He is gentle with Trystane, like he is gentle with all their children. Mellario sees nothing of her father's frantic eagerness bordering on stark impatience in Doran, impatience for a child of his to crawl, to stand, to walk, to run.
Trystane is crawling backward again. He rolled over for the first time at four months, the earliest of his siblings. Now at eight months, he is already sitting up, albeit shakily, but crawling forward is still something he has trouble doing. Doran is gently and patiently coaxing him forward, but Trystane's chubby legs and arms persist on moving backward.
"Some children never learned to crawl at all. They went straight from rolling over to sitting up and then standing. I was one of those babes," Doran says.
"I never took you to be the impatient type," Mellario remarks.
"It was not impatience so much as ... slowness, I suppose. It took a long time between the rolling over and the standing up," Doran says, ruefully. My mother must have been very concerned."
"Crawling is a worrying time for a babe in any case. Remember Arianne, how she would pick anything shiny she saw on the floor and tried to put it in her mouth? I lived in dread of her swallowing a marble."
"But she never did," Doran says, "thanks to your vigilance." He smiles, that smile rarely seen on his face since the death of his sister. Their eyes meet, Doran's and Mellario's, and for a moment, an all too brief but consuming moment, she could almost fool herself into believing that not much has changed between them since the days of their whirlwind courtship.
Picking up his pace, Trystane is crawling backward further and further away from his father and mother. Suddenly he halts, his face scrunching up in that particular way that lets Mellario know that her younger son is about to cry. The shrieks comes first before the tears, a loud and piercing shriek. Doran is up before Mellario, gathering Trystane into his arms, murmuring comforting words to the boy.
That he loves his children, Mellario has no doubt of that. She only has to remind herself of watching Doran holding Arianne up, his finger pointing to the moon, telling Arianne that love is like the moon, and that the more people you love, the bigger your love will grow, reassuring Arianne that neither he nor her mother would love her any less when the babe growing in Mother's belly finally arrives.
That he loves his children, Mellario has no doubt of that. She only has to recall the sight of Doran encouraging and coaxing Quentyn to take a step into one of the shallowest pools in the Water Gardens, never once showing any trace of impatience or anger or disappointment that Quentyn was not taking to the water as eagerly as his older sister did. Arianne had loved playing in the pools and fountains in the Water Gardens even before she learned to walk, paddling vigorously and enthusiastically in the water with her father's hands supporting her arms. Quentyn preferred, still prefers, to sit under the shade of the blood orange trees, playing quietly with one or two other children.
"Never mind," Doran had said. "The water is not for everyone, nor should it have to be."
And look at him now, his solemn face transformed, as he is making funny faces to try to get Trystane to laugh.
That he loves his children, Mellario has no doubt of that. Which makes his stubbornness and intransigence on the question of Quentyn's looming departure to Yronwood even more incomprehensible to Mellario.
"What if they mistreat Quentyn? What if the Yronwoods mistreat our boy as retaliation for his uncle's sins?" Mellario had demanded.
"They would not dare. They know who he is to Dorne. They know who he is to the Prince of Dorne. They would not dare harm a single hair on Quentyn's head," Doran had replied.
But there are many ways to mistreat a child, to harm a child without leaving any mark on his body. Words. Words could hurt. Cruel and unkind words. A snide remark, a mocking one. Looks. Looks could hurt as well. A sharp gaze, a resentful stare.
"And how could you bear it?" Mellario continued. "How could you bear to part with him, with any of our children? Quentyn is so young, so defenseless. Too young to be sent away."
"I could not bear it. But I must do it all the same." The blood debt must be paid, Doran insisted, or the blood of countless Dornishmen and Dornishwomen will be staining Dorne red. "And the children will suffer, the children of Dorne. I am their prince. How could I neglect my duty to them?"
Mellario was still not convinced that it could come to war. Surely the Yronwoods would not be so reckless? Anders Yronwood has children of his own, children he and his lady wife greatly love and openly adore, by all accounts. Surely he would not risk his children's life for the sake of mounting an open rebellion? Surely something else could be negotiated between the Martells and the Yronwoods?
"You do not know the Yronwoods, my lady, and their long enmity towards this House," Maester Caleotte had warned her.
Even after all these years, even after she has given their prince three children, she is still considered not much more than the ignorant outsider.I know the history, Maester. I have read all about it, learned all about it, heard all about it. But Anders Yronwood is not merely a product of his family history. He is also a man, a husband, a father, like my husband is not merely a prince, but also a man, a husband, a father.
She feels a tug on her hair, carrying her back to the present. Trystane's finger are grasping her wig. She takes his hand, bringing his fist as close as possible to her now widely open mouth, before pulling his hand away at the last second.
"You are so precious, I could eat you all up," her mother had said, playing this game with Mellario long ago. Trystane gurgles with glee. Without waiting for Mellario to guide his hand, he brings his fist to Mellario's mouth, already open in anticipation. The mouth snaps shut just before Trystane manages to insert his fist into it. Turning to his father, Trystane tries the game with him. Doran makes a chomping noise, as if getting ready to devour Trystane's fist, but his mouth also closes in time. Now Trystane is trying the game with both parents. He shrieks, just as loudly and piercingly as before, but his shriek is a shriek of joy, anticipation and fascination this time.
Trystane does not tire of the game as quickly as Mellario expects he would. But finally, exhausted from all the merriment, Trystane's eyes begin to close. He falls asleep in his father's arms, with his head resting on his mother's shoulder.
"I should put him down in his cradle," Doran whispers.
"Not yet. Not just yet," Mellario whispers back. They sway gently, the two of them, the motion hopefully reminding Trystane of the rocking of his cradle, lulling him into a deeper sleep.
Mellario puts her arms around Doran's waist, as she had done when they were dancing under the moonlight in the Water Gardens, the night she told him she was with child for the first time.
If only, she thinks. If only she could fool herself into believing that they could stay like this forever. The moment will pass, oh it will surely pass, and she grieves already for the passing that has yet to come, even as she is trying her best to savor it while it lasts.