rightful claim. Somewhere in the rear of the audience she'd spied Jon earlier in the morning, though he'd disappeared far before the last of the Queen's purge was complete. Tyrion had disappeared too, though Sansa thought he'd stumbled away.
Some of the lords begged for mercy, for themselves, for their sons. Others cursed her or, more often than not, cursed Lord Tywin behind her, or Edric, who'd found a chair next to her by now, as if she were inherently less capable of honor than the men who did her bidding for her. Behind the rows of crows standing guard screamed the crying and pleadings of women and children, beseeching her with unworldly desperation to spare their husbands, their fathers, and Sansa thought her ears may bleed, listening to their wailing, swearing to remember the grim sound, to remember the full weight and price of her lasting triumph.
The last condemned man standing was Orton Merryweather. Like each and every lord she'd spared after the Battle of Oxcross, he'd persisted in resisting her despite the mercy she'd shown him. It was Ser Jaime's turn to take this last head, two more brothers of the Night's Watch tossed the remains into the river, after which it felt like the realm had hushed into a terrible silence, mortified at what their Queen may still demand from her blood strewn court.
The Queen stood, and step by careful step walked around the table until her boots stood directly atop the darkest patch of dirt, where the blood of well over two hundred lords dripped deeper and deeper into the dry soil. First she looked at Edric, then Tywin, then circled her head to address all who'd been lucky enough to survive the Council of the Wolf.
"Blood has been shed," she proclaimed, "the blood of the guilty. Far down this river, blood has been shed of the innocent, too much innocent blood." The Red Keep. Her home, the castle she'd grown up in...the same castle which saw the deaths of her daughter Lyanna, of Trystane and Bran and Rickon, where they'd brought her mother's body after the mob had had their way with her. "A new castle shall be built upon this ground, sprung from the seeds planted by the blood of traitors spilled today, a new city, a new capital for the realm, a great city by the name of Trystanen. Let every man, woman, and child leave this sacred site then, fully aware of the lesson learned this day...that fealty is not a choice...that what acts they'd choose in life, so the Gods will find and deliver their justice through the hands of their chosen champion upon the Iron Throne."
Soldiers who'd fought battle after battle, sworn brothers of the Watch who'd known nothing but winter for most of their lives, the hardest and most terrible of men, yet their eyes trembled when she met theirs, as if she could wield a sword far deadlier than the likes of Barristan the Bold. Or the Smiling Knight, more appropriately.
"The Night's Watch is an ancient and hallowed tradition. But its time has passed. The greatest threats to the Seven Kingdoms come not from outside its walls, but from within. Henceforth, the Watch of the Wolf will continue to protect and shield the realm, within the Seven Kingdoms. Their duty will not be merely protecting the highborns, lords and princesses, but the weak, the powerless, the feeble. Those of you who've survived this day do so purely by the divine grace of your Queen. Remember the lessons of this Council on the Blackwater, I beg of you, for your sake, and that of your families, those you love. For those who suffered this day, remember your suffering, so that you do not repeat the mistakes of your fathers, your sons, your brothers, because a lesson repeated is sure to be far harsher. And for those who could be tempted into forgetting this day...the Wolf is watching, the Wolf has eyes from Winterfell to the Arbor, from Gulltown to Kayce. Justice will favor not the rich, nor the wellborn, nor the powerful or strong, but the just, and the right, and the faithful."
When she moved from the bloody spot, soon to be the cornerstone of her new castle, they all flinched back and away from her. When she walked forward, away from the river, tracking blood through previously unsullied dirt and grass, they parted for her without even need for guards or whitecloaks, those who weren't completely dumbstruck knelt, as if she would remember their faces or names through the blur of her victory. The once rowdy and jolly encampment seemed as eerie and still as the ruins of Old Valyria, nearly half the tents belonging to dead men, dead houses.
The tent she sought stood guarded by northmen, the banners of the Merman gripped in the hands of two sentries who'd been fortunate enough not to have witnessed the slaughter. Inside sat a mother, so intent at nursing her young son that she did not even hear of her entrance or approach at first.
"Sansa!" Margaery Tyrell startled, as if seeing a ghost. Ironic.
"Finish," she ordered, so her brother's betrothed did, nervously gripping her child for several more minutes until the infant was satisfied. Covering herself up, she laid the child into a small crib, before turning and facing her executioner.
"Sansa, I swear to you..." Margaery looked around the tent forlornly, knowing she was damned regardless of what poetry the woman had left in her lungs. "He's not Viserys's child."
"He's not?" Be it that the damned woman could still surprise her.
"No," she replied, shaking her head furiously and sitting back down upon her cot, burying her face into her palms. "I...I needed an heir. Viserys needed an heir. He was becoming impatient, and I...he's barren, Your Grace, I'm sure of it. So I...there's this boy in the armory, he's got the same color hair as I, same eyes. After the maesters told me they were sure...we gave him a bag of gold, sent him on a ship to Pentos. I swear it Sansa, maybe he's still there across the Narrow Sea, we'll bring him back, he can swear to this, I beg of you, please believe me!"
She did. Strangely, she believed Margaery on this matter.
"The realm believes Aegon is the son of Viserys."
"I'll tell everyone the truth, I promise, I'll ride to every village and speak to every soul until the truth is known..."
She would keep pleading and begging, until her Queen died of old age, so Sansa interrupted her. "Your father will die. I've ordered the remaining prisoners brought from Casterly Rock. Lord Tyrell and Viserys will join them. They, Randyll Tarly, Jonos Bracken, and Walder Frey, will be all impaled outside the Walls of King's Landing. They will live for some time, I'm assured. So as to reduce the length of their suffering, their bodies will be covered with honey and sugar on the second morning."
Mayhaps a lemoncake too, I'll set it atop Viserys's nose myself.
Margaery gasped at her in sheer horror. As terrible a fate as she'd surely imagined for herself, her father also, this seemed to exceed even her most dreaded or demented expectations.
Then she reacted. The woman was quick, she'd give her that, impossibly composed to the very last.
"Then I beg of you, Sansa...Your Grace, let me join them. Take me, let my screams, my suffering save my son's life, if my father's punishment is not enough."
"You're begging me." She felt a smirk crawl upon her lips, like a spider creeping.
"I am," Margaery panted. "You won, Your Grace. You've won everything. I have nothing now, I've no choice left me but to beg, to plead..."
A faint wail from her son interrupted her, and both women turned their heads at the crib. The young child Aegon Targaryen...or Waters, or Flowers, Sansa wondered which, cried weakly for a few moments, before falling back asleep.
"Don't beg," the Queen ordered. "Pray."
Her brother's beautiful betrothed bride to be frowned her brows at her in consternation. "Pray?"
"Pray," Sansa said, affirming her own word. "To me. To the Seven incarnate, who walks this realm, my eyes their eyes, my voice their voice."
It would seem the woman's grovelling had its limits, sheer insanity being one of them, what was left of her dignity hesitant towards committing an actual act of heresy. Unfazed by Margaery's hesitation, the Queen took another step forward, so her knees bumped against hers, her breasts almost touching at the Tyrell woman's face.
"Am I not the Warrior incarnate, who defeated the thousands of soldiers you sent against me? Am I not the Father, who cast judgment upon all the sinners of the realm this day? Am I not the Mother, whose mercy you were so desperate for just now?"
From inside her robes, she withdrew a small dagger, and pointed it at Margaery's shaking neck.
"Am I not the Stranger herself, who holds the power of life and death over you, over your son? Was I not the only God who walked the known world today, who decided life or death, mercy or justice, for an entire continent? Am I not your God, here, now, where I stand, where you sit, am I not all the Gods and Goddesses and Strangers in this world to you, because there is nothing that matters to you, except for what you pray, and what I decide?"
Her jaw moved weakly, without making a noise. Then, deftly avoiding the tip her dagger, she fell off her cot and prostrated herself upon two knees before her Queen, before all her Gods and Goddesses.
"Blessed be the Seven," came the weak and frightened whisper, Margaery's dark brown eyes staring frightfully into her own, "blessed be the Mother, I pray for her forgiveness, for her mercy. I am weak, I am cruel, I am impure, I have sinned. I pray for her mercy, for my son's life...for mine..."
"Is that all?"
When Margaery opened her eyes and looked back up, she saw the dagger nestled near the dip between her two eyes.
"I..."
"Robb. You killed him."
"I...I loved him Sansa. I loved your brother, I would've never..."
"You killed him," the Queen repeated, igorning her protests. "Or do you deny your sin before your God?"
"I killed Robb," Margaery admitted, weeping ever more furiously, enough so that Sansa wondered whether there had been a grain of truth to her words, of her love for her brother. "I killed him...I coveted him...they told me, it was Lord Baelish, he said Prince Robb loved me...but I was stupid, I was foolish, I did not know then that I was unworthy of him. Please forgive Sans...blessed Mother, blessed Seven, please forgive my son for sins committed years before he was born..."
"You will live." The older woman looked up at her, eyes cast in shock, then horror. She probably thinks I mean to kill Aegon in front of her eyes. "You will live out the rest of your days on Bear Island. You may even marry again, bear children again, so long as you seek your Queen's permission first."
The beautiful countenance below her expressed little relief at the pronouncement. "Ae...Aegon," Margaery asked, trembling still.
"Will never be known by that name again," Sansa explained. "Theon Greyjoy claimed a crown which had no right to exist. He will be dead soon, if not already. After that, there will be not one living soul upon the island where my father and brother were betrayed and killed. All of Pyke will be a wasteland, more barren than Old Valyria."
Her ships would have already destroyed what remained of the Greyjoy fleet well before the Iron Born could return to where they had been docked upon the Sunset Sea. Five thousand of her victorious army from Oxcross had remained in the Westerlands, for the sole purpose of one last ambush to finish the war. The islanders had fought well for her cause, and Sansa hoped that most would have the good sense to surrender. If so, then they'd join the rest of Pyke, every last man, woman and child to be carried east upon a fleet of ships, then settled into the towns and villages of the North. The Iron Born would live, their blood would survive, that was her mercy, but they would do so surrounded by a kingdom who'd never forgotten what fate had befell their beloved King Eddard, and at whose hands.
"He had quite a few bastard sons," she continued. "They'll be sent on a ship across the Narrow Sea. Princess Daenerys still maintains some friends in the Free City of Braavos. I'm assured that there are families there, well off ones, mothers and fathers, princes even, whose seed are barren, who cannot bear their own children. Their names will be forgotten, their inheritances...but they will live comfortable lives, inside manors grander than those on Bear Island...or that's what I'd believe, were I you."
The woman who would have been Robb Stark's Queen dipped her head. In relief? In grief, in every emotion possible to a woman, a mother, Sansa could imagine, she could even sympathize. But the judgment had been pronounced, Margaery Tyrell was no longer her problem, so the Queen departed this last ghost of her bloody past, for she only had the rest of the realm to deal with, for the rest of her life.
