The Wrong Prince.
Chapter Three
Cersei awoke when the rays of the sun fell across her face, she groaned and buried her face deep into her pillow but she knew that she could not go back to sleep and so she pushed herself up by her hands and then rubbed her eyes to clear them.
Once she pulled her hands away from her eyes the first thing she noticed was that her husband was not there, for a moment she was confused but then she understood, and that caused the anger always inside her to flare up and it burned deep alongside the humiliation.
How dare he.
He had only wed her the night before and he had snuck off to see his whore Cersei wanted to find him and strangle him for that but she knew that she could not, did not change the fact that she wished to do so.
She pushed herself up from the bed, pulled on a linen shift, and then walked over to the window of the chamber, the sun was as bright here in the morning as it would be in the Westerlands at the height of noon and the air was too dry and she found that she had a thirst. There was a pitcher in the room, a servant must have brought it in while she was still abed, and it was filled with water.
Cersei filled herself a cup with it and took a deep drink, she nearly spat the water out at the tart taste of it, someone must have squeezed lemon inside of the pitcher but Cersei found that it made her feel more refreshed after she had swallowed it and so she finished the first cup that she had poured before she poured herself another one.
Cersei went back to the window and looked out at the realm that would be her home, and that thought disgusted her. She was a lion of the Rock, this was not her place. Lions were meant to roam the plains and the high hills of the west, what was there to hunt here? The plains were sand and filled with snakes and scorpions, a single bite or jab from which could bring low any mighty beast.
She wished that Jaime was here.
Her eyes began to prickle and Cersei rubbed at them roughly with the sleeve of her shift, telling herself that it was just the dry air that was making her eyes water. She finished her second cup of lemon water and distracted herself by listening to the sounds of the city below.
She could hear the sounds of merchants peddling their wares, she could not make out any of the words from how high up she was but who else but merchants and shopkeeps would be up this early? The hum of noise was pleasant enough that it let her mind drift away from the life that had been forced on her until her stomach rumbling drew her out of it.
Cersei pulled herself away from the window and rang a bell next to her bed a maid walked in, she was clearly Dornish and Cersei did not trust her for a moment as she was certain that her new husband had sent her to spy on her and even if he didn't send her she was probably loyal to that whore of his instead and Cersei was not about to show her belly to any of them.
"Would my lady like to dress for the day?" The maid said, she spoke the common tongue at least but it was thickly accented with the Dornish tongue and Cersei wondered how she would ever get used to this place.
Regardless, she nodded and the maid nodded to someone on the other side of the door that Cersei could not see and Cersei found herself frowning when she saw two of the serving men that had come with her from the Rock carrying in one of her trunks. "You went to the apartments where I was staying?" Cersei asked the maid after the men had set the trunk down and left. "Why didn't any of my maids come?"
"Your maids have been dismissed my Lady," the maid said as she knelt down in front of the trunk and opened it. "They will be returning to the Westerlands with your aunt and uncle."
"What!?" Cersei shouted and the maid flinched and Cersei wanted to wrap her hands around her throat and throttle her, she wanted to throttle her father and her husband more but they weren't here and so this woman would have to eat the meal she would sooner serve the both of them. "What right does he have to dismiss any of my maids!? They are my servants!"
The maid had the nerve to shrug at her. "It is not for me to question the prince, my lady. Would you prefer the green silk or the crimson?"
The words made Cersei want to scream but she bite her tongue, so hard that for a moment she was certain that she would bite it in two but she swallowed her rage for the moment. "The crimson, if you please."
Doran Martell could send her maids away if he wished but if he thought that was going to be enough to make her any less a Lannister then he had better think again. And dressed in crimson silk, with rubies in her hair and a golden ring shaped into a lion's head with a ruby in its mouth on her finger Cersei had never felt more like a Lannister.
Cersei made her way to the apartments where her Aunt Genna, Uncle Kevan, and the rest of the Lannister retainers had been set up when they had first come to Sunspear. She found her uncle and aunt breaking their fast at a low round table, she did not know what her husband and his countrymen would be breaking their fast on but her family had seen fit to bring their own food which was free of queer Dornish spices.
They were eating fried fish wrapped in bacon with fried bread smothered in butter and the smell of it made Cersei's stomach rumble and that made her Uncle look up from his plate. He frowned at the sight of her. "Cersei? What are you doing here?"
"To break my fast Uncle," Cersei said as she took a seat next to her aunt and picked up a plate on which she piled high with fish and filled a cup up from the pitcher in the center of the table, though she frowned when she saw that it was milk and honey. After the morning that she had she wanted some wine.
"Clearly," Ser Kevan said with a frown as he stared at her. "But why are you breaking your fast here? It is the morning after your wedding night, you should be with your husband. When I married Lady Dorna we did not leave our marriage bed until it was at least noon, and when we did finally leave it we spent every moment together."
It took all Cersei had to not throw her cup of milk into his face as he kept on talking about how lovely the morning after his wedding had been. She swallowed her rage and spoke. "Well, maybe you should tell that to my new husband dear uncle. He's the one who snuck out of my bed like a rat to go and visit his whore's bed rather than stay with me."
Ser Kevan frowned heavily and reached for his own cup, finished it, and then sent one of his serving-men away to go and fetch wine. For the first time in a very long time, Cersei felt a surge of affection for her uncle and she let him fill her cup after he had filled his. "I know that the man is Dornish," Uncle Kevan said after a sip. "But I had hoped that the man would have a bit of honor and dignity, or at the very least would have some sort of respect for you as to not slip away on the morning of your wedding."
"Father did much the same with his whore," Aunt Genna said as she took a sip of her milk and honey, her uncle had offered her some wine but she had refused it. "Oh, he never slipped away from mother's bed to be sure, he never filled his bed with any other woman while she was still alive but when that foul creature held sway at the Rock he would often slip away from court or meals with us. His heart was between her legs when mother died."
Cersei's grandfather had died when she was only a year old, his heart had burst when he had been climbing the stairs to see his lowborn whore. And yet now his granddaughter had to suffer a greater shame than even that old fool had brought on to the Rock. Cersei said nothing and sipped her wine, but she imagined having the foreign whore marched naked through the desert, leaving her bare for stinging flies, snake bites, and scorpions and that made her feel better.
"He's even dismissed all of my maids and replaced them with his own creatures," Cersei said as she took another sip of her wine and waited for her uncle to share her outrage but at that revelation, he merely shrugged.
"Well Cersei, that is not so uncommon. A lord wishes for there to be peace and order in his household and your maids are paid by your father, were it me in Prince Doran's place then I am certain that I would do much the same," Uncle Kevan carried out and Cersei wished to slap him again, she didn't care if it was what every other lord in Westeros would do, it wasn't fair!
Genna Lannister finished her cup of honey and milk and rose from the table before she spoke. "I wish to explore the Shadow City before we have to head back to the Rock, Cersei, you will attend me."
She did not want to attend to her aunt, she wanted to drink more and rage but she knew that when it came to Genna Lannister saying no was not truly an option. "Fine," she muttered and finished the dregs of her wine and rose and linked her arms with her aunt and said her farewells to her uncle, who was no doubt already thinking of what to tell her father when he got back to the Rock.
When they made their plans known a mixed force of ten Lannister guards and ten Martell guards accompanied them out of the Old Palace, the Martell guards were dressed in loose-fitting linen shirts and loose silk trousers with curved swords at their hips and spears clenched tight in their fists and shields on their arms, the Lannister men had forgone their normal gilded armor for silk shirts and lambswool trousers, but even that seems to do little to spare them for the ravages of the sun.
Four serving men carried a silk awning to shield Cersei and her aunt from the sun as they made their way through the Shadow City, hearing the sounds from far away and up high was a thousand times different from walking among the city. Jugglers were juggling and puppet stands were putting on shows to the delight of dozens of barefoot children, old men were pouring some sort of thick batter on a round metal plate that was heated from below by some hot ashes, the batter was soon topped by onions, cheese and peppers and the smell were heavenly.
And the cats, for every single man that walked through the narrow streets and twisting alleys there, seemed to be three cats. Sleek blacks and puffy gingers, even a few cats that seemed to have not a shred of hair on them at all. "They must keep the rats down, I imagine." Aunt Genna said as a golden cat, bold as brass, leaped from a rooftop of a house in front of them to land atop the awning and took a nap there.
They came to a stop in a small plaza with a large fountain in the middle of it, Aunt Genna sat on the side of the fountain and Cersei sat across from her. There was a merchant selling chunks of lamb meat, little yellow onions, mushrooms, and peppers skewered on a metal stick and both Cersei and Genna helped themselves to one, and Genna Lannister had two more.
"All men are fools," Cersei's aunt had said after she finished her last skewer and dabbed at her mouth with a square of silk. "Even your father Cersei, no, don't frown at me like that. It's true, he's proud and his pride blinds him just as it blinds you. But him sending you here might be the smartest thing he has ever done. You are in Dorne now Cersei, in this land a woman could have a dozen younger brothers and it would not matter. If she were the eldest then she would be her Father's heir, women can be warriors here if they wish."
And that was all I ever wanted, Cersei thought. Aside from Jaime, and Rhaegar. "I don't love him, I don't want him."
"Do you think I wished to marry my husband? Do you think the sight of him stirs my loins," When Cersei turned her head away then aunt Genna reached across and pinched her ear like she was still a little girl until she turned back to look at her? "At least Prince Doran is comely, in a way. And he's at least a ruler in his own right while I was shipped off to a second son, you could make something for yourself here Cersei. If you opened your eyes and saw what was in front of you, and you must. Kevan and I must return to the Rock sooner rather than later."
Cersei frowned but kept silent until they made their way back to the Old Palace, as soon as they arrived a man in silk robes approached them. "Princess, it is time for court. Prince Doran sent me to come and fetch you."
A quiver of rage ran through her she was to be fetched like she was an errant child now. Cersei nodded goodbye to her aunt, who squeezed her hand before she left, and Cersei followed the man through the long corridors of the Old Palace until they arrived in a small audience chamber off of the main hall where her husband was waiting for her.
"Thank you, Isaiah, you may go." The man bowed his head and left them then and Cersei was alone with her husband for the first time since last night, he was dressed in richly decorated robes of gold, yellow, orange, and red with a red-gold chain around his neck, from which dangled a large onyx sun. Her aunt was right that he was not bad to look on, though no one could ever think he was as handsome as Rhaegar.
"You slipped out of our wedding bed to go and see your whore," The words came out before Cersei could stop then and Doran's eyes narrowed at her before he let out a sigh and his eyes fell shut.
"It was poorly done of me to do that, to leave you as I did and for that, I do apologize to you, my lady. I had no consideration for your feelings and it was wrong of me," he did sound regretful, which was not what Cersei had been expecting. "But let me be quite plain about one thing, Mellario is not, by any stretch of the definition, my whore. This is not the North, she is my paramour, and here she is worthy of respect. And she has my love as well if there is to be peace in our marriage and if we are to be friends, which I hope we can be, then you must accept this."
Cersei wanted to slap him, instead, she simply scoffed. "Oh, but of course, I must accept it. I must stand aside and let you do as you wish, a wife to have your heirs and a woman to simply love. What am I left with then?"
"Your own paramour, I assume."
"My own...what?" Cersei was lost.
Prince Doran shrugged then as if he wasn't talking such utter nonsense. "You may of course take a lover of your own if that would please you. It is not so uncommon here, my grandmother who was princess consort took two lovers as her paramours in point of fact. I will say that it is the done thing to wait until we have had at least one child before you look for a paramour, but no one will blame you for looking for one now."
Cersei felt utterly lost at sea as she stared at him. "I...I know no one in Dorne."
"That will change quickly, you are the Lady of Sunspear and the Princess Consort of all Dorne. We have a lively court here, and I am certain that many will wish to know you before too long." Doran walked over to his desk and filled a cup from a pitcher and took a drink from the cup. "Of course, if there is someone in the Westerlands who you had your eye on then I will do all I can to have them brought here, though I would warn that some northerners do not react well to the idea of simply being a lover, even more so the men."
For half a heartbeat madness took her and she wanted to tell him to send for Jaime, Jaime would come for her if he called and he would choose her over all other women she knew. They could lay back on silken pillows, feed each other throats and spend the rest of their days entwined in one another.
But as soon as it took her it was gone, Dorne was different but it was not that different and she and Jaime were not Targaryens and if father were to ever find out...no, it could never be. "There is no one," she doubted any Dornishman would ever be able to fill the place that Jaime had left in her bed, and her heart, anyway. "But I have your word that if I did wish to take a paramour, I could?"
"You have my word, as a Prince of Dorne." Doran glanced over his shoulder then. "Regardless, it is time that we made our way to court. We are late as it is."
He offered his hand for her to take, and Cersei did.
All the lords and ladies within the great hall rose as they walked in and Cersei and her husband climbed the steps of the dais to where the two great seats stood, one for the ruler of Dorne and one for his consort and Cersei had never seen the like before.
And when Cersei sat down next to her husband, for the first time since she had arrived in Dorne, she smiled.
End of Chapter Three