A/N: As a reminder for my long-time readers: I changed the title of the story to 'Lyarra' from 'Bastard in the Cradle' (the first arc). This story has been spinning in my head for over a year and is self-indulgent. Let me know your feelings with a review!
The Bastard in The Cradle Arc
Chapter Five
Their travels from the Stormlands was long. Not only was it the new and better wheelhouse that delayed them, but the constant greeting and feasting of every lord who joined them on the journey to the capital. Their party, which had been 'appropriate' according to her father was now hundreds of people. Worse, her father had to entertain them.
After leaving Storm's End, house Buckler hosted them, then house Errol, and then house Fell—and along their travels between their great castles, smaller lords joined them, all eager for the royal wedding. The name itself was enough to make Eddard moody. Then they approached the Kingswood, with its oaks and maples, and hickories, and all the little animals scurrying far away from their large group. The Wardens of the Kingswood and their sheriffs arrived to escort Eddard's party to the other side with celebration and gifts and flattery. It wasn't long before members of House Massey, Bar Emmon, Wendwater, and Chelsted also attached themselves to Eddard, who wanted to travel with 'the King's brother' Lord Stark, and his actual brother, Renly, who wanted everyone to call him Lord Baratheon. Essine had insisted that his investment was a way off though, but she would not correct him. Her father's mood grew worse and worse as they all came and insisted on meals with him and private meetings. Yadira felt his plight a great deal more, keeping their prying eyes and nosy servants from Camille and her baby brother.
"There was another who claimed they were on their way to Lord Stark," Essine announces coming into Camille's white cloth of gold pavilion in the morning. She, Theryse, and Aurelia lay in their bedrobes as Ernatta reads them stories and Baby Jon coos in his nurse's arms. Camille was not interested in talking or being courteous and was thankful she was a baby for once. She slips into Zirimiri to find out what else has happened as she was confined again, and released from Yadira's torture.
"I had a woman imply that her children play with the girls," Yadira said in Common with a thick Dornish drawl as if she hoped someone heard.
"This is the way of things so close to the capital Yadi." Uncle Arthur relaxed on a settee, his voice has flowing again in the Dornish way, in the safety of her tent. Eddard does not keep him locked away Camille realizes—he prefers solitude. It is rare to have him in her rooms.
"Oh?" Essine quips.
"Yes," he says, a gentle smile. "All want to meet the children."
"You mean what they look like," Yadira says as she embroiders.
"Or who their mothers are?" Essine says shrugging, waving away a handmaid of hers.
Arthur gives them both a scowl, being mocked. Essie cannot hide her laughter.
"Oh cousin, we know, but they are so obvious."
"No one can hide curiosity, Essie."
"But the guards should be able to hide us." Essine quips back.
"Or at least deter them," Yadira murmurs sharing a glance with Arthur.
Camille knew they must be speaking about the messengers from the capital. She, along with Yadira, Eddard, and Lord Reed was all having supper when the men had come. The normal peace outside the tent had grown into some commotion, and soon a man and a few others behind him had come through. Eddard had kept a straight face, but the twitch had given away his anger.
"Lord Stark." The man was so pale and blonde he nearly didn't exist.
"This is not the place to speak. I gave word I would give audience to you later in the day."
The man looks over to her, and the wet nurse with Baby Jon, and the others at his table. Across from her, she saw a guard scowl.
"Forgive me, my lord, it is the word of the king I deliver."
Her father wastes no time calling for a groom to take the message and sent him away with Stark men behind him, a scowl on his face the entire time.
"Lannisters," he hissed.
The entire thing had alarmed Yadira and reported it all to her ladies as soon as she was back to her rooms. Camille had learned then she would have to watch the Lannisters.
A large group of thundering men greets them close to the city. Three hundred men for Lord Stark's honor guard, according to Ernatta's husband who rides beside them. It is a tremendous sight. Camille is not with her father at the front, but through the horses, she sees he seems happier around the Northmen in the guard.
Their trip to the city was the shortest part of the trip, and still uncomfortable. Camille wished she had a car again. She took a smooth ride for granted. She would even take a few potholes, compared to what options she had now. The thought of the L in Chicago made her cry. She missed trains. She missed driving. She missed her world.
Soon enough though she finds the sight beyond her windows fascinating as all the people waiting for them seemed to grow larger as they rode.
Yadira, exasperated, put the shade down as they got closer and closer to the city.
"It smells," Yadira said loudly in Dornish. Camille holds back a giggle.
When they arrived outside the King's Gate, wide with smooth stones, she realized it was a bigger group than she had realized, and all the nobles were behind the king.
The King, Robert, was handsome too. Camille couldn't help but smile as she saw his face through the window. Her father threw one leg over his horse and pushed himself off and kneeled before him like something out of the movie. They helped Renly down off his horse and he did the same. The rest of the large party then mimicked them, she next to Renly's Lady Mistress. She was so angry to dirty this dress it was a shiny orange embroidered with lemons.
The King's voice rang out: He was glad to have Eddard, Lord Stark, and his brother Renly, back with him, now that this war was over. Robert commanded him to stand, and they did, Robert patting Renly's head, and then he and Eddard hugged each other like childish little boys. An elderly man next to them looked like he wanted to roll his eyes.
That is the new Hand of the King, Jon Arryn, Yadira whispered. She could not hear much else, but she was sure Essie murmured something about him being old.
She paid little attention as Ernatta was quick to give pieces of apple to eat with Theryse and Aurelia. They soon were all ordered to rise and back into their horses or carriages, to make the way down the road to the Red Keep, large and pink in the distance. It takes no time to pass through bronze gates to a large yard. Camille's ladies flow out of the wheelhouse, and she goes in Yadira's arms. She is already dozing, and a bit hungry. Yadira keeps her head on her shoulder when she hears murmurs.
It is her uncle, Camille realizes. What did the king order? In Zimiziri again, she sees several men come to Arthur, surrounding him. Meanwhile, he is calm, swinging his foot over his horses head and getting down as if they are greeting him like a friend. Eddard announces in a bold voice that Ser Arthur comes willingly and with no ill intentions. The King and all his people watch with a soft pattern of whispers, ignoring his words.
When Arthur reaches for his sword, the men hesitate, and murmurs of the nobles grow louder as people watch. Camille struggles to stay in the dog with the smell of fear everywhere and made her blood race, and. she is soon back in Yadira's tight grip and can feel her heart pounding. He had surrendered his weapons, she sees from a little bird. It is over quicker than expected. Camille watches the faces of her household as her uncle, their cousin, is escorted away. Felix seemed dejected and confused.
Essine goes about ordering the servants and ordering her usher to find their rooms. Ernatta does not answer, however, dipping into a low curtsey, and soon her entire household has all gone to their knees. She plays innocent and stands after Yadira puts her on the ground to do the same.
"Your grace," Yadira's grip is tighter, and Camille wonders where her father has gone.
"You are the one Ned said tended to the Lady Lyanna?" the King's words are almost a whisper.
"Yes your grace." Yadira tone is steady and low and her eyes to the ground. As she looks at the king, she notices his eyes are very blue.
"Give the child to her nurse. We will speak before dinner."
Ernatta rises right after Yadira, holding her in her arms, while Yadira follows the king followed by her three handmaids, Eddard and his men not too far behind. Lord Howland commands the rest to get to where they need to be.
Her rooms, along with her household, are in the Tower of the Hand, given by Lord Arryn for his foster son. A solar and a bedchamber, two large, airy rooms that overlook the city, are all hers, and near her father's chambers. Ernatta puts her to sleep as soon as she arrives. Camille smiles into the bedding as they close the hangings, slipping from bird to cat to dog to hawk to a little bird following the group of people in a hurry to follow the king, Eddard and 'that Dornish woman'.
Camille was proud of herself, finding them all at the end of a series of chambers for the king. As Yadira and a few the group go in the room, Yadira's ladies stand sentinel near the doors with her father's ushers. Inside is some kind of grand solar. When the door closes, it is only the King, Robert, Eddard, the old man the Lord Hand, and a man of brown hair with a large fish pinned on his clothes. Lord Hoster Tully, she hears him introduce himself. Yadira curtseys deeply, floating down near the floor and floating back up to each man. The king wastes no time with pleasantries.
"Ned tells me you are a healer."
"Yes your grace. A healer of the Valley."
"You are far from home, then."
"Lord Stark requested that I come with him," she breathed, looking at Robert. She stood while all the others sat at a table looking at her. There was no offer to join them.
"As Ser Arthur summoned you?" Jon Arryn's words startled Yadira as she turned to him.
"Yes my Lord. To the tower where the Lady Lyanna rested–"
"Where she was a prisoner, you mean to say." King Robert's voice held a threat.
"Your grace–" Yadira is still standing, uncomfortable. Would they not give her a chair?
"Where was the prince when you arrived? Did you see him?" Jon continues to question, giving a long look to the king.
"He was not at the tower when I was, your grace."
"And what did the lady say to you when she saw you?"
"She did not say much. She did not trust me."
The king let out a grunt at that pouring himself a drink.
"After I tended to her, the Lady Lyanna warmed. I had stopped the blood she had complained of and-"
"The Lady Lyanna had blood?"
Yadira has a pause, looking at her father. Eddard turned to the king then.
"Robert, you know what was done to her. Mayhaps you do not need the details–" His words ended in a choke.
"No, I want to hear. Speak woman." Robert waves a large hand at Yadira who nodded.
"It is true your grace that the lady Lyanna had a fever. But she also had lost much blood and had fits before I had come-"
"What did she die from?" Jon interrupts Yadira again, his eyes narrowing. "A fit? A fever? Or too much blood?" The old man seems suspicious, far more focused than the king. Yadira looks as if she would rather be anywhere else. Her father has an odd look on his face, his knuckles white.
"It was all three, my lord."
"And what would cause all three and cause her to die?" Jon is still pointed as Eddard and Robert seem like they will explode.
"Tansy. Too much of it."
"Tansy?" Robert's voice explodes in the room, and Yadira says nothing. Lord Tully breaks the heavy silence.
"Maesters use Tansy is in teas to get rid of a child." Yadira is quick to reply.
"That is true, my lord."
"Why would she need that?" Lord Arryn speaks again.
The question made Robert still. Yadira seemed unsure now and looked to her father and Lord Arryn who watched.
"There was a child, they told me, before I arrived. Ser Arthur and Lady Lyanna both said she had rid herself of it, during one of her escapes–" The King's face turned from rage to confusion, and then shocked silence.
"–Ser Arthur sent for me after she had bled."
The last of the words came out pleading- none of the other men moved to stop the king as he continued to yell.
"I told you, Robert, you would not like what was said!" Eddard says then, near yelling, as the king near jolts to another part of the room.
"A child." The king questions then, wide-eyed, red, and breathless. As Camille flew closer in the room, she sees his hands tremble as they go to his hips, then his head and neck. None of them speak or say anything as they watch him.
"A child...A child! He forced his spawn in her!"
Yadira doesn't move, holding her hands together and moving them to her heart. "The Lady Lyanna was no woman to take such abuse, I assure you, your grace. She fought."
Soon, her father has gone to the king as he cries and called for this discussion to end. It is enough, now, he says. The old man seems to believe otherwise.
"But how does tansy kill a woman if it is in moon tea?" Jon Arryn regarded her cooly as the King seemed to lose his sanity. Her father was angry.
"If made correctly, moon tea has tansy and other herbs to bring along the… passing of a child. But only in small amounts. If one ingests too much, it causes fits, fever, bleeding, and then-"
Yadira stops to watch as the king shoves items to the floor. Vases and statues shatter, and she edges away from that part of the room. Lord Arryn seems unbothered.
"And then?" Asked Lord Hoster, intent to know. Yadira does not look away from the king.
"Death." The man went white at the words.
Robert moved to another vase on a small table and threw it into a wall, now sobbing. Yadira seemed to back away, more confident in the distance between her and the king, as Robert raged, throwing and breaking things. Jon stood and tried to calm him, and her father gave a hard unblinking stare to Yadira, who would not meet his eyes.
"How would she know what to do with that?" Yadira makes a face then- that was shocking to Camille.
"I cannot assume where she received such knowledge-"
"You lie," Robert accuses, his face going from red to purple. "You lie! You are a healer, you know where she found it. You must have given it to her!" He knocks his chair over he moves sure and quick, though Yadira did not move one inch as he came upon her.
Yadira shakes her head and looks to the ground. "I believe it was Ser Arthur. I came after her symptoms from the tansy though I did all I could to heal her. Ser Arthur wrote to me of her symptoms—"
"How would he know how to lose a child?"
Yadira had a pause then. "He is of the same Valley I am. The same blood as well. We do not keep such things secret."
"Why would he do such a thing for Lyanna?" The king was still now, staring at this new revelation. No one had told Camille either her uncle had helped her aunt.
"The Lady Lyanna said he was the kindest of her guards."
"She thought helping him kidnap her was being kind?"
"She said he allowed her more freedom in that tower than the others, and that he would speak to her, and that he would not hold her down as the prince requested. And when it was time for Prince Rhaegar to leave, she requested he stay." Yadira held her hands up as if she was hopeless, and nothing left to say.
"Held her down?"
Robert begins another round of screaming and crushing things when Eddard gives a hard glare and dismisses Yadira, who wastes no time getting out of the room.
Camille had found her way back to herself and was glad to eat dinner and supper in her father's rooms without everyone staring at her. in the week after, Camille had found that what Yadira had said displeased her father. At meals, Eddard alternated between talking to his lords and glaring at Yadira, who seemed unbothered by the whole ordeal and his moods, and responded positively to her father's demands as if he was some sort of bratty child. Eddard left her alone otherwise.
The King also gave generously to Eddard, paying for the entire household's mourning clothes, giving yards and yards of Braavosi cloth: the color of midnight; among other accommodations for people in Eddard's household.
The days after the initial meeting, are constant companions of the King: her father is with Robert everywhere, and feeling indulgent in her need to get out of the prison he calls her nursery, brings Camille with him, though Baby Jon must stay in his nursery. She did not miss being that little. Yadira, as her Lady Mistress, always accompanies her–and has found Robert is eager to show her favor. When he had come back from a hunt, he had even asked Yadira to tend to his wounds and told everyone of her 'Dornish remedies'; he would allow people of the Valley to have what was left of their bones; and other little trifles. This goodness did not extend to her uncle away in the Black cells, a place she had gone in the body of a rat, of all things. Robert was content for him to stay there, forever, if need be.
In the capital, the mood toward the Dornish followed what the king wanted. They were nice to the people in her household and hostile to those who weren't. Essine had rolled her eyes at lower ranked men claiming to be in her guard to good treatment. Yadira tells her to punish them quietly. The court still talked. The things the servants whispered they had heard were beyond words. Yadira insisted on a dozen guards wherever they went through it was the gardens or the Godswood only. Her favorite part of the day is being in her governess' arms, a few steps behind her father and Lord Arryn, on their way to the private meals with the king, their trail of handmaids and grooms behind them, and watching the rest of the court stare.
Camille thinks the king is nice. He likes to touch her dimples, feeding her nothing but sweetmeats and tosses her so high in the air she shrieks and makes him laugh. She also has new dolls and clothes and jewels, and otherwise, Camille is happy to just talk to Renly, a common sight at whatever meal she has with her father and the King, ever the eager conversationalist amongst all the adults. He tells her about his practices with bows and wooden swords, and it is pleasant to see him so excited about something. Renly even asks about the clothes for her dolls and begs the king to give her more. It didn't seem right to tell the king no when he insisted.
Yadira tells Essine and Ernatta everything at night: Lord Arryn's disapproval of them; Lord Hoster's stubborn ignorance of their presence and discussions with her father at sending her away; Lord Stannis the king's other brother who never smiles. As for the man Lord Lannister, or Tywin, he might have well-been spit on, the way she would say his name. a few nights ago, after they place her in bed, Yadira enthusiastically recounts that Lord Eddard had fought the match between the Lannisters and the king still, and for once her ladies seemed content with her father's actions.
Only a few days later, during her time exploring the castle and running around her uncle's cell, she comes across the King and his Hand in a tower debating, her father somewhere else. They across from each other, a flagon of wine, with cheese and fruit between them. It is plain compared to every other meal.
"Robert, you must not give permission."
"And why should I not? Am I not King now Jon?"
"Lord Tywin and Eddard hate each other courteously. One ill look at the bastard-"
"Ned is in grief Jon, as am I. He has lost his father, brother, and his sister in a year. All that is left of his kin is his younger brother, and the son Hoster's daughter gave. Do you blame him for keeping the child close?"
"The sight of the child angers Lord Hoster, Robert."
"The bastard is the last piece of what he wanted for his life. He had to give up the mother, Jon, have a care! You know he had already started his quest for the Dornish girl before the war broke out."
Jon Arryn sighs, sipping from his cup, and the king indulges as a squire, or page, filling his large goblet.
"And for Lord Tully," Robert laughs, "You both married his daughters, is that not payment enough? You know Ned's ways. He will dig his heels in and leave, Jon, I will not have that. Not now, after what has happened to Lyanna. Not when I have to marry. I want him here."
"It is an insult–"
"What offense does the girl give? She has barely found her feet! I have made my decision. They all had their way with weddings and the positions and the money. I want this. I command it."
What Robert had commanded had no challenges, and though it seemed a petty victory, Camille recognized it was important for her: she could attend at the royal wedding and festivities.