"Lady Turnberry," said Queen Alysanne, "please find us the finest playwrights, and by the finest I mean those whose plays attract crowds in the streets."
"I assume you don't just want the residents of King's Landing, Your Grace," Aspen Turnberry said. "Very well. In a moon's turn, on Warrior's Day, there are bound to be many celebrations, and I will make sure the authors of the best theatrics are brought to you."
Aspen, sister-in-law to the present head of House Turnberry, was more tolerated than liked by the rest of the small council. In her youth, she allied herself with Maegor's third wife Tyanna of the Tower and became one of her finest informants – she claimed it was merely done in protection of her son Beric, one of the Warrior's Sons, but Tyanna's infamy spread onto those under her command as well, and nobody knew how to tell the rightful suspicions from the wrongful wicked rumors. After Maegor's defeat, Lady Turnberry was the only one of Tyanna's circle who hadn't been killed by Maegor and didn't refuse to bend the knee to Jaehaerys, and at her request she was allowed to remain at court as mistress of whisperers.
"My son has taken a septon's vows, my husband is dead, and my husband's brother's family is large enough and doesn't need me," she explained. "I need to make something of my life, and dealing with whispers and rumors is something I'm very good at."
She was sixty now, but her wits were just as sharp as before and her body and face showed barely a sign of aging – even Septon Barth, who generally avoided throwing around labels like witch and mage, suspected she dealt in some sorcery to stay young.
However, her reports were always useful to Jaehaerys and Alysanne – she probably realized her perilous position as a widow from a junior branch of a minor house and knew she could only keep herself afloat by serving the crown loyally.
Useful to Alysanne, Barth corrected himself. It had been more than a year, and it was still strange to think of the queen without the king and of Vermithor chained up riderless in the Dragonpit. Jaehaerys and Alysanne had been so utterly inseparable that it seemed unthinkable that one could even exist without the other.
He looked at Alaric Stark. After the trip to the Reach, the Northern lord seemed much more at ease in the small council chamber and in the Red Keep in general. Although at first, to tell the truth, Septon Barth had felt slighted when Alysanne told him he wouldn't be going to Oldtown for the negotiations, it seemed that her decision to take her husband along instead had paid off – Lord Stark was to reign the realm by Alysanne's side for the next ten years, and it wouldn't do to have him frown and complain at everything. He had to get used to his subjects, since everyone needed them to get used to him.
As for the play that Queen Alysanne had brought from Highgarden, Barth thought it was a brilliant plan to win over the commons, but it also had one serious fault: it wouldn't work as well with people of the Faith. Even though Alysanne told him that the current High Septon was no enemy of the theater, Barth knew only too well that many other septons, especially in the regions away from the cultural centers, didn't share his opinion.
"Well, the Seven Speakers didn't win everyone over either," Alysanne reminded him, a gloomy look in her eyes – naturally, Barth, too, remembered the attempt on her life in Maidenpool. "This time, just as well, we need at least to secure the support of the majority."
...After the small council meeting concerning The Royal Penance was declared over, the Queen tarried a little in the chamber to talk to Grand Maester Elysar.
"I missed my moon blood this month," said Alysanne. "There is a chance I'm with child, though I don't want it to be announced openly until I'm absolutely positive about it."
Alaric's breath caught in his throat. He had of course known it was possible for Alysanne to have conceived already – he even mused on the outcomes of such a possibility coming true – but still, thinking over what could happen was one thing, and knowing it had quite probably happened was another.
He wasn't too good with dealing with other people's children – he always felt that he had no authority to discipline them and no right to be nice to them – but he deeply loved the children of his own. Many lords, he knew, were annoyed when their wives had too many babies, especially if the babies were girls – not everyone had a mindset similar to the Mormonts', and in most families girls were out of the running when it came to inheritance. However, for Alaric it had been the exact opposite – there was some anxiety surrounding Jonelle's first two pregnancies, but after Roderick and Edwyn were born and the North had the required heir and spare, Alarra was welcomed with utter, unbridled happiness while still in her mother's belly.
This time, no inheritance depended on the child or its sex either, and Alaric could simply rejoice in the news. If it wasn't a false hope, of course – but he hoped it wasn't. He pictured Alysanne holding a child with the mixed Stark and Targaryen looks, and his heart swelled with adoration.
"Alysanne," he said in a thick voice, "it's wonderful."
"Like I said," she cautioned him, "I'm still unsure, and Grand Maester Elysar couldn't tell for certain either."
"I know the child will prove you are, ahem, truly committed to your new marriage... but will you be glad to have it?" he dared to ask. He knew Alysanne loved her sons and eldest daughter (Princess Alyssa, born in a time of grief and struggle, had inspired somewhat colder feelings), but would she want a child now, with someone who wasn't her beloved Jaehaerys?
Alysanne was thoughtful for a few moments:
"Let's put it this way: I never gave a thought about bearing more children until it became definite that I should remarry. But after it was confirmed I'll marry you... I told you on the wedding night, Alaric, I understood from the start that ours would be a full-scale wedlock, and it's obvious that both of us have a history of, well, fertility. I knew then that I'll probably have kids with you... and even though our match is much more... political than our previous marriages, I was happy about it – and still am."
He toyed with the idea of telling her right away that the match wasn't half as "political" as she believed. After all, she all but spelled out she would prefer to have a child in a loving family rather than in one brought together merely by necessity.
Don't even try it now. She meant she wanted to have children with Jaehaerys, not just in any loving family, and it will be nothing but embarrassing for both of you if you admit your feelings today. Wait at least until the baby – if there is one – gets born.
"If it's a boy, would you like him to be called Walton?" Alysanne asked gently soon after telling Alaric of the possible pregnancy. She remembered how broken he had been by the death of his brother – after all, that was the reason he had always detested Jaehaerys.
"What? I thought you'd prefer the Targaryen naming customs," he said.
"No, I'd prefer to honor both sides of our union. I was thinking that the first baby can get a Stark name, but the second, if we beget it, will have a name from Valyria, and so on."
Alaric's eyes lit up. Those who didn't know him wouldn't believe it, but Alysanne knew he adored his children – it came as no surprise to her when she saw him thrilled at the prospect of their family growing, and now she told him she would be fine with it growing even further.
She was still a bit unsure about her own feelings for the baby – Aemon and Baelon, and poor Aegon and Daenerys, all of them were conceived with a husband whom she loved and who loved her, and therefore she had loved them from the start. With Alyssa, it was worse – Alysanne only found out about her pregnancy after Jaehaerys's death, having brushed off all the previous signs as results of the terrible stress, and while she tried not to show it, her mind firmly associated Alyssa with the first and worst months of mourning.
Right now, she was much calmer than last year, true enough, but she still had trouble viewing the child as its own person rather than an element of marriage to prove its legality and to bring her and Alaric closer to each other.
I'll grow into it. Many women are wed to men they outright hate, which doesn't stop them from loving their children... usually... eventually.
"I don't think I'd like to call my son Walton," Alaric said in the meantime, after clearly thinking it over well. "Otherwise, he might feel he somehow ought to measure up to my late brother or grow up exactly like him... That's why, by the way, I didn't name either of my sons Brandon and didn't allow them to give that name to my grandkids either."
"Oh, yes, with all due respect... all the Reach houses put together have fewer Garths in their lineages than House Stark has Brandons. Why, I've often wondered?"
"We are pretty proud of keeping our traditions," Alaric shrugged. "But that tradition's something I never could get. Even my father, who was actually called Brandon, didn't like it: he said that without some truly distinguishing addition like the Builder or the Breaker, the name wasn't one he wished to see among his descendants."
"Now that you say it, Brandon the Dragonrider would be a very distinguishing moniker..." Alysanne giggled. "What? Our children will have Valyrian blood, so I'm planning to put dragon eggs into their cradles."
Judging by Alaric's expression, he hadn't thought about it.
"I don't like that idea, Alysanne," he finally muttered.
"Why? I thought you'd be used to Silverwing by now."
"Silverwing's another thing... It's just that... the North and dragons don't really agree. You know that. Silverwing didn't want to fly over the Wall."
Alysanne cringed. She still hadn't found an explanation for that – no dragon lore she knew of said anything about such matters, and the only non-Targaryen in the realm who was studying dragons was Septon Barth, in whom she was a bit afraid to confide. He was fiercely loyal and had been a good friend of her husband's, but he was still her subject. She didn't want her subjects to know the dragons had weaknesses.
Even with Alaric, she tried, half-heartedly, to laugh it off:
"Well, our children would hardly want to fly over the Wall too often."
"It was a sign that there's something in the North that repels dragons."
"We've already discussed that I, for instance, am not repelled by the North," she smiled. "The blood of the dragon isn't just a fancy metaphor; we Valyrians really are their kin in some distant way, and so will our children be. I'll agree there's something odd beyond the Wall that Silverwing didn't like – fair enough, because your Brandon the Builder wouldn't have wasted time building such a gigantic icy fence without good reason. But it doesn't mean our kids can't take to the skies anywhere else in the kingdoms."
He still looked doubtful, and Alysanne pressed on:
"At least remember where most of our military might comes from! Dragons! The more dragonriders we have, the stronger our family becomes! And if my children with you – who, might I remind you, are going to bear the name of Stark – are able to tame dragons, it will be an enormous asset to your house!"'
"All right, let's try it... But are you sure it's safe, putting an egg right into a cradle? The dragons can hatch in the Dragonpit."
"The bond between rider and dragon will be infinitely stronger if the dragon hatches by their side. It's more than safe, trust me."
His children would be dragonriders. It still sounded extremely weird. Since the Targaryens settled down on Dragonstone after the Doom of Valyria, their dragons had become a fact one was used to, something viewed as normalcy – the sun set in the west, winter was coming, and the Targaryens had dragons. But a Stark as a dragonrider?
Alysanne was right, that would boost House Stark's reputation immensely. The first Westerosi family to tame dragons, even though it would be due to their Targaryen blood! Nevertheless... the image of one of his children on dragonback looked, in his mind, like two mismatched pieces in a mosaic.
You thought something along the same lines when Alysanne came to Winterfell, he scolded himself. You were certain she didn't fit in the North or in your company at all, and look how that has turned out.
For the first time since his arrival in King's Landing, he sought out Septon Barth outside of the throne room and small council chamber.
"Lord Stark?" Septon Barth raised his head from a manuscript he was reading. "Is something the matter?"
"No, nothing urgent, Septon. I just wanted to ask you... Alysanne has mentioned that you are writing a book on dragons."
"Oh, it's still hardly worthy of being called a book," the septon chuckled, embarrassed. "I've been doing some research for the past five years."
"Would you allow me to take a look at your writings?"
"My lord, they aren't polished... they aren't finished yet. If I may be so bold, why are you inquiring about them?"
And why don't you simply ask Alysanne? was the unspoken question. But Alysanne clearly didn't know much about non-Valyrian dragonriders – and she couldn't, of course, because, at least in the past couple of centuries, there hadn't been any dragonriders save for the Targaryens, and with the Targaryen marriage customs, there were no lawful half-dragonbloods or quarter-dragonbloods running around. Hadn't been until now, that is.
However, Alysanne didn't want to announce her pregnancy until she was certain about it, so Alaric merely said:
"I was simply curious, given that my stepchildren are going to be dragonriders in the near future and my wife is one already. It takes some time getting used to."
It was likely that Septon Barth suspected this wasn't the whole truth. But, if he did, the truth, meaning the news of Alysanne's pregnancy, was going to become public knowledge soon, or at least Alaric hoped so.
"After what you've told me about dragon eggs for our children, I visited Septon Barth," Alaric said. "You've said that he's doing a study of all things dragon."
"Yes, he is, but he hasn't shown anything of it to me yet," Alysanne nodded. "I don't think even Jaehaerys was able to sneak a look at it. He's quite the perfectionist when it comes to his writings, our Septon Barth is."
It was childish, but Alaric felt a weird pleasure at the fact that the septon didn't show his drafts to Jaehaerys, either. The impeccable and omnipotent king wasn't able to find out everything after all.
"Why did he even start that study? After the Doom of Valyria, there is little definite to be found out about dragons."
"It was..." she hesitated. "Oh, well, since the topic's been brought up... and we're now married, it wouldn't do for me to keep such things secret... and if Septon Barth ever finishes his book, he might mention it there... Do you remember Princess Aerea, Septa Rhaella's twin sister?"
"She died of a fever four... five years ago, didn't she?"
"In general, yes, she did, but it was worse than that," and Alysanne, in a dreadful hollow voice, told him of how the headstrong little princess flew away on Balerion and returned in a nightmarish state, dying horrifically, with monstrous parasites crawling out of her body and expiring after being put in ice.
Alaric had seen his fair share of bloodshed in his life and was certain he was pretty good at keeping himself together, but now he wanted to vomit from the sheer description.
"I could have brought her to King's Landing again," Alysanne finally whispered, "and none of it would have happened."
"Her mother didn't want to be separated from her. It's none of your fault that you respected her choice," Alaric said, putting his arms around her. "But how can you remember something like this and tell me that putting dragons by children's side is safe?"
"Alaric! There is a difference between a newborn hatchling and Balerion!"
"No, Alysanne. What you've told me? Fucking Others in our Northern histories sound nicer. Let my kids tame dragons, but until they are mature enough, it will be done in the safety of the Dragonpit. And I certainly don't want the eggs in the babies' cradles."
"B-but, I've told you, we're the blood of the dragon..."
"Just like Princess Aerea. It didn't save her. If anything, our children's blood will only be half-Valyrian."
"Once again, Aerea flew away on Balerion before even trying to tame him first! If she attempted to ride a bad-tempered warhorse, would that make you keep your children away from ponies?"
"It's different. Oh, Alysanne, remember. Silverwing. The Wall. If there's something in the North that frightens the dragons, they might likewise feel it with people who have Northern blood."
She grew pale:
"You mean... But during my progress, Silverwing was as mild-tempered as usual, except when she refused to fly over the Wall."
"She was by that point well-trained, and by someone like you at that. A hatchling will only be ruled by its instinct, and if it senses something potentially dangerous in a baby, it will attack."
Putting her hands on her temples, Alysanne lowered herself onto a chair:
"I haven't thought of that... oh, why haven't I thought of that?"
"You couldn't have – all the dragonriders you, and I, know have been fully Valyrian. For that matter, maybe I'm just being over-cautious – but I'd rather be that than let someone else from our family go the way of Aerea."
"But I should have..."
"Alysanne, please, just because you belong to the ruling dynasty you aren't obliged to think of everything. You have Septon Barth, the small council, and my own self to assist you. Not to mention that we have barely talked of our children until you suspected you were pregnant," he put his arm around her shoulders, and she smiled at him. He felt his heart skip a beat again, as always when he managed to make her smile – and he liked to think such occurrences were becoming more frequent.