Margaery threw her arm forwards, feeling the pressure of her buzzard's claws on her hand as it took flight and started chasing down the fluttering birds emerging from the trees. A heartbeat passed before the rest of the party let fly their own birds. They shot through the air as fast as arrows and the hawkers watched and clapped in glee. Margaery smiled as her own bird pulled ahead of the flock.

"Well done my lady!" Alyce Graceford clapped, her belly was starting to swell her hands were resting on the bump rather than wearing gloves and waiting for a hunting bird to return.

They'd gotten just far enough from King's Landing that the smell no longer reached them, but with enemies afield, hawking opportunities were confined to a few miles from the city. Even so, her father had provided an escort of five hundred lancers to ensure that no northmen riders were coming to follow up on their message from a few days before. She thought of Sansa then. The night after her hand had been taken, Margaery had been unable to sleep, the horror of the sight of a girl so innocent and beautiful maimed so cruelly had shaken her, and the screams dragged her back from the world of dreamers whenever her eyelids banished the image of Sansa's hand, bloody and leaking on the cold stone floor. She had wanted to bring Sansa closer to them, but it was impossible. To bring Sansa they would have to bring Daenerys, they'd seen and heard enough to know that the two were inseparable right now, and after Daenerys' outburst in the throne room it wouldn't do to associate with that. She held out her arm expectantly as the buzzard hurried back to them and landed neatly on her thick hawking glove, a dead crow dangling from its mighty beak. Trust you to breed me the best, Willas, she thought.

She smiled as the other birds came flying in some with catches, some without. She laughed good naturedly with the rest as Elinor's bird veered off at the last minute and returned to the sky as Elinor cried for it to come back. Her cousin was red faced from shouting and embarrassment before the bird obediently returned. Once the giggles had died down, she spoke to the hawkers. "Come now ladies, that's quite enough for now, let's return to grandmother."

Her grandmother was waiting a short distance away, under a tree with a wide green canopy. A chair had been brought for her and she squatted on it, Eryk and Arryk standing vigil behind her. Three great blankets were laid out on the ground for the ladies to lounge on in the speckled shade, the sun peeking through the leaves in a thousand mini daffodils around them. When the sun draped over the grass beyond the protection of the tree people were more active. Squires in green and gold rode with all the confidence of tourney champions, jugglers, dancers and minstrels were spread around the grass for a hundred admirers and a trio of young girls were hunting the prettiest flowers they could find. Far out from them, in a wide net, the lancers took their positions protecting the house, and off at the road, grandmother's wheelhouse stood, ready to take the venerable matriarch back to the capital.

But it was more than Margaery, her family and her tenants, she'd invited as many noblemen and women from the capital to join her for the day's activities, all the better to win have these people on her side when she became Queen. The peasants would be won with the food from the Reach, the nobles required a subtler art, but one she knew well.

Margaery gently folded her dress behind her knees and sat down on the blanket. With so much to do around the area, the blanket was pretty much empty, only her grandmother, her two guards, her brother Garlan and his wife rested in the shade. Garlan still bore the scars of Blackwater, where his horse had been shot out from under him by the archers aboard Stannis' ships, but his body was close to healing, and soon he would be ready to ride again, and with what happened in the throne room, they would no doubt be facing the northmen soon.

"Margaery," he smiled at her.

"My Lady," his dainty wife looked up at her from where her head rested in Garlan's lap, his fingers gently weaving through her hair.

"Brother, sister, grandmother." She glanced around to make sure no one was joining them, flashing a smile at anyone who looked their way. "So," she said, turning back to her family. "Sansa."

Garlan nodded, fingers still running through Leonette's hair, "Sansa."

"What have you found?"

Garlan's lips pressed thinly together. "It seems we may have been... misled as to King Joffrey's nature."

"How so?"

"How much more like?" Lady Olenna cut in.

Garlan ignored the jibe, their grandmother could be biting, but after so many years, they were well able to bear it. "After the Battle of Oxcross, there are rumours that he called Sansa before him and had her beaten before Lord Loren intervened to stop it. From what we've found, the king was angered by the deaths of his relatives at the hands of the Young Wolf."

"Is that the cause?"

"It seems he takes personal slights, or slights against his family deeply, with an anger we were never told existed," Garlan confirmed. "If we can make him feel just like his true family, that could be a powerful protection."

Margaery cocked her head. "And by we, you mean me?" This was an unfortunate development, she didn't like not knowing what those around her were likem it made it harder to tailor her behaviour.

Her brother chuckled. "I do indeed."

"It would have been better to not get involved at all," Olenna commented. "But here we are."

"Indeed," said Margaery. "Now we are in this alliance it's in our interest to make sure it works, that we prevail in this war. That is done by two means, supplying the capital and helping to bring victory, if we can do that, House Tyrell is assured."

"Yes, we have the former, but the latter, it's troubling, if we can't march, we can't fight, if we can't fight, we can't win, and I suspect there are many in the Lannister camp that will never trust us until we have bled alongside them properly. So far they have fought far more than we have; we have helped claim one minor victory at best. Though marching will be difficult with the one man in the capital intent on decisive action now in the west chasing pirates." Garlan was not happy, he'd been trying to get their father to be more decisive on that front, but Mace Tyrell wanted his daughter to be Queen good and true before moving, and Margaery feared that they would be forced to march against their wishes if they didn't move soon.

"At least he seems to be doing well on that front." Reports from the men sent along with Lord Loren say that the mainland of the Westerlands was nearly secure, but so far they'd been unable to draw the main ironman force into battle. Lord Redwyne's fleet had been sent for, it seemed, and hopefully with ships of his own, Lord Loren could bring a swift end to the ironman threat.

Garlan nodded.

"What about the other issue?" Olenna asked. "It's all well and good wanting this alliance to work, but is it true, what the Stark Prince said?"

"Yes Grandmother," Lady Leonette replied from Garlan's lap. "Lord Mace said it came to the Small Council meeting, and I heard it from some of the younger Lannisters as well, it seems the lions are rattled."

"Good work Leonette." Margaery said. She had too much to do to go around investigating everything herself, but this was why Garlan was kept back, their secret weapon, a better fighter than Loras, and when Leonette wore the colours of her old house, she could work her charms on them without the lesser Lannisters being aware who was really listening.

"So, the Lannisters did make a promise in bad faith to the Starks," Olenna huffed, her hands tightening on her cane, which stabbed into the ground with every other syllable.

Margaery nodded. She'd suspected it was true. Tristan Stark was violent, but while his rage, when unleashed, burned anything it touched uncontrollably, it wasn't released without cause. "Perhaps father is right to want this marriage done quickly, a marriage bedded is not so easily cast aside, and right now all we have from the Lannisters are words."

"Let's not jump to the conclusion that the Lannisters are trying to turn us out of the alliance," Garlan said. "Lord Tywin is not Cersei Lannister, it was Cersei who lied, Lord Tywin knows he needs us. And if we start looking at each other sideways at every turn we'll find Stannis and Robb Stark at our throats before we can breathe."

"Still, we do need this wedding, the Lord Oaf is not so dim that he is merely persistent, Margaery, you will need to be ready to bed soon, the wedding may be coming faster than expected. You've been practicing?"

Margaery nodded. When she'd shared her bed with some of her younger cousins she'd been trying to think back to that first night with Renly, the sweetness and detachment he brought in the bedroom. Joff was still young, and there was a chance he didn't know what it was like to be with a woman, but better not to have that alliance undone by a suspicion raised on the first night she was Queen. A bad wedding night could doom her. With the help of her cousins, she'd be timid and innocent, a virgin on two wedding nights.

"Oh, some sparrows come to the nest," Olenna said, "best get back to it children," she said, sitting back and closing her eyes for a nap.

Margaery got up to meet the approaching ladies, all smiles and grace, worries left on the grass.

She went out for another round of hawking that day, listened to the singers and mummers and helped thread flowers with the children, everything to be seen, dragging the attention of the ladies with her until the sun started to dip below the horizon when it was called for all of them to gather up and prepare to leave. They'd arranged to meet with the next caravan of supplies and bring it with them to the capital, a treat for the people. She'd let them know she would be returning with it and hoped to fulfil that promise to them.

Flanked by the riders, with the wheelhouse for the children following behind them, she led a column of riders down the roads towards the capital, approaching the main road where they were due to meet the caravan. But when they were there, only a single rider was waiting for them.

Garlan rode ahead to meet with him. Less than a minute of rushed and hushed conversation later and Garlan directed the man to the side, nodding at Margaery pointedly.

"Carry on without me for a while ladies, it seems my brother needs to speak with me," her flowery words sent the rest of the column onwards and she turned her mare off the road to speak with her brother. "What's going on?" She asked, out of earshot.

Garlan gestured to the rider, an outrider in Tyrell green and gold. "Tell Lady Margaery what you told me."

"My lady," he bowed in the saddle. "I was sent to guide the caravan to this point so that you could take it in with you."

"And?"

"I couldn't find it my lady."

"What do you mean you couldn't find it?"

The rider gestured down the road. "I took the road as far west as Wickerworth, a town near the border of the Reach. The caravan was supposed to pass through there on the way to the capital, but they've not seen it."

"It hasn't even reached Wickerworth?!" Wickerworth could be reached from the capital in a day of hard riding, but a full caravan would take another four or five at least. "I'm supposed to be returning with that caravan today."

The outrider shrank back in his saddle. "I'm sorry my lady," she said, "but there's no sign of it."

"How does a whole caravan disappear?"

The outrider, unsure of what to say, said nothing."

Garlan spoke into the quiet that followed. "I'll send some riders to look for it, maybe it was waylaid somewhere, or it's taking a different route than expected. Sorry sister, it looks like you'll have to return to the capital without it."

"I promised the people that I would bring them more food," she reminded Garlan.

"One broken promise to the people won't be the end of what you've done for them," he reminded her. "Keep riding among them, listen to them, that will stay them for a few more days while we find the caravan. But Margaery, we are at war and you are the future queen, you can't stay outside the capital, it's not safe, we may be near the heart, but a raiding party of Baratheons or Starks could still fall on us unawares, no you need to be behind tall city walls."

Margaery bit her lip. "Very well, I'll return. Don't take too long brother, you're not fully fighting fit yet."

Garlan smiled, reaching over to pat her arm. "Don't you worry Margaery, we'll find the convoy and bring it back by the end of the week I'm sure."

"See that you do, Garlan."

As Garlan and the outrider went to gather some men to begin the search, Margaery rejoined the column of smiles and laughs on the way back to King's Landing, promising herself that she would deliver that food to the people as soon as it arrived.

It was a promise she would never be able to keep, the caravan never came. Instead, ragged refugees began trickling towards the capital, bearing news of terror, blood, fire and wolves.