Wife of the Wolf, Husband of the Sun

Chapter Seventy.

He had always loved Dorne, he knew that many men of the North found it to be a harsh land, a place where men barely survived with scorpions and snakes under every rock, barely any water and hardly any food but Arthur knew the truth of it. Dorne was just as beautiful for the endless stretches of sand which shone like gold in the blazing heat of the sun as it was in the peaks of the Red Mountains, where above the sky was the bluest blue that any man had ever seen.

But he felt like he had betrayed his home by choosing to obey his prince in this, to bring him and his prey into his homeland to give them shelter from the wrath that was sure to follow after what his Prince had done. If it was found that they were talking shelter here, would Lord Tywin and young Lord Robert bring their wrath down on his homeland when his Prince's crime was found out.

Lord Tywin's pride was a well known thing and when one gave it injury it was never an injury that was not returned and not without a great deal of interest added on to it, Robert Baratheon was not particularly prideful from what little Arthur truly knew of him but he had been quite fond of the Stark girl, at Harrenhal when he hadn't drinking other men under the table or fighting in the melee, he had been making eyes at the Stark girl and trying to impress her.

No, Lord Robert was unlikely to let the abduction of his betrothed go unpunished and so that was the Westerlands and now the Stormlands that would likely turn it's wrath on to Dorne if they found out that Lyanna Stark was here, if they thought his country had offered shelter to them willingly. Prince Doran would never allow it of course, he was not so much a fool but who would believe it?

In truth sneaking into Dorne had not been overly hard, but it had certainly been ironic now that he had looked back on it. He could not say for certain that the goat trail they had used had been the same one that the Young Dragon had used to sneak his armies into Dorne but it was a goat trail and Arthur had used it to sneak a different Targaryen into Dorne.

His ancestors would surely be spitting on him if they could see him now, but he had sworn himself to Rhaegar, to the King he had chosen to follow. He had such ideals, such hopes and plans that Arthur had gotten so caught up in, it had been so easy to believe in him after years of having sworn himself to a King that had always been tilting on the edge of madness and then so recently had fallen into it so deeply.

Perhaps because Rhaegar wasn't burning people alive for the most minor of offenses he had more easily ignored all of Rhaegar's sins, and yet and he was surely paying for his own willful blindness now. There was only death at the end of this path, of that he was certain off. What other way could it ever hope to end now?

They had taken the daughter of a Lord Paramount and no Father would tolerate it, would abandon his daughter no matter who had taken them even if who had taken her was the heir of the King. War would come, as Arthur always knew that it had to, but this was not the way it had been meant to happen. Everything that had been planned, had been reduced to ashes.

And it had been Rhaegar who had light the torch, he could not expect that Lord Tywin would support him in his plan to remove Aerys from the Throne now, surely. What allies did his Prince have now aside from him, Ser Oswell Whent, and Lord Commander Hightower and the men that aided them in carrying Lyanna Stark away.

That was not enough to win a war and not enough to perform a coup against a Mad King, it was barely enough to abduct a lady. Said Lady had not been quiet about her displeasure either, Lyanna Stark had to be gagged and bound to her horse since the first moment that they had taken her. And yet, despite being bound and silenced and minuscule when compared to Arthur, he knew that she could not possibly pose a threat to any of them, she terrified him.

Her grey eyes were the prettiest thing about her but they had turned as cold as ice and in those eyes Arthur saw only hate, pure and all encompassing. She would murder them all in half a heartbeat if she had only the means to do it. Even the Smiling Knight had not been so murderous, oh he had been cruel and full of pride and greed and more than willing to kill a man, a woman or a babe at arms but he had never hated any of the people he had killed. He simply hadn't cared about them.

Some might think that was worse but when he saw the hate that fueled the murder inside Lyanna Stark's eyes he knew that nothing could be worse than that. She had not been any more at peace when the gag had finally been removed for the last time. All night and all morning since they had arrived she shrieked from her chamber, calling for her Father, for her brothers, to come and liberate her. Her voice echoed across the peaks of the Red Mountains.

The Tower had been standing since Arthur had been a boy and it had been old even back then, it might have been built back in his Grandfather's day but he had heard some tales that it had been standing since before the Dragons had come. Regardless of how long it had been standing, the Tower of Joy stood alone against the peaks of the mountains.

In truth it was completely unremarkable for a tower, none know why or who had called it joyful and in truth Arthur would not have called it joyful if he had been the one to name it. It was small, squat and quite ugly tower with only a single ugly gash at the top that acted as a window. It was hardly fit a abode for a royal prince and his betrothed.

At least that was what Rhaegar was treating the girl as, he had mentioned that he fully intended to take the girl as a wife. When Oswell had pointed out that he already had a wife, who had already born him a child and there was no reason to suspect that she wouldn't be able to give him more but that part had been left unsaid, their Prince had replied that he knew that but Aegon had two sister-wives and so would he.

It shouldn't be funny, it wasn't funny. But the thought of Cersei Lannister's face if she heard about her husband's intent for her and Lyanna Stark to be sister-wives was quiet the most hilarious image that he had ever thought up and he would give almost anything to see it. If he didn't feel a sense of impending doom at every moment he might have actually laughed about it.

His Prince had his intent and had given his orders and now it was up to them to see them followed out. Much had fallen on to Arthur, supplies that needed to be gotten and word that would need to be brought back and as Arthur was the only man that knew Dorne and so he set out to see them done while Ser Hightower and Ser Whent and the men who had come with them stayed at the tower to protect the Prince and to ensure that Lady Lyanna did not run away.

The first night he had stood guard on the King's door and listened as the man he had sworn his life, sword and honor to rape his wife Arthur had done nothing. He had sworn to obey, to keep secrets, to kill enemies and not to judge. It did not matter how much the Queen pleaded her husband for mercy, for salvation and for peace, Arthur did nothing.

When he had been relieved of his duty that morning, he had returned to his cell in the White Sword tower and had emptied his stomach into his chamber pot until there was nothing left for him to bring up and then he cleansed his face with the clean water and rag that his squire had left for him, slept until one of his brothers woke him up, broke his fast on fried fish and fried bread and then went to do his duty to the man he had sworn to serve.

In all the years that he had served Aerys, there had been so many horrors he had closed his eyes too. It had made it easier to serve when you pretended that nothing was wrong and there had been better days, he hadn't always been burning men, women and children whenever they happened to irritate him. When the hunt had begun for the Kingswood Brotherhood and he had realized that he would need the help of the smallfolk in order to find out where they were hiding.

And so while his brothers and the knights and lords that had followed them continued to search for them Arthur rode back to the Red Keep to ask for some boons for the smallfolk in order to make it more likely that they would help them to find the Brotherhood, in truth Arthur had expected that they would ask for more than he would be able to reasonably ask for from the King but in truth what they had been asked for had not been very much at all.

The right to hunt for game in the Kingswood if a winter lasted too long and times got to lean, to be able to chop down more wood, the damning of certain rivers so that they would have more water. Aerys had heard all of their requests and he had agreed to all of them, in truth it had not been much that they had asked for at all and it had worked much as he had expected it too, the people of the woods had heard him and they were more than willing to give him information on where the Brotherhood had been hiding.

But now, Arthur would not dare to ask Aerys for anything. The slightest word said out of turn was taken as high treason and was punished as such, smallfolk asking for more food in harsh winters were not as like to be taken kindly either. Arthur had to wonder how much the smallfolk actually knew of the King's madness, those that lived in King's Landing most certainly knew of it.

But what of the smallfolk in the North, the Riverlands, the Vale and The Reach, the Westerlands and the Stormlands and here in Dorne? Most lords and landed knights were well aware but the smallfolk who only cared if there would be enough rain to grow their crops and cared only about the game the high lords played only if they were the victims of it, would they be aware of it?

He supposed either way that they would know soon enough, or maybe they wouldn't. Most lords didn't tell their people why they were sending them off to fight and die, they just expected them to go and die as their god given right. Fathers and sons and brothers going off to fight and die in a war that all the stories and songs promised them would be glorious, never to see their wives and sisters and daughters and younger brothers and sons ever again.

That was what they had all set in to motion, blood and death and chaos. He still remembered the face of Lady Lyanna's guardsmen, they had been brave and dutiful in the defense of their lord's daughter and not a one of them had been a match for him. He had struck hard and true with Dawn, the sky steel blade had cut through leather and fur and mail just as finely as Valyrian steel would have done and the blade had shone red with blood.

He still saw the faces of all of them when he closed his eyes, none of them had been the villains, none of them were a smiling knight. None of them a raper or a bandit, they were good and honest guardsmen who had died trying to fend of the men who would abduct their Lord's daughter and though all of them were outnumbered and outmatched, not a one of them begged for mercy or shied away from their duty.

Would that be how he was remembered, now as the sword of the morning, not as a man worthy enough to wield Dawn, not as the man who had killed the Smiling Knight, but as a murderer of good men and an abducted of women who were still half girls?

His thoughts had turned to back to the day when his Father had pressed the hilt of Dawn into his hands, how proudly he had smiled at him. Arnold who would be lord of Starfall and Arthur wished him well of it, he could be the Lord of all Seven Kingdoms for all that he cared, what did that matter? Arthur was to be the sword of the morning.

Would there still be pride in his Father's eyes now? Or just disgust in knowing how badly he had misjudged him? Would he ever truly have a place in Starfall ever again now or would Arnold have the gates barred to him? He had done only as his Prince had commanded, even when they went against the vows that he had sworn.

Would his Lady Mother rush to embrace him again? Would little Allyria run over and demand to be carried and to be told stories of valor and knighthood? Would Ashara, wherever she was at the moment, even recognize him anymore? In truth of it, Arthur could barely recognize himself anymore. Perhaps it was better to simply let them forget him, to never let them see him again.

Better a shadow of shame surely, than a blade to ever hover over their necks.

Arthur shook his head and took in a deep breath, none of that truly mattered anymore. He had sworn to obey the King he had chosen to follow and his king had given him an order, he would see it done because if he did not then he was not certain what it was that he could do.

He came back to the tower six days later with a crate of oranges, news from traders in Planky Town and the septon in tow, the pale sweating man had come to Dorne through Planky Town in order to spread the word of the gods deeper into the sands of Dorne among the tribes of men that moved from place to place and when Arthur found him and told him that he was a Kingsguard he had seemed so relieved that he would not have to go on said journey.

It was only the Lord Commander and Ser Oswell that awaited him outside of the tower, none of the men who had aided them in taking away Lyanna Stark were there and when Arthur asked where they had gone Hightower looked up from bringing his whetstone across his blade and shook his head. "They were not of the Kingsguard, and were not sworn to silence."

Arthur had to close his eyes and breath deeply in order to stop himself from emptying his stomach right there and then but all the same he nodded and called up for his Prince, he had taken residence in the lower bedchamber while Lyanna Stark was stored at the very top of the tower.

When Rhaegar saw the Septon, he smiled and nodded and thanked Arthur for his loyal service and asked him to go and fetch Lady Stark down, it would not do for her to be later. Arthur swallowed, his throat had never been so dry, and obeyed his king. The journey up the spiral stairs was the longest of his entire life, it seemed.

Lyanna Stark had no maids or attendants, none to care for her. Her hair was messy and she had only the one dress that they had carried her off in and it was hardly a wedding dress but it would have to do. She did not smell, as she had been bathing but they had learned after the first night not to let her bathe alone after she had tried to drown herself in the copper bath tub.

She was sitting at the end of the bed, her head bowed and for a moment Arthur thought that she might be praying but then she looked up at him and her eyes were red and raw. Arthur made himself feel nothing as he spoke. "I have brought back the Septon, my Lady. It is time, if you would give me the honor of escorting you down."

"It is not a true wedding." Even weeping, thousands of miles away from anyone who might be friend or family or offer her any salvation, there was still a hint of iron in her voice. "He's wed to Cersei Lannister already and I shall not have him, he is no husband of mine and I shall die a thousand times over before I let him touch me and a thousand times more before I let his seed quicken inside me. I promise you."

"As you say my Lady, will you come peaceful?"

Lyanna Stark did not know him and yet she starred at him like he was a stranger, a traitor. "Elia told me of you, did you know that? She's married to my brother and she told me of how noble you are, even in the North the stories come about the oh so noble sword of the morning, the greatest Knight in the Seven Kingdoms? How are you noble, when you stand there when you know what is about to happen? Do you think Elia would forgive you for it? Do you think Ashara would?"

Arthur stared at the woman, breathed, and spoke again. "Will you come peaceful my Lady?"

Lyanna did not come peaceful, she threw a pitcher of water at his head and pushed and scratched at him and screamed and in the end he had to call for Ser Oswell to help him to get her down and outside the tower. The Septon, the Prince and the Lord Commander were all waiting for them as they came out of the Tower.

Arthur dragged the bride over to where Rhaegar was standing and then stood behind her should she try and run away, he tried not to notice how she was rubbing the spot where he had grabbed her. Rhaegar reached out to cup her face and whispered something that Arthur could not here, Lyanna responded by spitting in his face.

Rhaegar did not curse her, Rhaegar did not strike her. Rhaegar merely sighed and nodded to the septon who with an unsure voice began to recite the blessing, a new course of fresh tears began to fall down the Stark girl's face and all of them present pretended not to see them.

Their hands were quickly bound together and it was done, Oswell and Arthur helped Rhaegar to take the girl back into the tower and from behind them Arthur heard Hightower speak to the Septon about sending him on his way. He tried to pretend that he could not hear the sound of the sword being drown or the sound of something heavy falling to the ground.

Oswell stayed below as the rest of them climbed the steps, Lyanna Stark glanced back at him one last time as the bed chamber door shut and Arthur took up his guard at the door.

As the pleading started, Arthur pretended not to notice.

He had become good at that.

End of Chapter Seventy

Okay, so this is obviously a heavy chapter and I've got to be honest with you, it's probably going to only get worse from hear on out.

I always wondered what was going through the three Kingsguards heads who went with Rhaegar to the tower, what they were thinking and certainly through Arthur's particularly.

Please consider leaving a review, follow and a favorite. Constructive Criticism is always welcome.

With love,

DiscordantSymphony