"The King dreams and the Hand builds. But what if the king's dreams were full of death and destruction, treason and betrayal, the screams of his enemies and the smell of their burning flesh? What should the Hand build then? A funeral pyre for the king's enemies? Or one for the king?"
"Are you asking me to commit treason and murder your father?"
"I am asking you to consider where your duty truly lies. Like I was forced to do."
"You should have made your move at once, the moment you decided who had the strongest claim to your duty."
Instead of delaying, hesitating, prevaricating, Stannis thought. Instead of wasting your time seducing the woman betrothed to your cousin.
There was no need for Stannis to say those words out loud; Rhaegar could read it clearly on his face.
"I was not always wise, I admit. Or strong. Lyanna gave me strength, when I was at my weakest and desperate. She –"
"Your wife sends her regards," Stannis interrupted. "She fears for your safety, and wonders if you are being ill-treated in prison. You do remember her, don't you? Princess Elia of Dorne?" He asked pointedly. "That is the only reason I am here, to check on your condition so I can put her mind at ease."
Not to listen to you waxing poetry about another woman.
A woman who also happened to be Stannis' lawfully-wedded wife.
Rhaegar took the verbal blow unflinchingly. He did not lower his eyes or turn his gaze away from Stannis. "For the sake of your lord father, who had been a true friend to my poor father, and who was perhaps the only man who could have prevented matters from coming to this terrible state were he still alive, will you hear me out, Stannis?"
"I am not my father," Stannis said.
"No, you are not," Rhaegar replied mournfully.
"I doubt my father would approve of your conduct, of all your plotting and scheming," Stannis scorned.
"Maybe not. But Lord Steffon Baratheon would never refuse to hear a man out. Not even a man who may have done him a personal slight in the past."
"You wronged your own wife and my late brother with your conduct with Lyanna, not me," Stannis replied, the sound of his teeth grinding echoing loudly in the cold dungeon.
"Your disapproval and contempt for me is not personal, is that what you are saying?" Rhaegar asked.
"It is my contempt, how can it not be personal?" Stannis replied, incredulous at the question.
To Stannis' astonishment, Rhaegar started laughing. "Robert was wrong, you are not a humorless bo-" Rhaegar halted suddenly, shifting his gaze away from Stannis.
"Humorless bore? Say it. Robert did, plenty of times."
Rhaegar sighed. "Your late brother was a man of many talents, but he was not a very discerning judge of men. Or women, for that matter."
"Don't you dare!" Stannis exploded. "Don't you dare use Robert's indiscretions with other women as a reason to justify your shameful conduct with the woman he had been formally betrothed to. You, a married man who was untrue to his wife. At least Robert was not yet married."
"I was not untrue to Elia, in the truest sense of the word. You should know better than anyone. Your wedding night with Lyanna, there must have been … " Rhaegar could not bring himself to say the word 'blood'.
"There are other ways to be untrue, other ways to betray your marriage vows," Stannis replied. Lyanna had taught him that. The betrayal was only in our hearts, in our intentions. Intentions that never came to pass as actions, she had said.
Only because she was the one who had decided against it.
"If Lyanna had not refused you, you would have taken her with you and abandon your wife, your children, your duty to your people. How can I have faith in anything you say or claim to believe about duty now? A man who was willing to abandon everything for a sixteen-year-old girl, who would have done so if that girl had not been the one with the good sense to say no," Stannis continued.
Rhaegar closed his eyes, his hands tightening their grasp on the iron bar of the cell. He let out another long sigh before opening his eyes. "That is a fair question. The only answer I can give you is this – whatever else you may think of me, Stannis, you can be sure that I am a man who has struggled long and hard with the notion of doing my duty. I have travelled a long distance since that day at Harrenhal. I am not likely to take my duty lightly again, after that close call. You can be sure of that."
"I saw the way you were looking at Lyanna during the feast for your nameday celebration," Stannis said, challenging Rhaegar's reassurance. "That was a long way away from Harrenhal, yet it seemed as if you were still there, still wishing that you had won the tourney and could crown Lyanna Stark queen of love and beauty."
Never mind that Lyanna Stark was now Lyanna Baratheon, married and no longer just betrothed.
To his credit, Rhaegar did not flinch or look away. He met Stannis' accusing gaze directly. "Have you never wondered about what might have been, Stannis? What could have been, if only the world is not the way it is. If only we are not who we are, and they are not who they are. Surely you have done that at some point in your life?"
Stannis had wondered what life would be like, if the king had not sent Steffon Baratheon and his lady wife across the Narrow Sea to find a wife for Rhaegar.
"No!" Stannis replied sharply. "It is pointless to wonder about the things that will never be."
"There is no sin in simply wondering. As long as we do not act on it," Rhaegar said softly.
He had to leave this dungeon quickly. Had to leave before he could no longer resist the impulse to wipe that dreamy, wistful look off Rhaegar Targaryen's face once and for all. Robert must have felt the same impulse when Rhaegar rode his horse past his own wife at Harrenhal to present Lyanna with the garland of blue winter roses. How had he managed to restrain himself that time, Robert who never learned self-control in his life?
Stannis turned his back to Rhaegar and started walking away. Rhaegar called out his name a few times, but Stannis ignored him.
"I need to know that Arthur and Jon are fine," Rhaegar shouted. That got Stannis' attention. He turned around to look at Rhaegar, but did not move closer to him.
"The guards refuse to tell me anything about Arthur and Jon. Where they are being held, whether any harm has come to them. They are guilty of nothing more than being my loyal and trusted friends. Will you see to it that they are safe, Stannis?" Rhaegar pleaded. "Whatever wrong I may have done to you, Arthur and Jon should not pay for my sins."
As if he was the type of man who would unjustly punish a man for someone else's sins, Stannis fumed.
"I have seen Jon Connington," Stannis said stiffly. "He is my sworn bannermen, it is my duty to ensure that he is not being unjustly punished. Jon Connington is being held in a cell not much different than your own. I have not seen any obvious signs that he is being ill-treated, no signs of beating or starvation."
Rhaegar looked relieved, but only for a moment. "What about Arthur?" He asked anxiously.
"His Grace the king has refused my request to see Ser Arthur Dayne. Ser Arthur is a member of the Kingsguard, he said, and thus not any of my concern as Lord of Storm's End," Stannis replied.
"But you are not just lord of the Stormlands, you are Hand of the King now," Rhaegar protested. "Surely you have some sway over my father."
Not as much as a Hand should, Stannis thought. Lord Varys still reigned supreme in King's Landing. His words were the ones the king listened to, enraptured. Stannis was for all intents and purposes, a Hand in name only. And the king had refused his request to go back to Storm's End, even for a short visit.
He recalled Elia Martell's warning with unease.
"It's a trap. They want you in King's Landing as a pawn, a hostage, so Lord Rickard and the northern lords will not rebel on Rhaegar's behalf," Princess Elia had told Stannis, the day he arrived at King's Landing.
Later, when news arrived that Rickard Stark and his men had been captured on the charge of treason and plotting a rebellion, Stannis' first thought had been – so Princess Elia was wrong after all. My being in King's Landing did not stay Lord Rickard's plan from moving forward.
Much later, when he found out that Rickard Stark had been captured by the king's men not far outside the gates of Storm's End, he was overtaken by despair. He had written to Lyanna telling her that her father could not stay at Storm's End while he was plotting against the king. Lyanna must have told her father to leave, only to have him captured by the king's men just outside the gates.
You planned this, you and your king. You used me to get
to my father, she must be thinking.
He would have suspected the same thing, in her place.