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The Almost Queen

Chapter 6

Sometimes, Rhaenys found it hard to believe that her grandmother was no more. It felt as if the heart of court had gone away. As if a century old oak had crumbled and collapsed, as odd as such a comparison looked when used for a woman who had been as slender as a young girl all her life, had barely raised her voice, had actually never hit a child or servant. Alysanne had carried the stability of court with her and it was always with a pang of shame that Rhaenys thought the reason so not worth it. For her, Gaelle had been kind and loveable but not exciting. Not worth dying of grief over. Of course, Alysanne had seen her with other eyes… but it looked like Baelon had other ideas.

"She should have been married to someone who would have treated her well," he said curtly. "My lady mother should never have kept her at court to keep her company and burden her with the love she could no longer give to those who died. Gael wanted a husband and children and she could have had them, had my mother been less intent on keeping her close."

"On protecting her," Rhaenys corrected, seeing red with anger, and he nodded.

"This as well," he said. "But also keeping her for herself."

There was no accusation in his voice, just sadness, and perhaps that was what made Rhaenys think of the dark corners that lurked in people's minds. For the first time in years, she remembered her love for Corlys and saw it as the selfishness that it had been. She had never cared about what he wanted because she had wanted him this much that she had accepted that what was best for her was the best for him as well, so of course he'd desire it. Did you love her for herself alone, Grandmother, she wondered. Or is my uncle right and it was your need to love a surviving child as well? She wished she had asked the Queen about this but she knew she would have never dared. And her grandmother would not have replied anyway.

When Silverwing flew away, everyone seemed to accept that the Queen was no more and set about rebuilding their lives. The Small Council gathered every day. The guards before Rhaenys' doors changed. The children stopped asking about the Queen who had happily given them her old gowns and face paints. Rhaenys took over her grandmother's charities, surprised at how hard and time-consuming leading them was. From time to time, the ungrateful thought that perhaps Queen Alysanne should have given the rest of the women in the family part of her responsibilities so they could learn every day and not have it all coming down on their shoulders at once when she was no more.

"Grandmother was a very active woman," Viserys said one evening as he rubbed her shoulders after a day spent bent over documents for this project or that charity. "But this had a downside as well. She never had the patience to teach someone to do her duties when she could have done the job better and faster herself."

"She let me watch," Rhaenys protested.

"Yes," her husband agreed. "But watching isn't the same as letting someone do things with you, no matter how slow and awkward they are in the beginning. Eventually, they will learn."

Now, Rhaenys had better idea of how Viserys must be feeling, constantly compared to her father and Daemon and always coming up the loser. The fact that Alyssa was struggling in a way that was quite similar was precious little comfort and when her aunt left back for Dragonstone, Rhaenys barely noticed the increase in her overwhelming duties. How had Queen Alysanne managed? At least she had the small comfort that unlike Viserys, her inadequacies weren't visible to everyone or even discussed by most. What mattered to the court, the capital, the realm was that Rhaenys gave birth to the heir who would not come.

"Never fear," the King reassured her. "When the moment comes, everything will be as it should. We'll take care to find you the best spouse, as young and strong as a bull."

Rhaenys' jaw dropped and she stared at him, the horrified realization slowly pushing its way through her unwilling mind: he did not know which time it was. To him, she was still unwed. Perhaps even the heiress. Perhaps her father was still alive.

"What are we going to do?" she asked desperately after a feast where her grandfather had demanded that Alysanne came immediately because she had not warned that she'd be absent. "As far as I know, there is no cure for such a thing."

"There isn't," the Grand Maester confirmed without being asked.

They had gathered in the Tower of the Hand like a bunch of traitors. The lamps lit pale faces, eyes full of fear, hands gripping the table or clasped in front of the body. Discouragement hung in the air, tainting it with its poisonous breath. Finally, Baelon asked, "Can you give him something that would mask the symptoms when he has to make appearances?"

Rhaenys gasped at the cool composure with which he discussed keeping his own father, their King, in something like an arrest. But in fact, there weren't that many places where the Old King wished to go any more, were there? He usually walked around the Queen's Garden, waiting for Alysanne to appear from behind a bush, or the hall of the Small Council where, as Viserys told her, it was painful to watch him struggle to understand and connect the narrowing world that he lived in with the incredibly, to him, sounding events the members of the Council discussed. All of them knew how he was. No, these places were safe, unlike the great hall or receiving foreign envoys or delegation of different guilds.

"Well?" Baelon demanded when the Grand Maester made no attempt to reply.

"No," the man finally said. "I can't, Your Grace. The only herbs I can give him will dull his mind even more and make him half-asleep all the time."

That was what all of them had expected, yet to hear it confirmed made them shudder. Without even looking at the rest of them, Rhaenys knew that they would never accept such a method. Let him dwell in his increasingly narrow world and the time he can live in, she thought. We can manage. So she ground her teeth and smiled charmingly, pretending not to notice when the sad wonder of those who had no seen the King in a few years became painfully obvious. At the high table, only those who already knew were invited but still, the truth could not be contained. She took comfort in the knowledge that her grandfather did not know what people thought and talked about him. It was bad enough that she knew what people talked about her and her children. Female, all of them. Not enough.

"I wish he had chosen otherwise," Baelon once said and Rhaenys didn't bother to contain her bitter laughter. She believed him. Now that he had tasted what should have belonged to her father, he no longer wanted it. But the crown was not a leather ball to be thrown this way and that at a whim.

Even Baelon did not want to give Daemon any chance to claim the Iron Throne while a child of Rhaenys and Viserys still lived, yet claiming it he would, if she knew him at all.

Once, Rhaenys thought she might have conceived again but it turned out to be a false hope. And when Viserys left for the Vale of Arryn for two months, she realized that she could no longer rely on her moon blood as any indicator – it had become distressingly irregular to appear. Her hopes to start the new century with a new child, a male heir were to remain unfulfilled.

On the outside, everything was in working order. The Red Keep functioned like a well-oiled wheel; the Small Council that Jaehaerys had chosen when he had been in his might was proving his trust justified. And yet Rhaenys slowly started noticing some unexplained tension between Baelon and Ser Otto Hightower, the Hand of the King and the Master of Laws. Cross words. Deliberate snubbing on Baelon's part. Caustic remarks about Ser Otto too huge family and how good it was that he had a good office, else how would he have provided for them? Viserys told her that at the meetings of the Small Council, it was no different.

"The only thing that saves Ser Otto for now is his wit," he said. "He performs his duties admirably and my father can find no reason to send him packing."

"But why does he want such a thing at all?" Rhaenys wondered. 'The man is good at his job and his daughter is a great companion for Grandfather."

"I have no idea."

Rhaenys did not dare ask Baelon because she had a good idea about the kind of reply she would get: that she should focus on things that were more important. What there things were, there was no need to say.

One day, the King wished to ride Vermithor again. He made it almost to the outer gates without anyone daring to stop him before Rhaenys could be found. She rushed there immediately and Alicent Hightower looked at her with relief, having just been shook off Jaehaerys' sleeve. Unfortunately, one of the things he had not forgotten was his obstinacy – when he chose to apply it. Seeing Rhaenys, the guards readily decided that her orders would do.

"He's dangerous for himself," she said desperately.

"Not if I leave orders that could restrain him when needed," Baelon replied. "I was reticent to do it before but I was clearly wrong. What is dangerous," he added, "is Ser Otto's girl."

Rhaenys blinked, confused. But when that night in the great hall everyone clustered about the Hightower girl – a mere child in Rhaenys' eyes still! – and started commiserating over the bruises on her hands that were in no way left by someone as feeble as the King, she suddenly understood. It was a queen that the clever man from the Reach was preparing. A queen, a gentle caregiver, and a heroine. A second queen because the first one was as incompetent as to only give birth to girls. Even a glorified mistress would be a huge improvement over the girl's current status and non-existing wealth.

"No," Rhaenys said softly, eyes flashing. "Not as long as I live."