Chapter Five – A Cold and Loveless Bed

Dearest Lady Grandmother

I write to you from Pinkmaiden Castle in the Riverlands. Surely you have heard about the Betrayal at Bitterbridge, but despite it my Brother and I are both safe and sound of health. We have been given Refuge by Robb Stark. My little roses and the Holyhall are whole. The Wolf enjoys the scent of gold on green.

A shadow falls over the waters of the Redwine. I know not what to do. My brother and I have discussed a Taming of the Wolf. I seek to know how.

With love and affection,

Lady Margaery Tyrell, the Rose of Highgarden

Margaery

Margaery and Loras set about carrying out their plans immediately. Unfortunately for them, they hit upon a snag almost right away.

"You are betrothed?!" Margaery, followed by her ladies in waiting and a distressed-looking Brienne who blushed all over and did not want to be there, not in the slightest, stormed into fencing chamber that lay in the west wing of Pinkmaiden castle's second floor the morning after her arrival at the Young Wolf's court. The large rectangular room with the smoothly polished dark oaken floors had long been the pride of House Piper, but a tense mood fell over it as the people in it looked to the now prickly Rose of Highgarden. Having stood from his place of rest at the far wall Grey Wind gave Margaery one look, huffed deeply and then turned around so that when he lay back down he lay with his snout towards the wall, shutting out the world. Margaery thought that the Direwolf was wise beyond his years and his species.

Robb, some part of her was happy to see, betrothed or not, was shirtless, stripped to his britches and holding a wooden approximation of a greatsword in his hands, and he blinked after the doors to the chamber slammed open behind her. A couple of Piper guards had guarded the doors from the outside but had been shoved aside by Brienne, and their Lord Marq, sitting with his ancestral blade over his lap as he polished it, quieted in his shouted words of encouragement to Robb in his training. Dacey Morment, Lyra's more slender and much more conventionally comely sister, took one look at Margaery and left the room, dragging Lord Marq along with her.

"Eherm" Robb cleared his throat and looked to his sparring partner, who was an equally half-naked sweaty man right about then, though going by the sight of him must have had a bear involved somewhere in his family tree quite recently. "Top of the morning to you too, Lady Margaery. I hope that you have had a pleasant rest, and that your quarters are to your liking?" It seemed that the Young Wolf was nervous, and thus his voice rose in pitch at the end to of that question though it really seemed more of a statement to her.

"Yes it is, yes I had and yes they are" she answered him impatiently, forgetting every lesson her Grandmother had taught her to instead allowing herself to be like her grandmother for a little while. "Now, what is this I have just heard?" She had broken her fast just a little while earlier, along with her ladies and Brienne in the great hall, and taken to speak with some of the vassals of Galbart Glover, including the aged lesser lord Gregor Forrester, who had mentioned his own son Rodrik's betrothal to a lady of another northern noble house called Elaena Glenmore.

Margaery had inquired about northern marital customs, and Gregor had mentioned, out of hand, that it was not uncommon for northerners and southerners to have double ceremonies, to honour both the Seven and the Old Gods. "The late Lord Eddard did when he married Lady Catelyn" he had said "and our King will doubtlessly do the same when he marries that Frey girl". And that was as far as Margaery hard heard before she watched her plans shatter and fall apart even before she as much as a chance to lay them.

Smalljon stood half-way between Robb and Margaery and her ladies, and so he looked from one to the other, back and forth, blinking several times. Finally, his gaze settled on Robb, at which point he promptly burst out laughing so hard that he all but went blue in the face. Wheezing and doubled over, Dacey Mormont had to return to the chamber to help him out of there, giving Margaery an apologetic look as she did so. "Lady Margaery" Robb Stark cleared his voice and looked past her to her ladies and her bodyguard "might we speak of this later? I am indecent, and in need of a bath-"

"You look and smell terrific, your Grace" Margaery dismissed his concerns with a wave of the hand, still annoyed, and looked over her shoulder at her attendants. "Give us the room, will you?" Alyce, Megga, Alla and Elinor curtsied and took their leave with varying degrees of grace, but Brienne, having traded her blue plate for more simple leathers and doublet, remained. "Yes, Lady Brienne of Tarth? Might I and the King have a few private words?"

"Without a chaperone, my Lady?" Brienne inquired flatly, making Margaery internally seethe at the rules of interaction and courtly life. "Unmarried, with an unmarried man, alone? I hardly think that is proper, my Lady. I will-" she coughed when Margaery narrowed her eyes at her.

"I shan't act without honour, Brienne" Robb inter-cut the stares the two were giving each other. "Do not doubt me, Stormlander".

"It is not your honour that I have been sworn to guard - or whose honour I doubt, your Grace" she added, to Margaery's visibly growing bevexment. "Very well. I'll just go stand over in the corner and – uh – look at the swords on the wall for a little while! Your Grace, my Lady" she bowed and turned on her heel and did as she had said, leaving the two in relative privacy.

"So" Margaery crossed her arms before her chest, noticing absently how Robb's blue eyes shot down to neckline of her gown at to motion before he met her eyes again and blushed, averting his gave to face away from her. "Betrothed".

"I didn't know it'd cause trouble for you not to know, Lady Margaery" he offered, and then he flinched, knowing what that sounded like. "I – oh, bollocks – I didn't mean it like that. I never had a reason to tell you because, and you know, and-" he sighed and slapped his hand onto his brow – a motion that did wonderful things to the muscles along the sides of his torso as he spun back around to face her. "I didn't think that anything would come of it. You were married when I first met you, for Gods' sake".

"In name, perhaps" she scoffed back at him and turned her back to him, walking past him towards the long slits made in the walls along the room, a necessary part of its fortifications as the fencing room overlooked the rear courtyard and the castle gardens. She leant her shoulder against the wall there so she could peak out of the narrow stone slit. Her brother Garlan had once taught her that they were called arrowslits, arrow loops, loopholes, or balistraria, portages through which archers could loosen down on invaders without being hit by answering projectiles. "My marriage was a sham. My marital bed was cold and empty but for myself".

"Renly didn't care for you?" Robb asked, and she shrugged. She wondered what she was doing, talking to him like this, confronting him like this about keeping this from her, as the best thing she could have done was to simply ingest these new slivers of information and plan accordingly. Perhaps… yes, that she could do. She needed but simply seduce him. He was already half-way there. All she needed to do was follow Grandmother's lessons. And hope that she looked like she knew what in the Seven Hells she was doing.

"My family wanted the match, my father most of all" she confided in him, and he made a rumbling sound that was half a bitter sigh and half a knowledgeable affirmation. "I take it that it was the same for you?"

"I needed passage by the Twins to gain the first advantage in the war" he told her shortly, leaning against the cold stone wall on the other side of the loophole like the chill did not bother him in the slightest. "Walder Frey" she nodded, recognising the machinations of the Late Lord Walder "could make whatever demands he wanted of me then, and I would have been forced to say yes. One of them was to promise that I would marry Roslin, his… I don't remember. Maybe she was one of his daughters, or maybe she was a distant relation". He paused and looked to her, and she looked away from him and back out of the arrowslit. "Was Renly not… you've said that he was the kindliest King the world had ever known?"

"The kindliest king, a good and godly man – and a poor husband" she told him then, glad that her brother had secluded himself with the maester in the castle rookery, writing messages to send to Highgarden and Oldtown and the Arbor, and wasn't there to hear her. "I struck him, at times. He would belittle me, speak to me like I was some common slattern, insult my sex. But I'd strike him, and then he'd ask for my forgiveness, as if he was in the wrong. And he was, but I… I do not know if he was weak, or if I was bitter and hateful. Perhaps a little of both, and some of neither. Most things are. But since he never touched me other than like a brother to a sister I never saw us as wed together".

"Wait, hold, what?" Robb urged her, eyes wide in disbelief. "He never touched you like a husband?" She looked back at him, let her eyes rove over his muscle still shining faintly with sweat, inhaling the scent of him from even the distance between them and discovering that she liked it. "You mean you never… never-?"

"Consummated our marriage? No". Out of all things that she had told him, that was the thing that he seemed the most taken aback by. "Would you have done the same, your Grace? Ignored your young wife like that, forsaken your duties as a husband?"

"If I had a wife that looked like you do, Lady Margaery?" Robb wondered quietly, and her cheeks reddened by his tone if not by the words that followed. "I'd lose the war, no doubt about it, because I'd never want to leave her chambers". Brienne, standing by the far wall from them with her back turned, trying to seem very interested in the decorative swords fastened to the stone of the walls by hammer hand nail despite her red ears, cleared her throat pointedly. "Lady Margaery" he was blushing so hard that even the stomach around his navel turned red. His flat, smooth stomach, where his muscles stretched under sweaty skin…hmm? "I'm sorry if I led you astray, even without intention on my part. I should have told you. I beg your pardons". Begging, he? He stood tall and proud and strong. She saw begging nowhere.

"No, you ask forgiveness" she told him softly and reached out across the space between them, laying her hand on his upper arm. "You do not beg, even now. Never. Is that pride, or arrogance?" His skin was warm, incredibly hot beneath her fingers, and she all but made to squeeze to feel – Brienne cleared her throat, and cleared it again when neither of them made to move apart. Again she did it, and then one more time before she was reduced to jagged coughs. "I'd best see to her" Margaery said as she withdrew from him. "She sounds like she's swallowed an entire live sparrow".

"Of course" Robb nodded to her and looked around, staring at her back as she walked away from him, and she glanced back over her shoulder to see his hand replace hers on his arm, as if he was trying to hold to him the sensation of her touch. "I've for fencing for another hour, I think. If you'd I could show you the castle, afterwards. The gardens are quite pretty, even in this season".

"That would be nice" Margaery inclined her head as she patted Brienne on the back, forced to stand on the tips of her toes to do so. "My brother keeps asking about how northern men fight" she added then, lying smoothly and discovering that it left an ill taste in her mouth despite all the practice she have had with clandestine dealings. Why did she not like lying to this man? She certainly wasn't sweet on him… was she? "May my ladies and I stay and watch? Fencing from the North must be so different from what it is in the Reach".

"I, eh" Robb lifted his hand and scratched at the back of his head. "Certainly" he finally decided, and within a short while he had called back his attendants and hers into their presence. And so, on chairs by the wall of the room by the side of Lord Marq, one hand on Grey Wind's furry head, Margaery sat and watched the Young Wolf fight.

Few castles in Westeros had fencing rooms like that one, with shields and swords and lances and banners bearing old and obsolete heraldry fixed to the walls, but they were supposedly quite common in Essos, especially around the noble and the wealthy families of Braavos. It was in that room where the sons of House Piper had practiced their sword skills ever since the founder of their house, a Lysene musician who had sworn himself to the service of Arlan Durrandon, third of his name, King of Storms and Rivers, had built the castle of Pinkmaiden in an age now long gone. The family sword was a relic of that man, Noraro the Piper, the sword with a silver woman in golden veils for a handle and a pink blade tinged with waves of silver. It was said that the First Piper had gotten the sword from a mad Valyrian dragon rider, as thanks for seducing and murdering his rebellious daughter. And ever since the First Piper had stabbed it through that Freeholder Princess's heart the blade had been bound by that Dancing Maiden, a ghost within the sword to watch over House Piper until the sword was lost or destroyed or time itself ended.

Or so, Marq Piper told Margaery as they watched Robb and Smalljon spar, the stories said.

"Come on – show me those fangs of yours!" Smalljon shouted at Robb as the two circled each other, and on his insistence the King in the North charged, their wooden greatswords, hollowed out and weighed with lead down the spine, clashing together in deafening clacks. Dacey Mormont watched from aside together with a man Margaery was called Owen Norrey, another fighter with the greatsword who was even hairier than Smalljon, if such a thing was possible, though nowhere quite as large. She asked Lord Marq about that black-haired man's plaid cloak, to which he shrugged.

"You will have to ask a Northerner, Lady Margaery" Marq offered as Robb, neither as fast or as strong as his opponent, used his cleverness and sense of strategy to work for him instead. He sidestepped one of Smalljon's overhead swipes, having baited the giant into overextending himself, and half-sworded, reversing the greatsword so that he hold the blade in his hand, to hook the crossguard around Smalljon's feet and sending him crashing to the floor. "A capital strike, your Grace!" Marq clapped his hands, to which the Northerners rolled their eyes. "Well done!"

"What's the word, Lady Margaery?" Robb asked while Owen Norrey got him a drink of water. "Sysodam?" Schooled by a maester of the Citadel or no, Robb's grasp of the finer points of southern language seemed a little vague. Margaery did not think less of him for it. It was hard to think little of a man who had, while outnumbered and on hostile land, beaten his enemies at every turn.

"Sycophant" she supplied with a smile. Betrothed or not, she enjoyed his company.

My Dearest Grandchild

I am glad that you are safe. The court is nothing but insipid and bleak without your presence. I received your brother's message. Quite the plan, taming this wild pup of yours.

The wind blows whispers to Highgarden. The wolf drinks at towers. He does because he is chained to it. Towers have weak chins. This tower is half ermine, and that is no sturdy construction, pretty as it might be to look at.

You know what they say about the flowers of Highgarden. Fertile as the land from which they grow, and just as fair. A rose is a better choice than a tower, always. Convince his pack and his kin of that, and they will take to you.

But the wolf is the get of the old wolf. The old wolf never broke his chains. This one seems no different. But this chain is linked to weak foundations. And the wolf has a pack to lead.

Stay with the dancing maiden and the wolf. Feed him treats, and he shall lick your hand soon enough. All men are the same, after all, wolf or not. Awe him and his pack, learn how they howl, and they shall sit pretty for you too. Meanwhile we must take care, for gold on red lends hands to many ears.

Perhaps the wolf can be tamed. Remember that there is always a price to such things. If you undertake this endeavour it must not fail. Let us not lose our heads over this.

I look forward to seeing how things develop. I have faith in you.

With love and affection,

Olenna Tyrell née Redwyne, Lady Dowager of Highgarden

Margaery

"How are the godswoods in the North?" Margaery asked Robb as later, after Robb had washed himself of the fencing sweat and dressed himself in what seemed to her to be much too light attire for such brisk weather, he escorted her through the gardens of Pinkmaiden, and past it into the godswood under an arch in the dividing wall between it and the summer herb gardens. "It must be so very different at Winterfell than it is here in the South".

"Cold" he jested, and she laughed aloud. Some ways behind them walked Alla and Lord Marq, followed Brienne, as their chaperone at enough of a distance to give them at least an air of privacy. "Well, it's a lot bigger than this" he gestured to what was merely another part of the garden with the castle sept at the far side of it, the trees sparsely laid out along the nooks of the path that coiled and twisted and turned in arcane Essosi ways beneath their feet. "This is, what? Fifty by fifty feet? The godswood in Winterfell is three acres of land inside the keep. And the ground" he looked down on their feet and frowned.

"Yes?" Margaery urged on, linking her arm in his. "Go on". It was such a different thing from Renly's, or even Loras's. Through his grey tunic she could feel his muscles, and she had the sense that he had been hard and lean in his early years only to flower into true prowess as he grew older. She could not get both hands around his upper arms, even if she tried. He blushed still, and though it was still adorable she was starting to get a little annoyed at his prudishness. She was just walking arm in arm with the man, not fawning on him or even kissing his cheeks.

"It's covered in old humus and moss over the packed dirt. The ground so soft it's like a pillow beneath your feet" he began to describe it to her, and she enjoyed the imagery almost as much as she enjoyed the sound of his voice. "There's not any paths, and trees all around. Solider pines, ash, oak, hawthorn, chestnut – even ironwood. One of the few gatherings of the trees that House Forrester does not keep. There are warm pools under the canopy of the trees, heated even in winter by hot springs within the belly of the world. When we had been bad, or broken our promises, Father told us to wash ourselves of it in the godswood springs".

"It sounds like a wonderful place" Margaery told him as they went along the path towards the castle sept. "Our godswood at Highgarden is in some parts the same and some not. We have other trees and such. No hot pools, though. Which is a true shame". It truly was. There were few things Margaery enjoyed as much as a good long soak in a hot bath. "You have a Weirwood tree too, don't you?"

"We must, because our Gods live in them, aye?" he gave her a lopsided grin, and she inclined her head. "No. The Gods do not live in the heart trees. They live in all things, in the rocks and the rivers and the wind and all other trees, too. But through the Weirwoods they can see us, and by rustling of their leaves we can hear them. Ours is a giant thing, on the edge of a pool of black water that is always covered with a sheath of ice, even in the depths of summer. It had a stern face, like Father's". He paused and seemed to chew on something, a question he had been mulling over. "You have a Weirwood heart tree in Highgarden? How is its face?"

"Faces – because there's three of them, side by side, arranged in almost an arch". They spoke quietly, and she wondered if Alla and Marq thought that they were discussing more private things. "One's laughing, one's grinning, and one looks like he has some amusing secret he's not willing to share. We call them the Sage Kings, like the ones that welcomed the Andals into the Reach. Garth, Merle, and Gwayne. How so?" she wondered when she saw his look.

"All the heart trees down here smile" he offered at last, a little helplessly, to which she chuckled. The South was warmer and easier lived in than the North. Doubtlessly the people who had carved the faces had been happier, and thus had happier gods. Before the Andals came with the true Gods, that is. "The Reach has an old history, older than anywhere else in Westeros" Robb mused as they went. "Do you think your people would demand freedom, too? Like we have?"

"If I spoke honestly? No". The answer seemed to surprise him. "We have benefitted much since Aegon forged the Iron Throne. And even if such was not the case, who would lead us? The Gardeners were our only kings, and all of them died on the Field of Fire. That was how my House came to be Lord Marshalls of the Reach. And" she brought up something that had been bothering her "why not be a part of a unified realm? Aegon brought Fire and Blood, but he brought peace-"

"Did he?" Robb asked back as if he had heard those words a hundred times before. "Because the longest period of peace in the seven kingdoms was between the Faith Militant uprising and the Dance of Dragons, and that was eighty years. Eighty years, during there were almost civil war twice over love spats in the King's court, and slavers raided the coasts of the North. For twelve thousand years before that there were men in Westeros. You think they never went with eighty years without peace back then?" He was obviously on a diatribe, so she let him finish and get it out of him. "For every good Targaryen King there was one bad one and one mad one. I don't like those chances. The Iron Throne is a wicked and barbed thing, my Lady Margaery. Power like that breaks something inside the heads of men".

"And here I was, thinking that young men in the North spent all their time fighting, hunting, drinking and going about wenches" she smiled, trying to steer their conversation onto something that was a little less controversial and grating. "When did you have time to learn all this?"

"Me and my brother" Robb smiled at her and the memories as they came under the shadow of the sept before they moved on down the pale serpentine path "all of us Stark pups, actually, were given lessons under maester Luwin. We were placed down in front of the books and told to stay until we became wise or blind – whichever came first. I hated it at first, and almost all of it, but history… all those fighters and heroes. I dreamt of them as a boy. I wanted to be like Daeron, the first of his name, and like Aegon the Conqueror. But then I grew up and realised that war is not a game". Grew up? He was as old as her, and she was scarcely of marriageable age. Old and wise beyond his years, most likely. And sombre. Most of the time anyway, but not when he was around her.

"You miss Winterfell" she stated to him as they stopped in the shadow of a birch for a little while. "Do you not? Why not go back there? Your father was well loved – I am sure that others would fight for your behalf".

"Northerners, following a king that won't fight his own wars? My Lady, you do not know us very well" his eyes twinkled as he spoke, and she shrugged. No. Not yet, but I am learning. "Aye, I miss it" he then went on. "I long for the sight of those high grey walls. Walking in the godswood… that place, when I am there, it feels like mine. Not that it belongs to me, but that I belong to it. It is there that I feel the closest to my ancestors". Margaery blinked. What a romantic sentiment. She would have expected something like that from Loras, or from the ladies of her court. Not him. "You must miss Highgarden, my Lady".

"I do, though I was there a little more than a month ago". Before all of this madness and warfare started, before she had been made widow without ever being married properly. "My family I miss most of all. And the flowers of Highgarden, the gardens, the fields of golden roses beneath the walls…" she almost let out a sigh at the memories of her childhood, but held herself back from doing that. Theatrics like that were common place in Highgarden, but not in the North, and she had to make sure that she did not look weak. Well, perhaps a little. Enough to inspire gallantry, though not enough to make her seem fragile and fawning.

"Did you have winter roses there?" He asked of her, all of the sudden, and she looked to him in question. "Winter roses? They are, well, like ordinary roses really, but blue like frost, and their fragrance is sweater and more powerful".

"I know of them" She remembered the lessons of Archmaester Ebrose, the maester of the silver mask that had spent most of her early days with her when she was not singing or in dance practice, at her Hightower mother Alerie's insistence and patronage. He had taught her of botany and medicine from books in which all the flowers of Westeros and Essos, and even ones from places in the far east and other lands with names she could not even pronounce, were painted in great detail to one page and had all the knowledge amassed about it on the other. She remembered an entire chapter on roses, headed by red roses, white roses and golden roses, and ended with a strange flower of winter blue of which little has been written. "I've never seen one with my own eyes, though. It's too warm for them here, even in the Riverlands. They do not grow south of the Neck".

"I thought I saw some growing in the Whispering Wood" Robb scowled at that and scratched at his beard, which she had to say was coming in quite nicely. It was a little thicker than it had been when she saw him at Bitterbridge. "Well, it is nearly Winter even here, isn't it? It will soon be cold enough if it isn't already. And I brought nearly all of the North with me when I marched South".

"Well then, your Grace" she turned them, by her arm linked in his, towards the castle-side entrance to the godswood and the gardens. "Tell me about the Houses and great families of the North".

Dearest Lady Grandmother

Ten days have passed since I last wrote to you. I hope that you are well, and that some of your other grandchildren might make the motions of the court less dreary. I, for one, find myself quite happy.

The wolf rides out every so often, gone for almost a day before returning. He spends the hours before dawn in council of swords, and reads messages and reports late into the nights. Still he sleeps well now, better than the pack tells me that he used to. His eyes are no longer bloodshot.

The matter we have discussed is showing promise, yet no promise. I have learnt much about the pack, though I fear that I will always be an outsider. I have taken up archery to pass the time in sanctuary. They look kindly on martial matters.

He is away to a river's run. A trout prince has disobeyed him, and his pack says he is furious.

I am confident that I can soothe his temper. Give Garlan and Willas my love.

With love and affection,

Lady Margaery Tyrell, the Rose of Highgarden

The Rose with a Broken Stem

It was a fine day in Highgarden – but then again, any day in Highgarden was a merry one – yet for all the sunshine and birdsong Willas Tyrell could feel the onset of winter in his leg.

"Brother, are you hurt?" his brother Garlan asked as he saw how Willas winched just as they made it past Perceon's fountain, a large marble construction from the top of which the likeness of the Maid poured crystalline water from a great stone jug onto the topmost of seven tiers of circular pools. Willas's bad leg dragged behind and he hadn't been able to hide how his face had contorted as the pain shot through his twisted and atrophied muscles. He reached out and grasped his brother by the shoulder with the hand that was not holding hard onto his gnarled and gilded sandbeggar cane.

"It's fine, Garlan" he assured back at his younger brother, making the hand on Garlan's shoulder lie flat and forcing his contorted face to smooth as if the ache had passed, but it certainly had not. The cold – it might not be around him, but he could feel it, stiffening his already unmanageable hip. And the things it did to his knee was best left unstated. "A little weather pains, merely. Nothing more". He lifted his cane and gestured down the paved path in between the marble colonnade covered in roses and with vines that they had been following. "Shall we? The Queen of Thorns awaits".

And so they headed down that path slowly, as musicians and painters and artists and nobles of all ages, genders and stations ambled about in the gardens around them, the tiered gardens of Highgarden. Under the canopies of leaved trees still fresh with summer green poets and writers sat, and under canopies of silk ladies and lords held court in the grass and on the marble stone of the plazas in amongst the parks, drinking wine, eating fine cheeses and pastries and holding court as the young danced and sang about them. One such canopy stood on a high and upraised incline, a ridge of green and marble and rosebushes overlooking the waters of the Mander, and after Willas and Garlan climbed the steps, slowly for Willas's sake, they rounded the green and blue pavilion to find their grandmother in there, sitting to overlook the watery vistas shimmering in the Highgarden sun.

She was a little woman now, shrunken and stooped and toothless with age, but her eyes were bright still and she still had all of her wits with her even now, as she sat with several of the young ladies of House Tyrell about her as they played music and sang for her with her only other granddaughter besides Margaery at her side.

"No, no, no – that is not how that goes. It sounds like you are trying to imitate the mating calls of a deaf seal!" she chastised the ten-year old Leona Tyrell at the harp before she looked up to see Willas and Garlan approach. "Go on now, all of you!" she shooed at the ladies around her. "Go torment someone else, and find someone to bring me wine that does not taste of urine like this sour Dornish swill". She snorted as all but one of the ladies in her presence left her. "Sandfly nonsense. Dornish wine in Highgarden, pah! What will they think of next? A Tyrell marrying some Martell whore?"

"Grandmother – as sunny and lovely as ever!" Willas greeted her, and the old woman scoffed when she saw him approach. "Sweet cousin!" he greeted the other woman, who smirked and rose to embrace him, kissing him on both cheeks. "How lovely you ladies are on this lovely day! How fares our esteemed ladies Redwyne?"

"Well enough, with my idiot brothers out of the way". Desmera Redwyne, daughter of Paxter Redwyne and Mina Tyrell, who in turn was Olenna Tyrell née Redwyne's daughter, had always been a bit of a hellion, outspoken and brash and unladylike. Still, Willas knew a brave front when he saw one, even when it was put up by his no longer slender cousin with the vivaciously copper and cherry coloured hair and the freckles dotting her pale skin like drops of blood on the helmet of a knight in battle. She worried about her twin brothers still, he could tell. For all her bravado and swagger, she was still a girl only recently a woman, though she was growing more and more buxom by the day.

"Let's dispense with the matterless twittering. I am much too old to waste my time on such nonsense" Olenna Tyrell snorted and pointed to the two other chairs in the pavilion, arranged to her left, and after Desmera had kissed Garlan's bearded cheeks the three of them sat. "Now, this is how it is: I have two grandsons – not you, whose presence is actually tolerable – held hostage in the Red Keep. I have one granddaughter – seen before you here – betrothed to some lion poof called Daven. Daven, whose father Steffon or Stafford or whatever his name was, I might add, was killed by the man my favourite grandchild has taken up residence with in some silly place called Pinkmaiden. Along with your brother, the Knight of Flowers, a ponce of a name if ever there was one". She looked hard to Willas, her flinty eyes meeting his. "Tell me how to make sense of all this madness. I trust that you have both been in contact with Loras to explain the terms of this charade?"

They had, and so they both nodded as one. "Has Margaery become the Stark boy's lover?" Garlan asked as he poured himself a cup of water from a nearby pitcher. "It is not like her, if such. She always was more for books and orphanages and dancing and singing than she was for boys". Garlan was dressed in simple green and white finery, a sword at his hip as always. He never went anywhere without it. Not as an act of fear, though. Willas suspected that Garlan viewed the blade like an extension of his arm and a part of his body.

"Oh, she is not" Olenna tutted and snapped her fingers at Desmera, who lifted a trey of small scrolls off on a small stand off to the side and putt it on the tensed cloth of the camping table before the two Tyrell princes. "Not for lack of trying, as is evident. She told me to give you her loves – you remember what that means, do you not?"

"That we are privy to her plans as much as you are, Grandmother". Carefully Willas picked up the earliest of Margaery's letters, recognising his sister's handwriting, and read carefully. Like they often did in their correspondence they phrased their messages in code. "A shadow falls over the waters of the Redwine". There was no river or lake with that name – only House Redwyne, Olenna's native house of the Arbor, who possessed the single largest fleet in all of Westeros. Once it had been said that they were the kings of the seas that surrounded the Seven Kingdoms. "That's her way of saying that the war is heading for Highgarden, and that we must pick a horse to bet on" Willas glanced aside to his brother.

"I know what our sister intends in her words, Willas" Garlan replied and levelly as ever and drank of his water. He rarely drank wine or supped on immodest foods, eating and drinking simply, and as opposed to their brother Loras he was the epitome of every knightly virtue, including humility. At least on the face of it. Willas knew that there was nothing the Gallant would not do for his family. "Just like you both I know what she really intends, beyond words and plans" he let the rest be unspoken as he took another sip. "You need not explain it to me. Father, on the other hand…"

"My oaf of a son is all set to march handily up to the Riverlands and start making demands, like the braying fool that he is" Grandmother scoffed and shook her head. "Oh, if he only used that empty head of his. He would know that if you shout at a wolf you will get nothing for it but a torn-out throat and sorrow".

"We need not hedge our bets on one horse or the other right at the start of the race – or that is what I would have said" Willas noted as he looked over Margaery's letter before he handed it on to Garlan. "But unlike many other houses of the Seven Kingdoms, we have no blood ties to the Westerlands or the Lannisters. We have the option to choose another path. For now we are on even standing with both Wolf and Lion – though the more we dally with one side the sooner we close ourselves off from the other". He looked to Garlan, his brow furrowed. "What do you think of the Young Wolf's attributes, brother? Does he stand a chance at outracing his foes?"

"He has secured the Riverlands and dealt the Lannister forces three crushing blows". Willas had been martial enough before his leg was crushed and Loras was considered one of the most puissant fighters in all of the Seven Kingdoms, but Garlan was the one of the brothers who had a true head for strategy. And he was even a more skilled swordsman than Loras. "If I were him I'd drive Tywin out of his lands and place a garrison at Harrenhal. Then I'd root out my enemy from their holes while Joffery fights Stannis. I'd march for the Westerlands. Robb Stark will do that next. It is the only thing that makes sense given his previous engagements". He looked to Grandmother, setting his jaw hard so that the muscles along it played beneath his beard. "If he does that, and if he does not suffer a great disaster or a betrayal within his ranks… Only a miracle can save the war for Tywin then. Stark just might be able to do this".

"We should never have pledged Highgarden and the Reach for Renly" Grandmother had been against Father's and Loras's plans from the start, though it was an odd time for her to bring it up. "It was treason. I warned them. 'Robert has two sons and Renly has an older brother. How can he possibly have any claim to that ugly iron chair?' We should have stayed well out of all this. But once the cow's been milked, there's no squirting the cream back up her udder". She sighed at the folly of the rest of her family, Loras and Mace in particular, before she looked to Willas. "What do you say about this scheme that Margaery and Loras has hatched? Is it doable?"

"What other choices do we have?" he asked them as he leant back in his chair, lifting at his bad leg with both his hands to prop it up better in the seat. "All of them are bad choices, but at least the Stark is honourable. The Faith will set a revolt on our House if we support the Abomination of Incest that is Joffery. It matters not if the rumours are false or not, for the people believe them. And half the Reach will rise against us if we cleave to an outspoken heathen led by a Red Priestess from Asshai".

"That half will rise against us anyway if Margaery's plans succeed" Garlan pointed out, to which Grandmother and Willas nodded. "The pious houses well never let us formalise an alliance with the Starks by marriage. They will not stand for a wedding performed before a Weirwood tree. Mark my words: if the Rose marries the Wolf we will have a civil war on our hands".

"I met Ned Stark once" Grandmother said suddenly, and all three of them, even Desmera who was sitting off to the side to listen and learn how to play the game of courts. "I couldn't stand him. Or the rest of the Starks for that matter. So inexorably grim. 'Winter is couminn'. Just terrible at parties. But he was a breath of fresh air, truly. Even in those days, just after we had knelt at the feet of the Usurper, he never played. He never played at this Great Game of ours. He always spoke the truth about everything but his baseborn boy and that child's mother. That is admirable for some, I suppose. I call it stupidly foolish, and foolishly stupid".

"It rarely matters if the horse is dumb or not" Willas told them his view of things in his customary way, using his breeding of horses and hounds as allegory. "The brains do not follow the blood as often as you might think. A genius might sire a fool, and a madwoman might birth the sweetness of the realms. What matters in breeding are two things: attributes and pedigree. The Wolf is strong. With all the North behind him he is powerful. With the Riverlands to supply him and the gold of the Westerlands ready to be sacked he is wealthy. And he has a good name. A name older than any other now living". He glanced to his brother before he looked back to Grandmother. "Garlan and I seem to be in agreement".

"What about my father?" Desmera spoke up from aside, and the three snapped their eyes to her, making her squirm a little in her seat. "I, eh, my father will not move against the Lannisters. Not as long as I am betrothed to one and my brothers are hostages in the Red Keep. No matter what you try to convince him to do, Grandmother". They considered that, for they had to do so carefully. The Arbor was one of the richest regions of the Reach, and the Redwyne fleet that guarded it the largest single naval force on the western side of the Narrow Sea. If Paxter Redwyne of the Arbor spoke up against this alliance with the Starks and the raising of Edric storm like Loras had suggested they would lose a lot of ground even before they gained any.

"I have friends in Dorne" Willas said at last, to Grandmother's great disgust. "And there have been motions within the Lannister court to ally with the Martells". Garlan raised his eyebrows while Olenna scoffed. "I know. Pipe dreams, the desperate actions of a desperate house. The Martells remember Elia and her children. My people in Sunspear are no friends of the Lannisters, and neither is my friend at Prince Doran's court. I will have them smuggle the boys out while the Imp tries to marry Myrcella Baratheon off to Dorne. Worry not, dear cousin – I trust these people with my life".

"And I trust Margaery's instincts, stupid fools non withstanding" Olenna nodded too. "Then the matter is settled. Willas, reach out to the families of pious faith. Try to mitigate some of the damage that this might cause. Your mother's house might be our greatest foes in this. Garlan, rally the men to our cause. Have the minstrels sing songs about the Starks of Winterfell all throughout Highgarden. I will speak sense to my oaf of a son and advise Margaery closely in this. All in accord?"

"Agreed". Garlan and Willas said as one, and so Garlan stood and bowed to his brother, his cousin and his Grandmother. "And so we declare for Stark". He cleared his throat and made his voice darker in pitch. "Winter is Coming".

"Doesn't sound quite right just yet, Garlan" Willas told him with a smile. "Maybe you should practice it a bit more".

My Dearest Grandchild

I hope that you are well. The Riverlands must be so boorish. In Highgarden we have now songs about lion hunts and dancing wolves. Perhaps you would care to dance too, when you return home. Your brothers and I have made a laurel of roses for you to give to whomever you please.

Do remember to mind the thorns, though.

Archery is such a brutish practice. It must tear and callous the fingers so. But you do whatever you must do to get what you want.

Your cousin Desmera grows ever more beautiful. She has her father's eyes and freckled skin, and she is growing into your aunt Janna's figure. You might be sad to know that her betrothal to Ser Daven was broken the morning before I wrote this letter. Such a brave boy. A true shame about his father.

But such is what happens when you go hunting wolves and underestimate their cleverness. It is a lesson we could all stand to learn from.

Take care to take that lesson to heart.

And if your pup finds out why you have been feeding him sweets, be honest with him. He might not like it, but he will wear a rose on his collar, one way or another.

We have no choice otherwise now.

With love and affection,

Olenna Tyrell née Redwyne, Lady Dowager of Highgarden

Margaery

The routines of court were very much the same everywhere, even at a Riverlander castle ruled by a court of Wolves.

Margaery soon learned to identify the banners of the Northerners, even if the details of their personal emblems eluded her. She had Megga carry around a chart and a map of the North at all times, in case she saw some standard that she could not place, but soon it was familiar to her. The Chained Giant on scarlet of House Umber, the Steel Gauntlet on crimson of House Glover, the black sword in a white Ironwood against black of House Forrester, the black Sunburst of House Karstark.

"They are related to the Starks. One of the kings, Karlon, of our House built Karhold on the eastern shore to ward off raiders and slavers. Hence the name" Robb had explained on the third day as they walked the battlescared battlements of Pinkmaiden Castle, as many of the Northern outrider companies converged on the keep to give their reports. She had noticed how the Young Wolf's smile had faded a hint when she pointed to one very macabre one amongst all the rest: a man stripped of skin against a pink field splattered with droplets of red. "Bolton" he had offered as his only explanation. "There are monsters in the ranks of every army, my Lady".

She had inquired further about House Bolton from Gregor Forrester and the ladies Lyra and Dacey Mormont, and while the first one had neglected to talk about them Lyra had spat at the mention while Dacey's face grew hard. She had told Margaery a little about their history – and even that was enough to churn her stomach. Wearing the skin of men as cloaks? Flaying? She wondered at times about what sort of people she was getting into bed with.

"Figuratively, of course" Margaery told Elinor one day as they made ready for their rest. "My sheets make for a cold and loveless bed. Why doesn't he bend to my charms? By the Seven, it even worked on Renly, if not as I had hoped for". It was odd that Robb Stark said that he cared not for knighthood and the southern notions of gallant behaviour, for he seemed every inch the True Knight. He was courteous, pious in his own way, strong and just, and kind. Utterly ruthless towards his enemies and towards even hints and whispers of treachery, granted, but in some strange way still kind. He forced the Westlander prisoners of war to restore and rebuild what they had burnt down at sword point, and ordered his men to pay for what supplies they took from the Smallfolk. The people loved him, as far as she could tell from the hushed conversations of the servants in the keep. And he was oddly chaste, which seemed strange to her. He was no maiden, was he? He had no need to preserve his purity until marriage. But some stories worried her.

They said he spent each evening, after his labours of the day were done with and put away, in the godswood with his wolf and his sword and a few close bannermen. She had gotten Alla to peak in on them once – purely out of curiosity – and it had seemed the same quiet convention as any prayer meeting in a sept. But she had noticed things. How he would turn his head together with Grey Wind at things no mortal man should rightly be able to smell or hear. How he would always know where the Direwolf was, how he would act as if the beast could speak to him. They said that he turned into a wolf on the field of battle, that he was a changer of shapes and a sorcerer.

She would once have thought it all ridiculous. But she had seen swords shatter against bronze armour and wolves the size of horses. She had to simply accept that there were things in the world that defied her previous understanding. What was odd was that how some of the Northerners thought these powers, if he had them, were things of good. The Mormont women had grinned and glanced knowingly at each other. And Smalljon Umber was no better. "They're called Wargs. North of the Wall there's no end to them. They aren't Skinchangers, though. Doesn't work like that. Skinwalkers, more like".

Yet none of them would explain just what they meant when they said things like that, other than talking vaguely about the heart trees and the Gods. She was a Southron lady. She would not understand. Even their units of measurement were different – miles as opposed to leagues.

That did not keep her from trying to understand them and their customs, though. In a sense she made it her mission. And one could accuse the esteemed and noble House of Tyrell of many things, but one could never say that its scions were not driven lords and ladies. Growing Strong – the words of their house, a foundation of wisdom to build on. All knowledge and power started small, but with the right coaxing it could Grow Strong.

So she took to charming the Northerners and not only their King. In a sense, she mused, she was seducing an entire people. How proud Grandmother must be.

She took to walking the courtyards with her ladies and her escort, handing out bread and water and fair tidings to the outriders of the different houses, and mingling about in the great hall of Pinkmaiden at meals when Robb was not present or away. Even when he was, she had Alyce and Elinor and Alla and even Megga, whom some of the northerners thought a great beauty in spite of, and perhaps because of, her fatness, do it for her. They made their faces recognized in the court, made friends with all, and though a few whispers called her a leech and a "southron tart" they were soon quieted when they came to know her. They still thought she was soft and too… effeminate, though. Which was something she had never conceived of – a woman, being effeminate? Was that not the definition of the term? – and something that in large part motivated her new hobbies.

She needed to pass the time anyway between long bouts of letter writing and leisurely strolls with the King of Winter, talking about all things and no things in particular, and so she took up certain amusements. Like archery, under Dacey Mormont's stern eye, and hawking. Even racing loops around the walls of Pinkmaiden. Courtly life might seem all the same all over the world, but the Northerners still were a martial bunch. And she found that, while she wasn't talented with the bow, she was not bad, learned quickly and she did find the practice relaxing. Edric, otherwise to spend all his time with the servant children or with Robar Royce and his men, was delighted at all these curious new activities. Soon Margaery would have to arrange for the boy to take up such matters himself, and squire for a knight. How fast he grew up. It made her feel… wistful.

Then one day, perhaps nine days into her stay at Pinkmaiden, word came in from the north-west: a large portion of Tywin Lannister's Harrenhal army, under the command of Gregor Clegane the Mountain that Rode himself, that had been set to join and reinforce Stafford Lannister's second army, had been routed by Edmure Tully. The Mountain had been routed, which had been a great victory for the Northerners – such was the writing on the proverbial wall, anyway, but Robb Stark saw it not that way.

She learned from him, an hour before he rode off to Riverrun to chastise his uncle, that he had known about this army. That was why he had largely stayed in place for what counted as a long time in the war. He had wanted to lure the Mountain's contingent far away from Harrenhal, leaving the defenders there at a third of their strength before he signalled the Karstark and Bolton men to surround the keep and begin a siege while he took the rest of his army and pinned the Mountain in place until the Riverland knights and cavalry, regathering at Acorn Hall after retaking the Riverlands from the Lannisters, could come to slam into his back, riding the Westerland army down. In one stroke he'd take Clegane's head, destroy the Westerlands' main force and take Tywin Lannister prisoner, Gods willing.

But Edmure Tully had ignored his orders and given chase to the Westerland host when they were only a day or two's march from Harrenhal, all of the Riverland army at his back. And now Gregor Clegane and his men were safe behind Harrenhal's thick walls and melted towers, and Robb Stark was furious. With nary more of a farewell than a kiss on the cheek, given my Margaery which caused him to briefly stop and smile, he rode out with the rest of his host.

And he was gone for more than a week before he returned.

It was late in the evening that night, as she had managed to sneak out of her chambers without waking up either Brienne or Elinor, taking to wandering the halls of the sleeping castle. She knew that it was dangerous without an escort and without a chaperone, but she had made friends with all the castle by then and so she was not worried. She found the quiet castle, with the often so Essosi internal architecture and layout, peaceful in the nights. She could walk the balconies in the galleries overlooking the godswood and look up at the stars. "'The Stars in the Night were the Eyes of his Wolf, and the Wind itself was their Song'" she'd sing to the silent trees and the stone walls. She missed singing. She never had gotten a chance to sing for her Young Wolf, had she?

And since when had she considered him hers? He was not hers. He was promised to another – and that fact lay heavy in her chest and bitter on her tongue. Here she had found him, a true knight with the look of a stranger and an abiding sense of duty masking a caring and tender heart, and he was another's? It made her sad. More than that, it made her angry and restless.

It is nothing, she told herself. I am doing this for my family, for the Reach. For Edric and the Seven Kingdoms. Even for Renly, even, as strange as it might be, for the Wolf was the best chance at avenging him there was. She was not doing this for herself.

So why did she hear the hum of his voice on the silence, and saw the light of his eyes in the moon?

She walked the castle that night, and somehow found herself in what had been an outer solar attached to the larger guest quarters – almost like the Palace of Guests in Highgarden, an entire keep within her father's citadel set aside for only guests at court – that had served as the Young Wolf's war room. She strode around the dark corner of room, running her hands over oaken furniture and wondering when Robb would return to her, when sounds and a clamour reached her ears through the doors. She snuck around and managed to hide behind a pillar and a curtain by the door to one of the suites and chambers just in time to make sure that she was undiscovered when the Northerners marched inside.

"-and tell your uncle Brandon further that if he keeps up with that, I'll have his ugly head spitted on a pike next!" Robb snapped at what she could only assume was Owen Norrey, and though she was glad that her Wolf was back she lingered behind the pillar at the sound of his mood. "We don't go about start lobbing off the heads of Riverlanders. We haven't got the authority. Have your uncle apologise to Lord Vance for usurping his justice. Give him a bloody horse or something. I don't know, he likes that sort of thing". The clansman bowed and did as he was bid, leaving the room to the King and his Direwolf and three other men. "And now then" she heard Robb all but growl out a sigh. "Is this about that Hornwood issue?"

"Your Grace, my House has all the right" Ser Helman Tallhart, who had squired for Trystan Blackwood in his youth and been knighted by Rhaegar Targaeryen despite not following the Seven, said to the dismay of the Lords Flint and Karstark who had walked with him. "My brother is married to Halys Hornwood's sister, Berena. Her children can have the land and fly the bull moose banner. We should be the ones to tend to the Hornwood for you-"

"I'd sooner let my brothers take my hold and marry my daughter to a Lannister before I let you have the Hornwood, Helman!" Rickard Karstark shouted back. "Karstark should have the Hornwood. My Alys was to be wed to that brave lad Daryn, and the widow Hornwood is Karstark by her mother!"

A fist impacted a wooden surface with a crash, and out boomed the voice of Robin Flint, of House Flint of Widow's Watch, one of the oldest members of Robb's honour guard. "Halys Hornwood was a Flint by his mother, and we've close ties to the Manderlys too! The widow Hornwood is a Manderly! The Hornwood is ours by right-!"

"Enough" Robb Stark's voice cut through their bickering like a burning sword through flesh, and Margaery heard the darkness on his tone as she stood there to listen. "Squabbling like rowdy children and randy bucks. Get your heads out of your arses, my Lords – we have war to fight". Karstark was about to say something, but Robb cut him off. "I will send a raven to Lady Hornwood, asking for her leave to legitimize her late husband's bastard son. If she says no House Hornwood dies in the male line, and you may send leave to your sons and bannermen to court her. But any more of this bloody bickering and I swear to the Gods, I will marry that old woman off to Rickon and take all her lands for House Stark. Understood?"

"Aye, your Grace" they mumbled back, humbled, and excused themselves from his presence. After they left he sighed deeply, and she heard a slump and a thud of a sound. She rounded the pillar and left the shadows to find him sitting there, alone in the gloom, sloughed over in his chair with one hand to his eyes, rubbing incessantly. When Grey Wind lifted his head from where he was laying absently beside the centre table at her approach Robb did so too, and once again there was blood in his eyes.

"What do you mean that you knew she was there all along?" he looked the Grey Wind, who ignored him for wagging his tail and giving a wolfish grin at Margaery. "Stupid damned beast" he muttered as Margaery petted the Direwolf atop the head, at which the tongue lolled out of Grey Wind's mouth. "Lady Margaery" he stood sluggishly from his seat and bent his head her way, to which she curtsied.

"Your Grace" she tried to look as lost and far gone as she could for an instant, before she thought better of it and dispensed with the charade - mostly. "I was out walking the gardens. I took the wrong door by mistake, earlier, heading back to my chambers, and I couldn't help but to overhear-"

"Overhear how bloody precarious my reign is?" he smiled wryly and let out a completely humourless chuckle. "That is always the way when dealing with a people as independent and stubbornly set in our ways as Northerners. We still bow, unlike Wildlings, but we don't do it as easily as you do south of the Neck. Strength keeps them in check – strength and blood". His face fell at his words, and he looked down on his hands. "Gods, I sound like a tyrant when saying that".

"You sound like a ruler who does what he must for his people". The Northerners respected only strength. A man who could not command them would not be their king, and especially these were trying times for them, for it had been centuries since the last King in the North and none were quite sure how much authority he had. She approached him and took his hands in hers. "Do not doubt yourself. You are good at this. They listened to you, didn't they?" His fingers were strong, callused, warm but clean, and her hands felt so small in his. But she wasn't afraid at that. In his presence she felt safe, for he had protected her when her own people had betrayed her.

"Aye. I suppose they did". He breathed out hard and looked up at her, meeting her eyes with a tired smile. He looked so pale and wan, and he smelled faintly of horse and strongly of dust and earth after riding all day. "It is good to see you again, Lady Margaery. After giving half of the Riverlords a piece of my mind and being accosted by all of the Northern-" he looked around, frowning slightly. "Where is your escort?"

She ignored that question. This was too much a godssent moment to pass over and waste on explanations. "It is good to see you too, your Grace" she smiled back at him and reached up with one hand, laying it softly on his cheek. "Are you sleeping well at night? You look haggard".

"I look like utter shite" he corrected, and they both chuckled.

"No" she shook her head slowly and moved in closer towards him, as if to see him better in the flickering candlelight, and the blush that came into her cheek when she looked down to see how close they now stood, half a foot apart, was not entirely acted in falsehood. "You look tired, but strong. Handsome". She inhaled the scent of him, past the smell of the roads he had travelled. His musk all but enchanted her. "Every inch a king".

His lips were so close now, and despite her plans and Grandmother's enticements she felt her heart hammering in her chest. So wild, so fast. His hand, the one not holding hers, fell to her side, holding flat against the waist of her black gown. She gasped at his touch, and as his lips approached-

"My king!" the door to the solar slammed open and in thundered Smalljon Umber, chainmail hauberk still about his body, a scroll held tightly in his hand, the seal broken and his face bitten down hard while his eyes flashed for battle. "My king, word from-!" he fell quiet as he saw Margaery and Robb shoot apart, before a decidedly smug look came onto his face and he started to haplessly giggle. "Should- Should I leave youse two alone, your Grace?"

"Give me the damn message, Smalljon" Robb stalked over to the red-bearded giant and snatched the scroll out of his hand while Margaery bristled on the inside as she sagged back against the table behind her. So close. By the Old Gods and the New, this was frustrating. Even Grey Wind was giving her a look of pity. She looked over to Robb, and she saw all anger leave his face as he read the text thereon the parchment. "Is this true and right? Is this the bloody truth, Umber?"

"Aye, so it bloody is, your Grace" Smalljon grinned. "Read and confirmed it with two others. All the scouts say the same thing. After the battle he must've thought to-"

"Muster my personal guard – all of them! We ride at first light!" Robb cut him short, and grinning all the while Smalljon took back the scroll and headed back out the door. Robb turned to her again, and she stood tall then, making sure that he did not see her lose her compuncture over him. It was important to seem interested, but not too interested. Otherwise he'd lose interest if he thought her too desperate. It was better to bait him with a little and draw him in close, according to Grandmother's lessons. Just as he was approaching her now.

"Your Grace" she wondered as he took her hand once again, and for a second, despite the look on his face, she thought that he would resume what they, what she, had started. But instead he brought her hand up towards his face.

"I want the Knight of Flowers at my side for this. 'First Sword of the Reach'. Tell Loras to meet me at the stables before dawn. We're going hunting. Tell him to wear his armour and bring his best blade". He took her hand to his lips and kissed her knuckles like a True Knight would have, despite not being a knight at all. "Another time, my Lady".

"My King" she nodded back at him, and so he dropped her hand and left the room in a flourish with a bow, Grey Wind following after with a huff that was almost eerily like a sigh. She looked after them for a little while before she brought her hand to her eye, looking at her knuckles.

And so she took that and kissed the back of her hand just like her had done. She could still feel the warmth of his lips there. For some reason her heart was still racing.

Gods, what is happening to me?

Dearest Lady Grandmother

I hope that you are well. I am glad to hear of the state of Highgarden, and of the songs especially so. My brother will be so too, though he needs not know that you have made a garland for my wolf only.

I worry, though. Some flowers must be taken from meadows not our own, and those who keep those pastures will not all approve of it. I trust that contingencies have been made for such occasions?

My wolf's taming is progressing well, though I fear that I have reached an impasse. He still drinks from the river in front of the towers, stubbornly refusing to go from it. Perhaps his taming could progress anyhow even if he stays there, but such would not have the outcome that we seek.

Perhaps it is time that Loras and I returned to Highgarden. Send a small escort and some of my ladies here. Give due notice after you have sent them so that our host can arrange a suitable feast to see me off on my way.

And send Willas with it, of course. He has always had a good hand with hawks and hounds and horses. I could use his skills of persuasion to my advantage.

I will await his arrival eagerly.

With love and affection

Lady Margaery Tyrell, the Rose of Highgarden

END

A/N: Well, not that much fighting happened in that chapter, did it? We all need downtime from action every now and then.

I wanted to do something a little different for this chapter, and so this was basically all Margaery, with her brother Willas making a small appearance. It was actually a little hard to write, as I'm coming down with some sort of nasty ear infection.

Chapters will come in their usual pace, though. That I can promise. I can also promise that the next chapter will feature a great deal of fighting to make up for the last chapter's lack of it.

I hope you enjoyed this chapter. The best is yet to come.

Ta.