The first wedding
~ Clarice ~
The wreath of orange blossoms on her head barely masked the sour stench of her old, sweating husband to be, but Clarice had been seated next to him at enough dinners to know how to breathe through her mouth as shallowly as possible. The people of King's Landing cheered as they rode past in a roof-less wheelhouse drawn by white and grey horses, her father's colours. She sat with a straight back to allow them a good look at her snowy satin gown, embellished with pearls and embroidered richly in thread of silver. It was expected of her to show off her good breeding and taste and her family's wealth. For this glorious ride through the city, her father had spared no expenses: Her gown alone cost more than a mason could make in a year, and it was heavier than paving stones, too. On her ears and around her throat, costly silver gleamed, set with diamonds and marcasites, and the cushions she and her new husband rested on were silver samite and grey velvet.
The ceremony in the Great Sept had been a solemn affair, and not only because of her husband. Out here, in the bright spring sun, her wedding seemed almost bearable. At least, she no longer had to blink desperate tears away. Lord Gunthor Oakheart was old, yes, and he had fondled her backside at their first meeting in the Long Hall of the Hightower, and he smelled like a man half in his grave, but that final part was what gave her hope. If he already smelled dead, then surely he wouldn't last very long. He was long past sixty and his girth was not like to add years to his life. If the gods were good, a late spring chill would do for him, or perhaps the heat of the summer sun. He had a weak heart, after all, or so his maester had cautioned.
Truly, Clarice thought, as she stole a sideway glance at him sweating in his golden silks, she shouldn't give up all hope just yet. Her father had meant to secure House Oakheart for his family through the heirs she would give her ancient, childless husband, but she doubted that he meant to let her rot in Old Oak forever. After her husband's death, she would be allowed to assume regency for her young sons, though in truth, it would be her father who ruled the fertile lands around the ancient seat of House Oakheart. And in time, a comely young widow would wed again, a younger and more pleasant man this time, or so Clarice had to hope.
It was this hope that made her smile for the crowds and for the royal court, through all ten courses, through the mummer's play and the fool's japes. She even smiled when she felt her husband's hand on her backside as they cut the cake together in a strained show of matrimonial harmony. Her jaw hurt forcefully by the time the dancing began. Lord Gunthor, in a fit of gallantry, led her through the first dance himself before returning to his seat on the dais out of breath and coughing. It was a sweet sound. Clarice had barely caught her breath again after holding it for so long when her father swept in to lead her.
"You look beautiful today, Clarice."
"I thank you, lord father. Your generous gifts suit my colouring well."
"Lord Gunthor is not the man a young girl might ask for, yet I hope you see the advantage in this match." Her father was not one to exchange pleasantries, not with his cattle. He always came straight to the point. She appreciated that.
"I do, my lord."
It was too crowded to say more here but any further comment would have been futile anyway. Her father had told her what her duty was: Old Oak needed an heir. And it was her sole duty to produce this heir.
Clarice tried hard not to look at the man on the dais. It was bad enough that she would have to live through the bedding once tonight, she did not want to imagine it. Her husband had been tall and powerfully built as a young man, so powerfully, in fact, that he had been called the Young Oak. No one could call him young anymore, and nothing was left of his broad shoulders and strong arms, though he was tall, still. She hoped that he still had the strength to hold himself up or he would crush her to death that night.
"Smile." Her father looked down at her with a hint of displeasure.
Clarice forced the aching corners of her lips up again.
"Better."
Her father led her through the final steps of the dance with subtlety and elegance before he bowed and moved over to the lady on her left, as the dance master decreed.
The hand he left empty was taken again soon enough.
"Lady Clarice." The man on her father's left was taller than him, with the long silver-golden hair of the Valyrians and Clarice disliked him with a rare passion. "You must be grateful for every opportunity to escape your husband's presence."
She curtsied, though she didn't trouble her knees too much.
"Prince Daemon. Tired of counting sheep?"
There was no other man at court who could tear through her well-practised courtesies so easily. Perhaps that was why she found him so aggravating.
"If only those were all my duties, my lady. Have you ever seen my wife?"
Daemon Targaryen drew her closer than her father had. He was not an elegant man, not truly, and he had never shown either manners or courtesy, at least not to her. The Lord of Flea Bottom danced like a peasant, she thought, as she felt the silver and garnet buckles of his doublet against her front. It was an open secret that he spent more time with whores and innkeeps than with his wife and her household. They hated each other and Clarice was full of sympathy for Lady Rhea.
"For her wedding, I did." She gazed up at him with a faint smile. "She seemed too good for you by half." Her voice was low, the words lost in the music and prattling to anyone but him. It was his own fault for holding her so close. He provided her with ample opportunity to be insolent – and with ample reason, too. The Rogue Prince had never been too fazed by her impudence, however. He seemed to have come to regard it as a sport.
"Few people will say that of you, I suppose," he said with a triumphant grin. "Who is your husband again, remind me. He seems…slight."
The last word was uttered with a mocking look towards her new lord, up on the dais on an extra wide chair, his three chins resting on an enormous ruff.
"Lord Oakheart is one of my father's most powerful bannermen, though I trust you know little of the lords of this realm."
"It is true that I know more about the ladies. And I heard your lord husband can say the same. You are his…fifth wife? A most cherished position, I am sure. And he is still without an heir."
"The Hightowers have always been fertile."
"You will need the whole fertility of the Reach, my lady, as well as strength and perseverance. Your husband's litter to the Great Sept was carried by eight strong men and after this feast, I fear he might need a dozen to bring him up to your bedchamber. Perhaps you should ask him to bed you in the stables. Fewer stairs and the horse dung might mask his stench."
She couldn't win this match, not with her lord husband right in front of them. The prince's barbs rarely stung anymore though today, she found she took them right to heart. Every insult to her husband was felt keenly, not because she'd come to care for the old sod, but because the humiliation of this match stung. Her father sent her away like a mare for breeding, expecting her to return with a filly, and everyone in the Great Hall, no matter how gentle their words, how gallant their smiles, knew. She had been a wedding guest often enough to know the sort of mockery that would target her and her husband when they were up in the lord's chambers, doing their duty. The guests would wait for her father to retire but come the morrow, she would be a laughing stock. And all for her father's ambition. She had told herself half a hundred times that her father had given her a lord's title in the suit of a fat man, that Lord Oakheart was nothing but a placeholder for her son whom she would govern. She had tried to convince herself that her father had meant well, that this match showed only how much he trusted her with the governance of the Oakhaert estate only for Daemon Targaryen to tear down even the feeblest results of her endeavours.
He was still looking at her with those dark violet eyes that would have been beautiful in the face of a better man. He was expecting her to retort, and Clarice was never one to disappoint a man's expectations.
"My lord husband is a wise man, capable and prudent." She had learned the words by heart. "He writes very courteous letters."
The prince laughed at her. He was the first, perhaps, though he would not be the last. Clarice tried to focus on the clasp of his red velvet cape, a golden dragon in full flight with ruby eyes. The Rogue Prince was half peasant in manner, perhaps, but he dressed more richly than the king.
"Courteous letters," he repeated with acid in his voice, "Try and recall them when he huffs and puffs above you."
She had tried hard to shut out this image, never to think about the night that would follow.
"You seem to have left your tongue in Flea Bottom, prince. Your obscenities are inappropriate within a lady's hearing."
"I only try to prepare you for the worst. We have grown up together, in a fashion. I feel…protective of you."
She almost snorted. He was not entirely wrong, she had grown up here for the most part, and the young prince had never been far, though he was six years her senior, a man of twenty, and he had already been a squire when she had learned how to walk.
"Then I thank you kindly for your effort but rest assured that I need neither protection nor preparation."
"Admirable, to undertake this task all by yourself. Is that why you've danced with Ser Amos Bracken tonight? To prepare yourself for your husband's smell?"
"Should I feel flattered or frightened that you seem to pay so much attention to my dancing partners?"
She had hoped to shame him but he only smiled lazily. "Why not a bit of both, my lady? Flattery and fear are among the coins I deal out most often."
"And I thought it was unsolicited advice."
"Well-meant advice. A first marriage is a weighty affair –" He grinned down at her as he spun her around. "Forgive me. That was unintended."
"You might consider weighing your words before you speak them. You've made the mistake once before in the Holy Sept when you promised to take Lady Rhea for your lady wife."
"See? All I wish is for you to learn from my mistakes. It is charity that brought me to dance with you."
As the song died, she gave him the smallest of curtsies. "And it is the gods' benevolence that ends this dance."
Clarice was glad to see the back of him, to lose herself in the steps of the dance with half a dozen other men until at last, she had to return to her seat on the dais, thirsty and frightful. Both thirst and fear made her drink quickly and deeply, and soon enough, the hall was spinning.
She had never been drunk before. A lady with a more benevolent father might have tried the wine earlier, after her first flowering, when most of the other young maids at court had done so. She might have shared this first drunken bliss with friends, if she had had friends. They might have played forbidden games in a locked chamber, giggling loudly enough for all to hear. Clarice knew these stories well enough. She had heard them a dozen times.
But a daughter of Otto Hightower never lost control. A daughter of the hand reined in her desire: for freedom, for wine, for amusement and for companionship. Those at the top of the ladder were lonely, that was so, her father had admitted, but it was better to feel the stiff breeze of success alone than smell the rotten stink of mediocrity in a crowd. Friends were, after all, only enemies in waiting.
It was for this reason that she knew she had to leave the hall before she did anything foolish.
The air outside would be cooler and there was always a breeze from the sea. Slowly, she rose, the room spinning, her legs tingling, and forced her back into the straight position it always assumed. Straight back, raised head, long strides. Clarice had learned to walk as a toddler but she had learned to walk like a lady at seven, when her aunt had taught her the womanly arts. Grace, elegance, dignity. A member of House Hightower would never stoop. It was in their name. Some said they had been born too close to the gods for that.
Wherever the gods resided, however, tonight they did not smile upon her. For the yard, blissfully empty, did not remain her lonely refuge for long.
She would have rather met her husband out here. The king. Nay, even her father himself would have been preferable to him.
~o~
Daemon
~o~
The bride fled the hall in a flurry of pale skirts. It was a disconcerting sight, though not one many witnessed. The moment had been chosen carefully. Otto Hightower was speaking to the King and Queen, his face a pleasantly smiling mask, her husband droned on and on to the man on his left, her right hand neighbour had long fled the dais for the lower benches.
Clarice Hightower was staggering towards the back door. Not much, it was true. She held her head high and Daemon was quite certain she kept a long walking cane down the back of her gown, but even so, her steps were uncertain.
He didn't know why he left the warmth, women and wine of the Great Hall behind. Was it malice that drove him to follow her? Did he wish to mock her for this? Or was it something else?
He found her swaying in the yard like a willow in a storm.
She was drunk, well and truly drunk. In her maidenly whites, with the light of a few dim torches shining upon her, she looked vulnerable. Daemon didn't like the look on her. It didn't suit her.
"You do not need to accomapny – accompany me. Accompany." She steadied herself on the stone wall. "It was only the wine, nothing –" She would have stumbled head first into a muddy puddle had he not steadied her. The backyard lay dark and deserted. Few people would look to leave the hall where food and drink was plenty and those that did would leave by the main doors.
"You are drunk."
"Of course I am. Have you seen the man that will mount me when the feast ends?"
Her openness took him aback, but he found himself intrigued against his will. She had never been candid before.
"You are more like to mount him," he gave back, in his usual fashion, though there was a part of him that would have liked to console her, to dry her tears and busy her hands with something other than her wine cup, stolen from a lower trestle table by the looks of it.
I have had too much wine myself, it seems. There was nothing he wanted from Clarice Hightower's hands. Nothing at all.
She startled him but letting out an unladylike snort. "It is my duty to ride a horse, donkey, mule… even an old oak, when my father commands it. And he thinks he honours me with this old man."
Daemon had considered the sod a punishment, for her arrogance, perhaps, or her insolence. That anyone would consider that mount of sweating flesh an honour he found hard to believe.
"Where's the honour in that?"
"The Oakhearts descend from the eldest of the Greenhand's sons. Old Oak is a great castle and the lands surrounding it are fertile. My lord husband is old and still without a son. All that is required of me is to give birth to an heir."
"So far, I see neither honour nor fun."
"I am a lady. I am not meant to have fun, my lord, or have you ever met a lady down in Flea Bottom?"
"You'd be surprised," he murmured. In the dim light of the backyard torches, her face looked softer and warmer than it ever had in daylight. Daemon couldn't help but notice that the gown she had changed into for the feast was much more low cut than the one she had worn in the sept – not that Daemon had sat through that tedium. Clarice Hightower's gowns were usually demure, high-necked and flowy in cut. She was a maid of five and ten, or six and ten, perhaps, with a woman's softly curving body, though she had never allowed more than a glimpse at her silhouette. Someone else had chosen her wedding gown, and Daemon's coin was on her father. It clung to her bosom and her waist before flaring out around her hips, but moderately. He had witnessed, of course, her husband's fondling during the cake ceremony, and he had enjoyed the whispers and the barely hidden smiles of amusement around them that had made old Hightower clench his teeth so hard he had thought they might shatter. Now that he saw her silhouette enhanced by the dim light, he couldn't fault the old lecher.
Daemon found her looking at him with a strangely thoughtful expression and he wondered, for a moment, whether perhaps her thoughts were taking her in a similar direction, whether perhaps he would not make a fool of himself by approaching he rin such a matter.
"My lord husband will die before our son can reach adulthood and then I will rule for him as his regent. There's my honour. But my father will whisper in my ear, as he always has, and I must do his bidding."
Her sour tone dampened the lust that had risen inside him. There was no subject to ruin desire like Otto Hightower's relationship with his daughters.
She took another swallow of wine and staggered forward, into the darker part of the yard.
"I shouldn't be saying any of this."
He shrugged. The mice of the keep were nothing to him.
"Have the match set aside. Now you still can. Complain to my brother, he has a soft heart."
She waved his advice away. "For you, perhaps. Not for women who fail to do their duty. My father made the arrangements and I have to live with them. And sleep with them."
He was reminded forcefully of his own wedding. He had been a green boy then, or he would never have allowed them to go through with it. And now, he was saddled with his bronze bitch.
"Then stop complaining and run." He should have run back then. He was running.
He should be running now, while he still saw sense. But instead, his feet took him over to Clarice Hightower.
The notion of flight seemed to startle her.
"Where would I run to? I am a woman. I don't even own the clothes on my back. Shall I book passage to the free cities with stolen gold and then make a living on my back, as all free women are forced to do? I'd sooner have one stinking old man above me than a hundred. But this is foolish talk. I am not like this. I am dutiful. The Lord Hand has no use for a daughter who acts on her own volition. I should be pliable and obedient."
She pretended to be all that perhaps, but he had seen enough of the steel underneath to know that she was neither.
Daemon had reached her now, they stood three feet apart, but he was not the sort of man to breach the distance all by himself. He liked the hunt…but he liked being hunted as well.
"You've not been dutiful or pliable a day in your life, Clarice."
Her name was a caress on his tongue.
She looked up at him with bloodshot eyes, much more sober than he had thought.
"Don't pretend to know me, prince. Go back inside."
There was a whip in her voice.
"Was that supposed to be a command?"
"Did it work?" He had never seen her smile like that, as if against her will, one corner of her lips, her sweet, soft-looking lips, quirked up slightly, her eyes twinkling with mischief usually well-concealed.
"Do you remember that I am the prince and you are the subject?"
"Not always, I'll admit it. Though you dress princely." Her fingers went to the clasp of his cloak and traced a golden dragon wing with surprising delicacy. Then, as if she had caught herself doing something forbidden, she turned her back on him and walked a few more steps into the darkness.
Did she want him to follow? He did, just in case.
"Shouldn't you be on your way to some brothel, prince of Flea Bottom?"
"Whores wait."
"Wives do as well. All night, if they have to, and they are not paid nearly as handsomely."
"In babes and duties."
She let out a groan.
"How much would I make, lord of the gutters? In your favourite establishment?"
"That would depend on your customers."
He couldn't be reading this wrong. She wanted him, didn't she? Even with her back to him, he felt the tension in her, anger, fear, humiliation, all mixed with alcohol – a perfect foundation for bad decisions with terrible consequences.
This was definitely his moment.
"There's not enough gold in this world to recompense me for the humiliation. Imagine the talk in the keep. They all couldn't hide their merriment when one old man groped my behind, what would they say if I offered this behind for groping for coin?"
Even the thought of fondling her arse couldn't help him quell the disappointment that rose inside him at her long-winded sermon.
"You're sobering up."
"Yes." She downed her cup, then flung it away. "So I have to keep drinking. You know these matters." The wine was still in her voice, though not as strongly as before.
She turned around suddenly, caught a heel in her train and stumbled towards him. Instinctively, Daemon reached out to steady her – and held Lady Clarice Hightower in his arms.
She seemed to be beyond caring. On her upturned face, the wet trails of fallen tears shone in the dim light of far-away torches. She has cried. He had never seen her cry, not when she had fallen off her horse as a child, not when her elder brother had swatted at her with a wooden sword, not when her lord father had raised his voice to chastise her. Not even when her mother had died.
"Tell me, Prince Daemon," her wine-heavy tongue melted his title and name together, "How much do I have to drink to not remember tonight?"
"I think you're on the right path."
"Do you?"
Her fingers gripped his upper arms, as if to keep them in place around her. They were cold on the thin satin of his doublet.
Give me half an hour of your time, right here in the darkest part of the yard, and I will warm you to the core.
"If you drink any more, you'll throw it all up and ruin the effect altogether."
Daemon would have liked to pull her closer but women of this station were like birds, easily frightened by hasty movements.
"I didn't know that." She seemed peeved by that admittance. "But just as well. My cup is gone, anyway."
For a moment, they stood in a silent embrace. Twin flames fought in his chest. One told him to do the honourable thing and bring her back inside. To spare her the embarrassment of being caught with him here. And to spare her the memories. The other one, fuelled by wine and the feeling of her body in his arms, told him to offer whatever consolation he could give, to chase away the tears, to make him fall even deeper into his arms.
"You can always return to the Tower of the Hand if he annoys you. Your husband, I mean."
"My father is not your brother. He'd sent me back, chained and gagged, for my lord husband to do with as he pleases. My brothers, my sister…we are all my father's investments. And I'm not worth much to him here."
"He will die." Daemon didn't know whether he meant her father or her husband.
"Not soon enough. At least I don't think it will be before the bedding."
"I could provoke a quarrel." He forced himself to grin. "Many a sword has gone astray in a drunken brawl."
She shook her head. "My father would make sure you'd take the black."
It was not a maiden's way to speak of death and murder like this. The deed did not seem to shock her. It were the consequences of open murder that posed hindrance, not moral or decency.
Daemon had always thought her an arrogant young maid, too aware of her beauty and status, fond of the customary courtly scheming, but never more.
In this night, with her defences weakened, he thought he caught a glimpse at the steel underneath her gentle facade. And he found, much to his chagrin, that he liked it.
"Lady Rhea would be pleased."
She shrugged his wife off as he usually did.
"Dark Sister wasn't forged to slay grumkins and snarks and you were not made for dark winters full of snow."
She looked at him now, truly looked. The wine had taken all her maidenly shame and Daemon had always liked insolence.
"You are too pretty for the Night's Watch," she judged after a moment. "The brothers would like you too much."
The semblance of honest concern in her voice lightened his mood.
"I assure you, my lady, I could hold myself against them."
She closed her fingers around his upper arms in a measuring way. "Might be. You feel strong enough."
"You flatter me more this evening than you have in your whole life. You should drink more often."
His tone was light but the truth was that he needed to get her back inside before he did something he'd regret sorely the next morning. There were forbidden fruits that were made enticing by their forbiddenness. And there were such forbidden fruits that seemed less tempting for the unnecessary trouble they would bring. Until tonight, Clarice Hightower had been firmly in the latter category. She was pretty, but in a courtly sort of way. She was not the sort of woman that provoked carnal thoughts. Until tonight. Now, Daemon found he couldn't turn away from her.
"It's dark," she pointed out with habitual mockery, "And in comparison to the man I've just wedded, even you are a shining knight."
"That sounds more like you." He even found that shrewish tone of her voice arousing. How much wine did I have?
"I feel more like me, too," she said deploringly. "I have to get more wine."
"I'll help you back inside." He meant to wrap an arm around her waist to guide her towards the narrow side door but she cried out before he could.
"Wait. There's another thing you could help me with."
She didn't move, she never even averted her gaze. So entranced, he stared down at her.
"Yes?"
"Kiss me. This first time, I want to feel the lips of a young man. A knight. One with complete control over his bowels."
"The first rule," he said, as he bent down to her, "Do not talk about bowels when you want to be kissed."
"What's the second rule?" Her breath came ragged, her eyes fixated on his like a hunted rabbit's.
"Shut up."
Her lips were soft and tasted of wine.
She was not an experienced kisser, insofar, Daemon thought, she might not have lied. There was something enticing about innocence, he had just never thought he'd find it with her.
But innocent though she perhaps was, she was demanding as well, and a quick learner. Soon enough, her tongue danced with his, her fingers had opened the buttons of his doublet rather too deftly and her cold hands were pressed to the bare skin of his chest. Daemon, in turn, had on hand down the bodice of her gown, while the other was making a mess of her carefully arranged hair. Hairpins fell to the muddy ground with a faint clattering sound and a cloud her perfume, roses and something else, something green and spicy, filled his nostrils as her hair came down over her shoulders in feathersoft waves.
Was she a maiden? He liked deflowering maidens in greater comfort, usually, but here and now, they would have to make do. The castle wall looked practical enough, and it was only a few feet away.
He was slowly pushing her backwards, lifting her silk skirts in the process to ease his access to her core when voices rang through the yard, too loud to ignore. In the same moment, the backdoor was yanked open widely and the yard was lightened.
She tore away from him in that moment, fled from the light into the shadowy corner. He knew then that their coupling would not happen. She would be busy twisting her hair back up, smoothing out the silk of her gown, rearranging her skirts.
And he had never been a gracious loser.
With some spite, Daemon abandoned her in the yard and made for the city gate, bare chested and aroused. The whores of Flea Bottom would thank him for both.
~o~
Clarice
~o~
Clarice woke up before dawn feeling deeply humiliated. It was a new sensation and one she did not care for. Her lord husband had not bothered dressing and she found that the sight of his shrivelled up manhood, the coarse patch of hair around and the rolls of fat above it did not serve to lighten her mood. Quietly, she rose, smoothing out the silk bedgown that covered her to the throat. It was still chilly, so she pulled on the heavy velvet bedrobe and settled in a armchair as far away from the bed as possible.
Her husband broke wind in his sleep, then turned around onto his other side with a grunt.
Part of her humiliation stemmed from him, of course. The bawdy bedding ceremony had been bearable with the rogue prince gone but the coupling itself not so much. She had used the tricks her maid had told her, had fondled him and stroked. But at last, he had managed to get between her legs and was now sleeping atop a bloody spot. The blood was still flowing, she could tell from the stickiness between her legs, but there were more pressing concerns.
For hours had she lain awake and tried to find solace in the prospect of widowhood, caring for her children and ruling her late husband's lands, but she was not cut out to be a country lady, much less cut out to be a mother to many little oaks. Her own mother had passed bringing her youngest brother into this world, though he had not survived her long. Clarice had not been allowed to be with her mother that day. She had been a girl of eight, deemed unfit to watch such horrors as childbirth. She had instead waited by the solar door, her eye in front of the keyhole, and had watched and heard what she could. Her father had been given the choice: save her mother or save the boy. By then, the maester had glimpsed a cock, so her father's decision must have been easy. He had chosen the boy. He had never said the words, not out loud. But Clarice had seen the look that had passed from man to man when they had decided a woman's fate.
Now, that fate could be hers. Her husband's seed had mostly dried on her thigh, she had risen as quickly as possible to let it dribble out of her, but more was needed to be truly cleansed, or so her maid had claimed. A tea no maester would brew for a married woman. In time, she could perhaps learn to make such a tea herself, in secret. For now, she would need to employ different methods. A whore's methods. And only hope could help her through today. He was an old man and his seed had never quickened before. It was unlikely to do that now, although the Hightowers were known to be fertile.
Was it then in that armchair that Clarice decided she would not bear her husband's children? Or had she known since that morning by the keyhole that she would not risk her life for just any lord, for just any child?
If the childbed was a woman's battlefield, she would choose her own battle, the cost of failure and the prize of victory.
And Old Oak was simply not good enough.
She found that the decision gave her back some of her pride. A part of it was irretrievably lost in the shadows behind the Great Hall, in a manner that still brought red shame to her cheeks. He had meant to use her there and she had wanted him to until sense had come back to her through the voices of wedding guests.
She would have been the ten thousandth notch in his bedpost, or rather in the castle wall, for she doubted he ever even took a woman to his sleeping quarters. He spent most nights in Flea Bottom, last night included. That perhaps hurt the worst. She had known he had fled, of course, when she had found herself all alone in the yard. She had been disappointed but relieved, had straightened her hair and gown as well as she was able, had blamed the loss of her hair pins on the dance and returned to her seat by her husband's side.
She had been ready to forget it but then, when the bedding ceremony had begun, she had overheard Ser Antony Costayne telling his companion, a man in Mallister colours, though she knew him not, that the rogue prince had returned to his favourite brothel for the night. He had told his companion that he'd rather undress Clarice Hightower than ten maiden whores, but that had only barely helped to take the sting out of his remark. Daemon had gone to the brothel as soon as bedding her had proved slightly difficult. He had practically fled the yard as soon as the opportunity presented itself. Sure, she was not experienced. She had never before even kissed a man. There had been a boy at the Hightower, a steward's son, handsome but lowborn, whose lips had once met hers, but that had been a children's kiss, dry and quick. Last night had been something else. Clarice had never known desire for flesh until last night. It had served as a cruel contrast to her later bedding. And it had quite evidently meant nothing to the prince. It shouldn't surprise her. He was a rogue, he lay with whores and smallfolk women, he had no manners, no wits to speak of, only a flat stomach and admittedly rather attractive eyes. He shouldn't have had the effect on her that he did but there was no use in crying over spilled wine.
She would never again hold her chalice so carelessly. Daemon Targaryen had exploited her weakness once, he would not do it again.
The lie made her angry and anger gave her strength. What was the truth, exactly, of what had transpired between them? She had wanted to be alone, he had followed her. Other men had been castrated for less, probably. What did it matter how the wine had made her feel? For it had been the wine, not the prince, of that she was growing more and more certain. She had never been drunk before, either. It had been a night full of first times, though none of them had been especially agreeable.
By the time her husband finally stirred, Clarice was washed, very thoroughly indeed, combed and dressed, waiting for him at the table nibbling on cakes and berries. Soon enough, she was on her way to the outer bailey where the wheelhouse was waiting to take her to her new home.
Half the court was waiting to see her off, if only to get one last chance to make fun of her and her husband. Among them, returned from the bowels of the city, was Lord Flea Bottom himself, grinning widely as he approached her.
Lord Gunthor left her to him after a perfunctory nod, eager for the comfort of the wheelhouse.
"Lady Oakheart." The prince extended his hand, as if to reach for hers.
She couldn't believe he could truly be so audacious after he had left her alone the night before.
"Do not dare to touch me, ser." She did not have to feign the rage in her voice. He had left her all alone in the courtyard in a terribly dishevelled state. The abandonment had hurt her pride, her honour and her feelings, but she would never allow him a glimpse at that.
Attack was the best defence, or so the boldest strategists said.
"I –" he started, visibly taken aback. Few enough managed to startle the rogue prince. Perhaps she should be proud of herself.
"You took advantage of me last night. Took…liberties."
Liar. You took advantage of him. She remembered with shame the way her fingers had worked on the hooks of his doublet with alarming speed just to feel the skin underneath.
"Liberties?" he repeated, with a hint of incredulous amusement. "Only at your insistence."
"My insistence? I had too much wine. A true knight would have seen me back to the great hall safely but you did not. You used my weakened state –"
"You had strength enough to pull me close." Even now, in the chilly morning air, surrounded by half a hundred people, his voice felt intimate, a caress. It were his eyes. Show me the maid who does not fall for these eyes, father.
Perhaps that was the solution: Never look the dragon in the eye again.
"Lower your voice if you do not mean to destroy my reputation as you did my virtue." The whip was in her voice again, a well-practised, shrewish, commanding tone that was supposed to be intimidating – needless to say it had not the intended effect on him.
"You were clinging to me like a drowning woman to a plank, begging me –"
The imagery was very vivid and absolutely true. She had been drowning. He had been her plank. A very attractive, powerfully built plank with a stomach like iron wrapped in silk – She had to stop thinking about his body.
That was definitely another step towards normality.
"I never beg." She straightened her back to underline the truth of her statement. She was Lady Oakheart now, a woman wedded and bedded, reluctantly, perhaps, but she was a person of status now all the same.
"I'm sure I could make you."
It should be illegal to smirk that way, she thought, as she tried to direct her gaze to a less attractive body part. She was rapidly running out of options and settled for a piece of bleak sky next to his left ear.
"Even if I had asked – and I am not saying I did – but even if, you must have realised I was drunk. You must have realised I was not myself. And yet, you all but forced yourself upon me, exploiting my state, my nervosity, my insecurity about the procedure that followed. Do you deny it?"
"I do. But from what I hear, you are determined to paint me the villain." Daemon gave an artful shrug. "I don't mind. If it helps you to retain your high opinion of your own honour and virtue, so be it. I will remember our meeting in the yard." He paused as he looked at her, undoubtedly taking in the way her eyes evaded his, the tension in her body, the tooth marks on her bottom lip. "And, I think, so will you."
"Think of me as often as you will, my prince, as long as you do it silently."
He did not reply but she made the mistake to meet his gaze. She had never seen him angry, she knew then, not truly. His eyes seemed liquid, like molten amethysts, and there was something boiling inside of him. Yet, he did not leash out. It was his silence that frightened her most. Why? Daemon Targaryen did not hide his anger. He did not fight for control. He wore his feelings not on his sleeves but embroidered onto his doublet, tattooed onto his skin, nay, more, he would shout them and make others feel their weight. Why would he decide to bear them alone now? To spare himself embarrassment? It seemed the only explanation.
"Yes. Well, as that is settled, I see no reason to linger. Farwell, my prince."
He smirked, a poor imitation of that smirk that had made her weak in the knees. "Lady Oakheart. A pleasant journey to you."
As his eyes darted over to her husband pointedly, a boulder fell off her chest. They were back to normal. She could look down upon him again for his impulsivity, always comfortably forgetting the one incident when she had acted on a whim and the one incident when, despite his obvious rage, he had contained himself, for whatever reason.
She would forget him in time. She would probably never even see him again.
