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The Almost Queen

Chapter 5

"Woe to all of you. With Daemon as King I can't see anything lasting here – except for his whims."

"Well, you won't be here to feel everyone's pain, will you?" Alyssa snapped.

"Indeed," Baelon agreed. "That's the only good thing in the mess she's going to thrust the realm into…"

The couple was having this argument in the very birthing chamber, not realizing that Rhaenys had awoken. She just did not have the will to even raise her eyelashes. She did not have the strength to ouch, even. But she didn't want to complain and weep anyway. Who could she blame? She had given birth only to fulfill a curse that had come to the line of those who had wronged her – and it was her own line as well. She remembered those moments of angry wish for a girl just to disappoint her uncle and goodfather's ambitions for a dynasty of his own, even if it meant that her own blood would never sit the Iron Throne. Had she brought this upon herself? Had the Seven heard her in an evil hour? Had they continued her own rejection in her children? Three daughters, with Daemon having wed Aemma mere days ago.

Later, her grandmother and aunt entered her chamber when no one else was there and it was Alyssa's turn to raise her voice. "Men! Tyrants! What do they know of women's wars? I really wish to see one of them writhе in birthing pains! Does the fault lie with women alone? Never fear, child. You will give birth to a son as well. You're young, you can have ten more children if you wish."

Then why didn't you, Rhaenys wanted to ask but didn't.

Two days later, she woke up burning with the scourge that she had only heard about. Childbed fever. As the next month rolled by, she felt sure that she was dying, she knew that she would never fear death again because they who had accepted death with their terrified heart had, in fact, died, had they not? Again and again, in the fire of her fever, she called for her mother which surprised her. She raged at her father for dying and letting her at the whims of fate and her grandfather. She confessed her onetime hopes and her desperate fears nowadays… She could hear soothing voices, feel cold linens wrapped all over her to break her fever, her grandmother's voice insisting that she opened her eyes, not give up, and still it was Viserys who could soothe her best, his hand relieving this terrible heat that Rhaenys produced and fed with her own body, his soft voice breaking through the pain that burned her day and night, as if she was dying at the stake… She would cling at the star sapphire engraved in a chain of fragile silver for her neck, the unofficial present he had given her the first night after the birth, and then the pain would start anew…

Finally, she rose from her sickbed but it was some time before she left her chambers. And even then, she felt unwell, constantly tired, plagued by headaches and weakness of limbs that she had never known before. The looks men and women at court angered her because now she was unable to retaliate with the only weapon that mattered: a new babe…

"I've been there," her grandmother said one day. "When Aegon died, everyone expected of me to give birth to a new son but instead, Alyssa arrived."

"Why should it matter?" Rhaenys asked angrily. "They do things better in Dorne!"

The Andal law might have been in her favour for years but she was a woman who did not live in a lie. Alyssa, with her cool head, brave heart and soft yet relentless drive would not have made a worse ruler than Rhaenys' father… or Baelon. As much as she hated to admit it, he did admirable job with his new duties. It's only because he's older, she told herself but the drive and hatred that had sustained her for years seemed to have faded and died without her permission and no matter how hard she stirred this perished fire, she could extract no ember from its ashes. I became what they wanted of me, she thought desperately. A lady wife and nothing else.

Viserys seemed to share some of her sentiments. "Sometimes, I wonder if our way is the best way," he would say thoughtfully. "When there is a girl, expecting a son who does not arrive complicate things. What should one make of their daughter – an heiress, or a model lady wife? And there is no guarantee that things will stay this way, whatever this is."

She would smile at him and take his hand, recognizing that it was the closest thing he could give to acknowledgment for her struggles.

His own struggles were no less intense, though. After Balerion's death, people had starting looking at him even more critically, comparing him to Daemon's swagger and vigorous youth, and roaring dragon. Rhaenys could hardly believe this. Just fifty years after the horror had ended, people were already wishing for another Maegor?

"He must choose a new dragon," Baelon said and even the Queen agreed.

"Why?" Rhaenys asked angrily. "To use them in a war that will likely never come? To sentence them to a life with a rider but without rider all the same? His time for entertainment is increasingly short and he doesn't want another one."

"It isn't about he wants," Baelon snapped. "And he cannot be relied on to understand this, not yet. If I had been allowed to get what I wanted at the time, things would have…"

He cut his words short and shook his head. "Never mind this," he said after a while and smiled at his mother. "That's the problem with children, isn't it? They think they know it all because they have finished growing in body. Mind, though, takes a good number of additional years and the fact that they don't realize it makes it worse."

"I prefer it this way." There were shadows behind Alysanne's eyes. "We were forced to grow up too soon. I would never wish it upon anyone of my blood, no matter how many more years of efforts I need to put on."

Perhaps they were right. Perhaps one day she would also see it this way. But now, she could only see the pressures Viserys had to put up with every day, the fact that he had yet to father a son on her now adding to them. Would a new dragon change things this much? He would still be compared to Daemon. I can be the dragonrider for both of us, Rhaenys thought although she knew it would be a long time before she could even stand the heat of Meleys and go near her.

Day after day, a year rolled by. Little Rhaenyra started walking. Aemma turned sixteen and just a few days later left for the Vale atop Caraxes, Daemon holding her tight. Rhaenys wondered how her cousin could stand being this dependent of anyone. She could never travel atop a dragon if she was not its rider, although she knew that Daemon, of course, would not throw Aemma all the way to the ground or something like this.

"Good luck," she said when she emerged in the courtyard to see how this young, silent cousin of hers who did not look Targaryen at all would leave, headed for her fate. Daemon did not look anywhere this happy. He seemed to have grasped what Rhaenys could have told him in the very beginning: Aemma would be the ruler in the Vale, not he. He has finally realized that he has wed a woman who is like his own lady mother, she thought and smiled, and tried to keep her balance because the world had just spun around her again.

"You too," Aemma said. "I expect to return soon for the celebration on your son's birth," she said in a low voice, paying no attention to Daemon's dark look. These two would have more troubles than even Viserys and I, Rhaenys realized and then the weight of Aemma's expectations crushed her. There was another person now who relied on her for their future.

In different ways, she bore the responsibility for so many people's future. Her lady companions, for once. It was up to her to provide matches for those whose families did not care enough and had just thrown them her way. Or help the families by acquiring men for them to choose from. So she had to attend feasts and tourneys even when she would rather stay in her children's nursery. But there was a new attendant that she would happily do it for. Mirana Bar Emmon. The second Mirana Bar Emmon, the niece of the loveliest among Princess Alyssa's companions. She's even lovelier than her aunt, people said but when Rhaenys saw how her uncle recoiled when he first saw her, she knew that this Mirana was the very image of the first one. He was in love with her, she realized. He must have been. It wasn't just lust. But as much as she tried, she could not remember Lady Velaryon as anything other than broken, although she had heard that once, Mirana had been as proud and beautiful as the Maiden. Watching him watch the girl made Rhaenys feel uncomfortable, realizing just how different it was for her. Now, her heart no longer skipped a beat when she saw Corlys. None of the resentment reserved for Lady Mirana had found its way to his new, fertile young wife. Children think they know it all, Baelon had said and while Rhaenys realized it was true for her, she wondered if perhaps he had known.

Ravens and people came from the Vale, words of admiration and praise and while Rhaenys did not envy Aemma her good luck, she was not blind to the irony. Years ago, her little cousin had looked up to her thinking that she was learning from the queen in waiting but now she was more powerful in her own right than Rhaenys. When she gave birth to a son, things would go even more intense. Fortunately, Rhaenys suspected that Aemma was in no hurry, no matter if Daemon knew…

"No," Viserys would say firmly whenever she broached the subject of further children. "Not before you get better."

With the pressure his father and their grandfather put on him, Rhaenys was surprised and grateful by his stance.

Ever so slowly, her recovery took off. She started riding Meleys again. She could spend a day without dozing once. She could carry her children in her arms without being afraid that a sudden bout of weakness would cause her to drop them. And she started trying again. For over a year.

"I will pray for you," the Hand of the King said at his death bed and Rhaenys felt just a faint echo of the resentment that she had greeted every display of concern by him since he had taken stance against her, although she knew what he meant. He would pray for her to have a son – and nothing more. She did not feel insulted because the truth was that a son was all she needed. In a way that she had not expected to repeat, her needs and the realm's needs had become one again.