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Lady of Dorne
Back to Times Long Gone
Her mother usually came to her after she had already gone to bed. That was a tradition they had kept from their time at King's Landing and Rhaenys enjoyed it very much. It was her time to share everything that had happened during the day and hear what had happened through Elia's day, her time to make her pleas and try to talk her mother into something that was just the most important thing in the world and if only Elia would see it…
Her bedchamber was overlooking the sea and before going to bed, she liked to climb atop the back of the settee and stare through the high window at the stars shining against the dark depths, the moon path shimmering silver and bright, and thought that the world was so big yet the moon and stars were one and the same – for her and her mother, for Laval, for her father and Aegon. She felt that the moon brought them together.
That was how Elia found her when she entered the chamber with the pale blue walls and bright curtains, the fountain in the corner humming its incessant song. "What are you doing up there?" she asked, half-stern and half-amused.
Rhaenys looked sheepish. "I was just thinking," she said and the corners of Elia's mouth twitched.
"Fine, then go thinking in your bed."
Rhaenys obediently climbed down. She was already in her nightgown and Elia's heart jumped with fear when she saw her daughter tripping in her hem before her foot reached the settee. But Rhaenys regained her balance before Elia could cry out. She even gave her mother a reproachful look. "Don't be scared over nothing, Mama," she said.
Elia remembered little Oberyn and his explanations at falling down a tree, almost drowning, touching a hot stone in the kitchens where he had had no business being. "I had to know how high it was, how deep it was, how hot it was." She had heard this tune so often that she could sing it half-asleep, so she decided against asking Rhaenys why she was doing such dangerous things. She did not really want to hear the answer.
Rhaenys snuggled against her pillows and Elia blew all the candles but one, piled a few cushions atop of each other, taking a seat on the upper one. She reached for Rhaenys' hand. "How was your day?" she asked.
"It was a good one. I've got a letter from Father," Rhaenys claimed boldly. For all her mother's efforts to not speak badly of Rhaegar, Rhaenys was well aware that her father was not loved here. In that intuitive way children had, the girl had realized that the topic of her father was not one her mother welcomed, so she avoided it as well.
But now, Elia only smiled. "Did you?" she said; for a moment, Rhaenys was gripped by the terrible suspicion that her mother might have read the letter before it made its way to her. It wasn't fair… if she had.
Anyway, her mother did not look angry. She simply stroked Rhaenys' hair away from her cheek. "I need to tell you something," she said.
Instinctively, Rhaenys tensed, anticipating a blow, although she didn't know what it would be.
"You know that after the High Septon had our marriage annulled, Lady Lyanna became your father's sole queen, don't you?"
"I do," Rhaenys said cautiously.
"Well, since I am now a ruler in my own right, I need to wed as well."
"Do you?" the girl asked plaintively, although she had heard the whispers and bets who her mother's consort would be."
"Yes," Elia said and paused. "I chose Ser Arthur," she finally said. "I believe he'll be good to both of us," she added.
In the silence that followed, the sputtering of the candle made a discernible sound. Elia's hand had stilled against Rhaenys' head.
"Do you love him?" Rhaenys finally asked. She had always known that her parents did not love each other but the thought of her mother loving another man more than she did her terrified her. Ser Arthur was a brave knight and someone she preferred to all other men Elia might choose from. But he could not love Elia like Rhaenys did, like Aegon did. And her mother could not love him more than anything, could she?
Elia gave her a curious look, wondering what the child's fears were due to. For she knew there were fears. "Love should not be a consideration for a marriage, my sweet," she said. "I am not wedding him because I love him."
Rhaenys released the breath she had been holding, overwhelmed by relief. Elia resumed stroking her hair. "It won't change anything for you, my sweet," she assured her. "You won't be forced to spend more time with him or something. You're the King's daughter and Ser Arthur will be my husband in two days. That's it. You and Aegon are still the ones I love most."
Rhaenys didn't know whether to believe her. Eventually, she did, but it didn't stop her from breaking down in sobs as soon as Elia left her room with a smile and a goodnight kiss. She could not help but wish things were the same as they had been only a year ago.
At the time Elia reached her father's chambers, her state was not much better than her daughter's. If she couldn't get a child who had known Arthur her entire life to be happy, what chance did she have with the rest of Dorne? She was not a fool. She knew Arthur was not well-received in Dorne. Too many had lost husbands, sons, fathers, and brothers during the Rebellion. The fact that he had guarded Lyanna at the tower named by Rhaegar with that ridiculous name was widely known, and not speaking in his favour. If he would have once been considered not worthy of serious consideration as her husband, now it was tenfold more valid, and yet she had to espouse him in mere days. She could easily imagine the uproar it would cause all over Dorne.
The idea of inviting all her bannermen to celebrate her wedding as was customary was indefensible, for that might well mean that there would be no wedding at all. But she had to rely on her friends among them, insure their support. Even Alynna became reconciled with the prospect, she reminded herself. Why not the rest of them?
There were no guards at the door of Alric's private chambers. It struck her that in less than three days, there would be such at Arthur's. The former Kingsguard would have to accept being guarded. The very idea of it made her chuckle despite her concern.
Alric let her in immediately. He was sitting into his favourite chair with a book and it suddenly occurred to her that since they had returned, she had not heard a word linking his name to any woman's. That struck her as strange because he had had multiple affairs for a good part of his marriage. Now, with Arianne dead, it would make sense for him to return to his one-time habits, and yet he hadn't.
"What's going on?" he asked as soon as he saw her. His eyes were filled with concern. "Take a seat."
She did and then gave a little gasp when her father's favourite greyhound bumped against her feet under the table. A huge head emerged to rest in her lap and Alric shook his head. "You traitor," he told the dog. "Ready to trade me for the first soft voice around here."
The greyhound huffed dismissively and Elia laughed.
"I need to talk to you," she said a moment later, sobering. "About my marriage," she specified.
Something in her voice made Alric bristle in anticipation of something unpleasant. "What do you mean?"
"The only fate worse than what I escaped would be fighting with a potential husband over controlling Dorne. Or somehow let Dorne become pressed into a corner, so I would have to accept a man hand-picked by no other than Rhaegar."
Alric didn't answer at once. Now that she had said it, he realized just how scared she had been of Rhaegar outmaneuvering her somehow. He was smart. And she had no experience ruling.
"So, what do you intent to do?"
She drew a harsh breath. "I'll wed Arthur," she said. "In two days."
This was one of the rare moments when Alric was rendered speechless. He stared at his daughter in mute amazement swiftly replaced by worry at the very obvious lack of enthusiasm in her expression. "Is there any need to speed the wedding so?" he asked softly.
Elia blushed. "There is."
Alric burst out laughing. His losses, his hurt prevented him from thinking about the resulting complications. He only saw the blow the news would be for the occupant of the Iron Throne. "Oh that's rich! I wish I could be a fly on the wall in the throne room when Rhaegar gets to hear about this."
"It isn't funny," Elia said firmly, refusing to laugh.
"Child, of course it is. Don't tell me you aren't gloating a little."
"Well, maybe a tiny bit," Elia admitted. "But gloating isn't worth it."
There was a long silence during which the greyhound felt obliged to lighten the mood by suddenly reaching out with head and paws which sent Elia against the back of the chair just before she got a wet kiss all over her cheek. She yelped and laughed.
"You still don't trust him, do you? Is that the problem?"
"Yes… and no." Elia was speaking slowly. Indeed, she didn't know. "I trust him that he wouldn't betray me… and yet, I cannot help but ask myself, What if…? He's done it before. I know he had to obey but – he was supposed to protect me first, even if it wasn't a part of his oaths. He knew that Rhaegar knew it, and yet he chose to join him in abandoning me and the children in Aerys' hands. I don't know, Father. All I know is that this situation is making me distrustful and unhappy."
"Not one of my foes," Alric said, "has caused me greater suffering than your mother, and yet she loved me very much as I did her. Stop mixing love with happiness, Elia. The truth is, those we love can hurt us like no other. That's the way of things. Consider yourself lucky that you've had your share of hurt before the wedding. This way, you won't be entering it starry-eyed."
All of a sudden, Elia felt a little better. Her father was right, she and Arthur had been through their worst period already. And they knew each other better than any other spouse-to-be did, they had literally been sharing their lives for ten years. Do I really distrust him so much, she wondered. Or is it simply that I cannot forgive him for the past? She knew that his friendship with Rhaegar was broken beyond repair, that his loyalty has been hers alone for years. She was, in fact, fighting just a deeply seated fear that the pull of his one-time oaths could turn too strong.
Suddenly, the world became a much brighter place. She leaned over the huge head in her lap and smacked it with a loud kiss. Alric snickered and complained, "How is it that I am the one dispersing sage advice, yet the dog is the one getting all the love?"
He saw that she was about to rise and waved his hands defensively. "No, no! Dog slobber and dog hairs – you can keep them to yourself." He paused. "But you can take him with you to have his fur to cry into when you're explaining this to Oberyn and your uncle."
Elia sighed. "I hoped I could rely on your help about this…"
"You can," her father said, albeit not too enthusiastically.
With his former squire, Arthur had been most meticulous where swordsmanship was concerned. Every other weapon was just a side thing – for a man, sword was the most important one for a man to master. Through the years, though, his views had changed somewhat, and his current squire was a boy who could not be served by learning sword to the detriment of other skills. He was Dornish, so mastering the spear was a must. And his incredible agility and coordination of hand and eye would not let Arthur neglect his bowmanship. He had to squeeze those in, somehow, before the changes brought by growing up coarsen the boy. If he waited until then, a golden chance would be lost. He could not do such a thing in good faith.
So, he alternated. Every day, they had practice and every day they alternated weapons. Mace and morningstar were the ones Laval disliked most. Coincidentally, they were Arthur's least favourite, as well. Not that it mattered.
"Good," Arthur said when the arrow struck a shield fixed in the branches of a tree about a hundred steps from them. Even from this distance, he could say that the arrow had struck if not the very centre, then somewhere quite near. "And now, I want you to pierce it. I want to see the point sticking from the other side."
Laval stared at him in mute horror. The shield was made by leather that had been tanned and dried so expertly and strung so snugly against the wood that it would take the strength of a twelve-year-old to break through. But he knew better than contradict, so he drew the bow and sent the arrow. This time, his concern made his aim inaccurate and he only managed to hit the shield near the rim, not even close to the centre.
He looked at Arthur who only looked back. Without saying anything, Laval went to retrieve his arrow and started again. Failed again.
It'll take months, Arthur thought. But at the end, he'll do it. He couldn't say why he was so certain. His own hands itched to choose a bow from the armoury and set his own target.
"He might make an excellent mounted archer one day."
Alric's voice startled him. He turned about and startled once again at the sight of the man accompanying Alric: his brother Lord Gargalen, the man who had once fostered him, who had trained him like he was now training Laval. His own father had sustained a debilitating injury when Arthur had been still a child so Mikkel Gargalen's voice had remained the only one leading him on the path towards manhood.
He looks so much like Aerys. This thought gave him chills. But the emotion behind those purple eyes was not fear, or drive for cruelty. It was anger and behind it, disappointment. Arthur was taken aback when he found out that disappointment was the one that pained him most.
Apprehension weighed upon him once again. If he could not bring the man who had practically brought him up to forgive him, what chance did he have with the rest of Dorne? His former friends? The ones who had lost loved ones? The smallfolk who had once cheered for him but took any slight against House Martell ever so personally?
One look at the two men told him that they had already been informed. Or if they hadn't been, Naeryn would do it soon. If Alynna knew, there was no way Naeryn hadn't been told. She walked next to Alric, impossibly dry and lovely in her ruby gown in the afternoon heat. The smile on her equally ruby lips told him nothing and anyway, she soon turned her attention to Laval.
"Why," she said. "Here is a determined boy."
She was watching how he, having failed once again to get his arrow through the shield, just went to draw it back and returned to his starting place.
"Soon, he's going to do it," Arthur said. "He has a good eye and his coordination is excellent. A mounted archer, indeed," he added to Laval's grandfathers.
Alric only nodded, as if it was evident. Mikkel only followed the boy's movements with squinted eyes.
"Why," Naeryn said lightly. "He reminds me of another boy I used to know."
"I can't see any resemblance," Mikkel snapped and beckoned Laval closer.
"The shield is adamant, eh?" Alric said before his brother could take his irritation on the boy.
"I am more adamant," Laval assured him. His smile quickly died as he assessed the tension.
"We came to see you," Naeryn announced cheerfully. "I was just saying that you remind me so much of Ser Arthur when he was your age."
Mikkel glared at his niece but Laval perked up immediately. "Do I? For real?"
Something flickered behind Alric's eyes. He gave both his brother and Arthur a long look and smiled at Naeryn, his mind made up. "My dear, would you mind showing Laval a memory long gone? I really feel we should all see that."
The young woman looked surprised but sent Laval inside, ordering him to return with a crystal bowl. Arthur felt that his squire couldn't return soon enough because the tension was so thick that he could practically cut it with Dawn. The way Alric and Mikkel avoided each other's eyes told him that they had been arguing heatedly. Naeryn was clearly very angry, although he couldn't say whether this was due to her earlier anger with him, or she felt that this situation with Elia was somehow his fault. He had nothing to say and they weren't too keen on talking either, so when the boy returned, he was immensely relieved, although he wasn't sure what Alric had in mind.
Naeryn took the bowl and filled it with water from the corner where one of the outlets of the aqueduct supplying the Old Palace roared with the cascade of bursting water on two levels. She chose the upper level, the one for household needs, and then placed it on the stump of a wood cut because it had become dangerously unstable. They all came close, Mikkel clearly unwilling, Laval thrilled that he'd see magic being done, and Arthur wondering what Alric had in mind.
"Cut me," Naeryn told Alric, extending her hand.
He took his dagger and nicked her slightly. Naeryn waited until three drops of blood fell in the water and then asked him to do the same. The obsidian on her brow glinted black like dread.
As soon as the third drop of Alric's blood fell in the water, the rippled formed by the disturbance started gurgling as they swallowed it. When the surface was calm once again, an image appeared before them.
It was one of the rocks around the castle of Salt Shore. They all recognized it at once. A solitary rock, always attacked by winds, falling so steeply into the sea that having once tumbled over the edge, a man simply had nothing to cling in his fall.
Well away from the edge, a boy was trying to make a complete turnaround with his sword in hand. A grizzled knight was there to meet his attacks, always a little slower than they should be because the boy could not keep his body and his blade balanced enough for such a swift turn. Each time, his rival had time to meet the blow.
Not far away from them, a much younger Alric Gargalen was looking at his brother skeptically. "Why don't you transform this into a half-turning?" he asked. "You see Arthur cannot do the complete rotation. And a half-turning would serve him well enough."
"But a complete rotation would be much better," Mikkel said, looking convinced.
"Not if you keep pressing him with something he cannot do, it won't. At the end, you'll ruin his confidence and that will be it. You saw that at Hellholt he failed at that and didn't make it to the last day. If he hadn't been following this whim of yours…"
"This whim of mine," Mikkel said, now visibly irritated, "will make him one of the finest knights in the Seven Kingdoms. No one else will be able to repeat it any time soon. Strength would be no problem for him when he's fast enough to strike before they can even recover their balance, let alone reflect his blow."
Alric shook his head. "Sounds lovely," he said. "And quite impossible, from what I see. Leave the boy alone, Mikkel. This striving for unattainable perfection will be your downfall. Worse, it will be his."
Mikkel's irritation turned to anger in the matter of moments. "What you see," he echoed. "That's very interesting since you aren't watching. Look, for the seven's sake!"
"What do you mean? I…"
But he started watching more closely now. Try and failing. Try and failing. Try and failing. Try and failing once again.
He turned back to his brother, stunned.
Mikkel smiled. "Do you see? You aren't the first one who has advised me to remove the turnaround from his training. I didn't even tell him. He'll die but at the end, he'll do it."
Tender mist rose from the sea, wrapping everything in its tendrils. Faces disappeared. Voices faded. Naeryn turned back and made a step away from the bowl. The pendant on her brow gave a last glint and became an ordinary jewel, pretty and dull.
"Did you do it?" Laval asked excitedly. "You must have! This rotation is now something no one else but you can do…"
Arthur nodded. "I did it," he said. "It only took me a year of perseverance. I did it at Oldtown, in front of thousands who had come to see Ser Gerold Hightower making a short work of me. Instead, he was the one who was made short work of. It worked just like your grandfather said it would."
"His grandfather," Mikkel said icily, "has said many things through the years, some of them quite nonsensical."
He turned to his brother angrily. "Why was this journey to times long gone, Alric?"
Alric shrugged, very casually. "Why, I thought it might be interesting to both Laval and Arthur," he said. "Help them put the things in perspective, so to say."
"Indeed," Arthur assured him, "you were a great help. Now I can see many things far more clear."
He was smiling, the heat of the afternoon no longer suffocating, and the future ahead of him not quite so grim.