Disclaimer: I don't own AMC's "The Walking Dead" or any of its characters, wishful thinking aside.
Authors Note #1: Because a little anon birdie dropped the following in my inbox and I just couldn't resist: "I need a caryl au where Carol is a literal queen and Daryl is their head guard like my dog needs bacon, does anything like this exist? please say yes." – To make it more period appropriate I aged both them down to their late twenties – early thirties.
Warnings: *Contains: medieval au: actual queenCarol! and swornshield!Daryl, no zombies, period appropriate language/sexism/classism/religious views, references to domestic abuse/violence, illusions to miscarriage/losing a baby due to physical domestic violence.
White Knights aren't white (they're red)
Chapter Two
"Will you attend to me, tonight?" she asked, perhaps a fortnight later. Tone warm – just like her eyes – as her lashes fluttered becomingly. Looking back at him with clear intent as the noisy chaos of the Great Hall swallowed her words. Allowing the shadows to keep their secrets as she rose from her chair, golden circlet high, proud and heavy from its place on her brow. A visage that was made all the more stark – all the more beautiful - now that her hair was shorn close to her scalp in mourning.
He walked steadily beside her when she took her leave from the evening meal, comfortable and content as she hummed pleasantly. Having long since memorized the dainty clicks of her gait. All but breathing in time as he watched a small smile curl across her lips – secretive and coy in that way only women were capable of – knowing he'd been caught. It was a game they'd played often of late. Dangerous and addictive and dipped in the sort of intent he knew he had no right even considerin'. But it was one he could no sooner stop than cease breathing. Chest hitching like it was the first time she'd asked, rather than the five and tenth.
"I know the fate that falls on those that lay with lovers above their station, my Queen," he returned. Answering just as he always did, but this time allowing a lilt of his old roughness to filter back into his words. A not so subtle reminder of the differences that divided them. Of the half-starved, dirt-streaked child he'd been, an orphan from the neighbouring province sniffing for scraps around the castle gates. Or at least he was until the Wives of the Holy Fire had coaxed him out into the open and fed him up - took care of him. Taking him to the Singing Stone after he'd gotten it in his head to stick around. Entreating the Gods to show him his path as the First Wife drank the sacred offering and bowed low at the pedestal's feet. Oiled skin ethereal-pale and almost translucent as she writhed and slurred in the old tongue.
He was never told what secrets the Singing Stone had brought to life, nor the path the Gods wished him to walk. But what he did know was that the First Wife remained in that state for close to three days. Neither eating nor sleeping as words like thunder claps echoed from her painted lips. He remembered how the other Wives had treated him different after that, with respect and pride and a strange sense of urgency that soon led to Lord Horvath, Head Steward of the greater castle, filling his grudging head with books and learning. And later, when he'd reached his fifteenth name day, he remembered the rough voice of Ser Ford, the Man at Arms that led him from the Wives' white pillared halls to the castle barracks to be trained in the art of combat.
"Enough to dissuade you then?" she remarked lightly, teasing like she knew everything. Everything he kept back, unvoiced and hidden. Everything that would ruin them both if he had even one moment of weakness and took something from her that was not his to take. No matter how prettily she turned her words, no matter how much he desired her. There were some things that always remained the same.
She held up a hand before he could answer, gaze sobering as the lantern he carried threatened to gutter - snuffing itself on the drafts of old ghosts and forgotten Kings. Kings like Edward and his weak, wobbling chin who'd preferred his Queen docile and painted in bruises. Kings like Edward who'd squealed like a half-butchered sow when he'd turned his shoulder into the door of their chambers and splintered it. Taking his knife to the King's throat as she'd watched through the disheveled sweat-stringed curls of her hair. Eyes like the darkest flame as blood trickled between her lips. Not stopping until his blade ran red and he found himself gathering the sobbing woman up in his arms. Letting her bury herself safe inside his skin as the thing that had once been her husband breathed his last on the floor at their feet.
For him it had been a homecoming.
Something secret and pure and wrong that part of him had clung to like a favor in the middle of a battlefield.
But he'd never once thought that she might-
"Ever since the month of mourning for the King passed, I have asked this question of you, my friend," she started, words like vice-grips to his heart as he froze in place – uncertain. Skin twitching, threatening to pull away entirely when she reached forward and gentled her hand across the span of his gauntlet. "And every night I have retired to my chambers alone."
Her smile was firm, but warm – understanding and inviting - as she looked up at him.
"That is to your credit, Ser. We have been through so much together over the years – shared much. But when I offered you a place in my bed I rather think you believed me jesting or perhaps even wanton," she laughed. "The barren Queen desperate for a child in her belly once more. For an heir to a Kingdom on the brink of civil war. For hope."
The air was dry, rattling through his lungs like crypt-bones shifting in their slots.
"My Queen, I would never assume to-"
Because he wouldn't. He knew his place. No matter what he felt - what she felt - the world wasn't one of them grand stories his 'ma used to whisper into the dark after the coals had gone out. People like him didn't get that happy ending any more than people like her got to choose the gilded cage they ended up in. It was just the way things were. Wasn't up to them to change that or even question it. Especially not beyond the ornate, garish trappings that crowned the threshold of the Royal Chambers.
But again she hushed him.
"And you would be right," she affirmed, cheeks flushing red, lips parted like the promise of a kiss. Fierce, soft and strong all at once. So strong. Giving only enough to change willingly into something new - like the glow of virgin metal taking shape under a Forge-Master's hammer. The only woman he figured he'd be content to call his for life.
"For I am decided. What my Kingdom needs most is hope – security. Assurance that my reign has a future. And for that, I need to give my Kingdom an heir. Do not look so surprised, Ser. For it was you that encouraged me to trust myself," she pointed out, meekly oblivious to the way his world was dissolving messily around him. Some of it going so far as to make it to his face before he could stop himself.
He bit down on the inside of his cheek until he found his center again. Hating himself for the weakness he'd already displayed as he tried to remember what his life had been like without her. Without her smile and sharp wit. Without her quiet strength and careful kindness that so many took as weakness until she'd trapped them into showing their true face. Leaving them with nowhere in her Court to spread their vile poison but back to whatever rock they'd slunk from under.
"To do what must be done, in spite of the hardships? In spite of the difficulty such a course would mean? You reminded me that this is my choice to make, not my councilors. And I thank you for it, truly."
He watched her through the quick of the sentence before he let his eyes drop. Nodding even though his stomach was churning. Heart curdling in his chest at the thought of her marrying again. Taking a man that wasn't him to her bed. Giving herself to him and having him put a child in her. He strangled a curse. Wanting to hit something – someone – as his nails bit viciously into the skin of his palms. Needing to make it hurt as he tried and failed not to let it show.
"So you've decided then – truly?" he rasped, hoarse, low and wounded but reminding himself this was the best thing for her. That this was a good thing. A good opportunity. Because this time she had the luxury of choosing her husband carefully. This would be her choice. Not her late fathers. Not her councils. But hers and hers alone. Maybe this time it would work. Maybe it would be a good match. Maybe she would be happy. Maybe.
"Shall I send word to Prince Phillip or Lord Axel to renew their-"
The shake of her head brought him up short. Feeling dull and stupid, like he'd spent the last two days buried in a wine sink, as he watched a small private little smile spread like sunrise across her face – lighting it up as it went. Transforming the darkened corridor into a million shards of silvering light as the lantern in his fist reflected off the ornate silver candelabra set at the entrance of her rooms.
"A woman's heart is a wild creature masquerading as a dove, my lord," she whispered. Making him shiver at the title – half a promise, half an endearment – as she closed the space between them. Letting him feel her warmth and softness as he fought the twinned impulse to both pull away and sink deeper. "Didn't you ever wonder why our bones form a cage around it to keep it safe?"
He swallowed, thick and rough and damningly silent as she tipped her chin to look at him.
"And I give it to you, if you will accept it."
He was aware of little else beyond the odd ringing in his ears and the sudden feverish heat that seemed to be rising from within when she pressed a key into his palm. Gifting him with a chaste kiss on the cheek before turning on her heel - skirts swish-swishing across the flagstones – before gently closing the door behind her.
He breathed into the half-dark, scarcely daring to move as the edges of the key etched itself deep into the calloused-tough of his dirty palm. He opened his fist slowly, cautiously, uncertain of if his senses would prove him false until the low light revealed it to be true. For there it sat, iron-strong and finely carved, handle fashioned into the taper of a Dragon's claw. An unmistakable symbol of her great house.
It was the key to her chambers.
Her bed chambers.
God's rotting teeth!
He stood there for a long time. Violently certain that at the end of his days his ghost would return to this very spot and stand vigil for all of eternity, but in the end he went to her. He didn't go to her that night. Or even the next. He went to her the night she forgot to ask.
The same night he loomed at the threshold of her chambers, heart beating in his throat as he called himself all kinds of a fool for the wild little clutch of white and yellow flowers crushed awkwardly in his palm. Not quite knowing what to say when she appeared around the curve of iron-plated oak and smiled with her eyes. Beckoning him inside as she reached up and traced the curve of his cheek, leaving him with nothing but the desire to turn into it and breathe her in as the door slipped closed behind him.
After all, how could he not?
He'd always been hers.
Impossible as it was, the rest just made sense.
It was on the eve of their first child's birth that he received an urgent summons from low-town.
He rose to his feet as a deafening hush spread like ripples in an inlet pond through the crowd of courtiers and village representatives who'd gathered for royal judgement on matters of state, politics and finance. Holding court grudgingly for the sake of his Queenly wife as she labored to bring their child, his child, firmly in the world. But all parted like water twinning between streams when he ordered the guard to let her pass, allowing a girl - painfully young and draped completely in delicate gauzy-white – to slip between the stone pillars of the throne room and kneel quickly at his feet.
He only had to see the look in her eyes to know why she was here. Taking in her trembling lower lip and emotion building like unshed tears in the back of her startlingly mismatched eyes to know.
The First Wife was dying.
"My son," The First Wife wheezed, smile beatific despite her labored breaths as she looked up at him through age-blind eyes. Seeming to sense the moment he entered the threshold of her chambers as she extended a gnarled hand towards him. "My King."
He knelt beside her without thought or censure, heart heavy in his chest as he took her hand carefully in his own. The same one he'd flinched from that first day on the streets and later, the one she'd weaved through the air below the Singing Stone when the gods had touched her - speaking through her.
"She looked into the Singing Stone," the Second Wife murmured quietly from her other side, wild red hair centered by twin streaks of white spreading from either temple. Running a cloth dipped in sweet smelling oils down the First Wife's nude skin, already prepared for the rites of passage that would begin when she was returned to the flickering arms of the Holy Fire that dwelled in a deep chasm far below the Wives' white pillared halls. "I fear the strain was too much."
"Why," he rasped, failing to soften the frustrated roughness that existed behind it as he tried to imagine his life – especially now – without her quiet guidance. "It is not your time."
But she only smiled again. The same smile she'd used spending weeks coaxing him out into the open. Weeks of her feeding him up, quickly understanding his pride as she traded the bread and meat in her daily basket for trader's gossip and petty servant whisperings she likely already knew or had no real use for. Gaining his trust and respect slowly until one night, he followed her willingly back to these same halls. His home, for all intents and purposes.
"Because the Gods demanded it. You are a child of the Wives, my son. You know our ways," she chided gently.
He tucked his head, shaking it as if to loosen himself from the spidering clutches of a shared grief that was already lilting through the air like a final song. It was only after a moment of silence that he reached up and removed his crown. A dark rose-gold laurel of briar thorns and sturdy branches – meant to depict the Great Tree through which they are connected and all return to at their chosen time. It had been a gift – one of many – from his wife. Somehow understanding his continued misgivings at being King of all and providing him with a crown that kept true to who he was. He wore it now unashamedly, proud and honest and with perhaps even a deeper love for the woman he was blessed by the Gods to call his own.
"There is something coming on the wind, through the water," she started, careful and slow like every word was akin to a knife thrust. Voice thready and weak before the Second Wife brought a cup to her lips and bade her to drink. "A sickness. Different from all others. Many will die but their tears will harvest the soil and life will continue anew. It is promised by the Gods. But first you must weather this storm - for your Kingdom, for the ones you love. Fail and all will be lost. Fail and even the light of the Holy Fire will be diminished."
"What did you see?" he asked, shoulders hunched and tensing like hackles rising.
"I saw such things. Such terrible glorious things," she whispered, tone edgy and unearthly, baser in its inflections in a way he remembered from the Inner Chamber the day the Singing Stone had spun the opening notes of his song. "And then, I saw them end, as all night terrors do when faced with the dawn."
He jerked up, startled, hand going automatically for the sword at his side when another presence in the room made itself known. Forcing himself to relax as the same girl that'd fetched him appeared ghost-soft behind him, bearing a simple wooden platter with an object draped in a rich swath of purple cloth.
It was only when the platter was set upon the pedestal beside them and the sash whisked away to reveal a large iron-tipped crossbow – a new invention that had only recently started trickling in from the eastern point of the Kingdom - that she spoke again.
"You will deliver us all."
He ran an admiring hand down the stock, taking in the handsome, but clearly serviceable inlay of iron-work and the finely carved oaken sheen from the base. Feeling his throat tighten as he gave into temptation and hefted it. Perfect. The weight. The way it molded itself into his hands. There was a sense of rightness in it too, something he'd only gotten close to the day he'd first picked up a bow in the training yard.
He was still trying to find the words when she smiled, joyous and wise as her spine arced amidst the soft furs. A sudden whirl of energy crackling through the room as the smell of burned sage and the undeniable freshness of coming Spring met his senses.
"A daughter," she croaked, reverent and rapturous as the girl and the Second Wife fell to their knees and kissed the inside of their palms. Repeating the word like a mantra as the fire in the hearth blazed impossibly brighter.
"Wise and fair. A Queen who will turn her tears into strength and look kindly upon all who entreat her. A child of everlasting Spring. The first of her name, but not the last – never the last. Bringer of the Holy Wisdom. She will have her mother's strength and her father's stubbornness. The blue-eyed heir. Daughter of the Dragon Slayers, daughter of the soil, daughter of the beloved son who walked these halls, whose soul sang for the Gods' judgement. Daughter of-"
It was only then, as the crossbow slipped out of his nerveless fingers and the women beside him sang joyfully - songs of welcome and renewal - that the First Wife passed peacefully into the hands of the Gods.
He was halfway to the castle when the bells tolled, joyous into the night.
His child had been born.
A/N: Thank you for reading, please let me know what you think. – I lied, this story got away from me, there will be one more chapter, stay tuned.
Reference: The name "Sophia" means "wisdom" in Greek. This was the name of an early, probably mythical saint who died of grief after her three daughters were martyred. Likely birthed the phrase: "Holy Wisdom."