Wife of the Wolf, Husband of the Sun

Chapter Fifty-Eight.

The air was warm enough to tell that it was spring, but it still held a chill to it in the wind that made it clear that Winter had not been far behind them. The sun was hanging high in the sky and was bathing the royal train in a resplendent golden light. It was a golorious procession, knights dressed in bejewelled breast plates of rubies and emeralds and lapis lazuli with surcoats of a thousand different colours with different symbols on every one.

A hundred, hundred wheelhouses each containing dozens upon dozens of ladies were rolling along in the middle of the great train, behind them were food wyans carrying meats and fishes and birds and eggs and grains and fruits and sugars and all that would be needed for the tourney to come, serving men and men at arms were afoot but even they had been granted new and expensive finery to show the generosity and wealth of the lords to whom they were employed.

It was almost like something out of a song, though Cersei had long since learned the truth that all the songs were lies, and this was just the journey to the tourney and not the tourney itself. She was in the royal wheelhouse, sitting with her goodmother and her ladies in waiting. Cersei's own ladies and maids had been forced to ride in one of the other wheelhouses but that was of little concern to her, it's not as if she cared about any of them.

Nor in point of fact did she care about her goodmother or any of her ladies in waiting either, to be sure she could not say that as her goodmother was still the queen for the moment but she didn't like to think of her in that way, the sooner that her crown was on Cersei's head than the better she would feel. The words of her ladies mattered even less, at least the Queen had some wits about her but the same could not be said for her ladies who had all the wits and courage of old hens.

She would much rather be atop a horse, riding with the men and speaking to them and spending time with her husband. Rhaegar had looked so beautiful when she had seen him this morning, he had shorn his beard and had bound his silver hair back into a tight knot and his eyes had been almost glowing in the warm light of the sun and he had been dressed in a black breastplate with rubies made into the shape of the sigil of House Targaryen, the three headed dragon had looked so fearsome.

A soft whimper drew her out of her thoughts and all of her attention was soon consumed by a sweet little girl with golden hair and violet eyes that could only have come from her Father. Cersei hummed and reached out for her and picked Rhaenys up and brought her into her lap, pressing a kiss to the top of her head as she held her tight. "Hush now my love, what is the matter? Hm? It cannot be that you are hungry, did I not feed you but an hour ago?"

She had felt many eyes on her when she had lifted her daughter to her breasts to feed her but Cersei did not care, she didn't care that according to Grand Maester Pycelle it meant that it would make it harder if not impossible for her to conceive another baby; neither she nor Rhaegar were old and Rhaenys was not even a year old yet, there would be plenty of time for her to bear him as many sons and daughters as he would wish.

Cersei sniffed the air and was greeted only by the smell of the sweet lilacs and lavender that was used to scent the air of the wheelhouse, nothing to suggest that her daughter had soiled herself and pressing her hand to the back of her forehead did not betray the presence of any temperature to her. Cersei was frowning as she glanced down to the floor of the wheelhouse but was smiling when she glanced back up at her teary eyed daughter. "Ah, I see then."

She stretched down and picked up the small stuffed doll in the shape of a kitten, two green buttons had been sewed on to the face in order to act as it's eyes and as soon as her daughter saw the little toy her tears stopped falling and she reached out for the doll and tried to grab it from her hands. Cersei grinned and bumped the doll against her daughter's nose, her grin growing wider as she heard Rhaenys giggle in delight.

She was such a sweet little thing and the only thing that never failed to bring a smile to Cersei's face, she already loved her more than she had ever loved anything more in the world that she had ever known. She would defend her rights for as long as she could, why should her daughter not be Queen in her own right if she was the best suited for the duty of it?

Cersei was so caught up in looking at her that she almost didn't hear the Queen calling her name to get her attention, Cersei made sure that her daughter was comfortably settled in her lap and then turned to look at the Queen. Queen Rhaella had chosen a heavy looking violet velvet gown with gold thread on the sleeves and around the hem of her skirts, a belt of pure white pearls encircled her waist and a golden chain with a large red ruby attached was around her neck, a hairnet studded with sapphires enclosed her long silver hair.

The Queen extended her hand and poked Rhaenys in her belly, her daughter let out a squeal of delight and then clung to her grandmother's finger and the Queen smiled brightly and Cersei did not think that she had ever seen her smile like that, at least not since the day that she and Rhaegar had returned from Dragonstone and she had learned that Cersei was carrying her grandchild or when Rhaenys had been born, but the woman's lips had not so much as twitched since then.

Not that Cersei could truly blame her, when she stopped and saw who she was actually married too. She had heard and seen enough in the Red Keep to know that the King was taking his rights fairly regularly and according to some of the Queen's maids it was like an animal had been attacking her in the night instead of her husband coming to visit her.

Cersei would have killed him by now, king or no. The Queen already had two sons after all, she had no more need of the King himself and she should have killed him the moment he had decided to lay a finger on her. But then. Queen Rhaella had always seemed to weak to be able to make the choice, so instead she choose to stay under the yoke of her husband, it was pathetic.

The Queen gently pulled her finger out of her granddaughter's grasp before pressing a kiss to the top of her head and then reclined back on to her pillows and looked up into Cersei's eyes. "You've done very well gooddaughter, she is a healthy and happy little thing and what more can one want in a child? Hm? You are more fortunate than I ever was, at least. Oh, I love my sons more than words could say and I would trade neither of them for anything in the world, but I would still wish for a daughter, even now?"

That was something that Cersei hadn't been able to understand, according to one of the maids in the Queen's service who Cersei had been able to pry information out of after giving her several gold dragons, the begining point of the King's ire was when Queen Rhaella's births had begun to result in stillbirths and miscarriages and that she understood to a point but the King had already had a son and when a healthy child that lived was born and it turned out to be another boy, the King had been said to be furious.

And that was what confused, surely any man would be simply satisfied with simply having a single son, more so if two, all men perfered having sons, they needed sons if they were to have their perfect heirs to inherit their seats as surely a girl was not suitable. So why was the King so enraged by the simple fact that he did not have a daughter?

At any rate, she did not know and if she was to be honest she simply did not care. She would deliver Rhaegar sons and daughters both and would give him no reason to be wroth with her. It occured to her then that perhaps it was time that she stopped feeding Rhaenys from her own breast if it meant that it would please Rhaegar more, most highborn ladies gave their children to wet nurses as soon as they were born if Cersei did the same that didn't mean that she did not love her daughter any less than she had when she fed her from her own breast.

Cersei stretched out and gently patted the top of the Queen's hand, she had to at least act as though she cared about her sadness. Rhaegar trusted his mother's opinion and he would speak to her at least once a day back when they were in the Red Keep, he had not been able to come and speak with her on their journey but that was simply to do with the fact that the King had been pushing the train to go as fast as possible, he wanted to reach Harrenhal as quickly as he could apprently.

"Worry not Your Grace, you are not an old woman and the King is not an old man. There is still plenty of time for the both of you to have another child, a daughter might not be so far away now." It wasn't a lie, neither the Queen or the King were that old. They both looked older than they were, but that was just how they looked. Neither was so old that it was impossible for either of them to have another child again, though it would be pushing it at this point.

Even if the Queen did happen to fall pregnant again, the chances of it being born alive or even being born were small. It was simply the truth but Cersei wasn't so much a fool to speak that outloud and so she settled for the sweeter lies. The Queen stared at her for a moment, she had her son's eyes Cersei realised, and then Rhaella slowly pulled her hand back and clasped them both together in front of her. "Thank you for your kind words, my dear. It shall not be long now till we are at Harrenhal."

An uncomfortable and thick silence fell on the wheelhouse then and Cersei decided then and there to keep her attention focused on her daughter for the rest of the journey, it didn't matter what the Queen thought of her at all. She would only be Queen for a little while longer, the King was a sick man and a long and tiring journey like this would surely only make that illness worse.

And once the King was dead, that would be the end of both him and Rhaella. Cersei could send the old woman off to Dragonstone to rot and die while Cersei would stay in the sunlight with her husband and her children and her crown on her head. All would be well, all would be well.

As the journey wore on, it started to get hotter and hotter in the wheelhouse and Cersei suddenly wanted nothing more than some lemonsweet with chunks of ice floating in it. Anything to deal with the heat, suddenly there were shouts from outside the wheelhouse and as she strained her ears to hear it, she realised that it was not shouting at all. It was cheering.

It was a very short ride after that, the road the wheelhouse was riding on dipped down then climbed up before evening out for the rest of the way. It came to a stop then and the door to the wheelhouse was opened by a serving man and the Queen was helped out first before a hand was extended to help Cersei out as well.

Harrenhal was as massive as all the stories said, that was the first thing she noticed. In truth this was the first time she had truly seen the castle as they had not passed the castle when she, her brother and all of their servants had set off from Casterly Rock and it did not disappoint.

It looked like it was a castle built for the biggest of giants, the towers stretched so far up into the sky that it hurt her neck to tilt her head back to look and even then she couldn't see top of the towers. The yard they had found themselves in looked like it could hold a party five times the size of their own and all of those people would still not have filled it.

The buildings inside the great curtain walls were massive as well, made of the same black stone as the walls. The kitchens loooked to be the same size of the Maidenvault of the Red Keep, the stables easily looked that they could hold a thousand horses and the great hall of the keep even from the outside looked so very large that Cersei could hardly comprehend it.

Even Casterly Rock was not so big as this and Casterly Rock was a mountain and this castle had been built by men but then Father had always said that Black Harren had built too big, that the castle could never be held because it could never be truly garrisoned by anyone and all Cersei needed was a look to see the truth of that. You would need all the men, women and children of the riverlands to be piled into this one castle in order to properly use it.

The King was helped out of his litter by one of the kingsguard and he looked worse than the last time she had seen him at the start of their journey but that didn't surprise her, the King had always looked worse than the last time she saw him. His nails were longer, his face was gaunter, his hair had grown so much now that it was reaching his ankles and it was as dirty and knotted as it was long and his majestic black and red robes were stained and horribly torn in places but none were foolish enough to say so.

Indeed, the Lord who came to greet him acted as though the King had dismounted from a horse dressed in fine and perfectly clean robes, proud and strong and fighting off a bandit one handed. Lord Whent Something-Or-Other, she didn't know much about the Lord or his family, only that he was releated to Ser Oswell Whent someway or another, an uncle perhaps or an older brother or something like that.

The King waved of his compliments and his empty flatterey and barked to be shown to his rooms, but not before leering at Lord Whent's maiden daughter who this fool tourney was meant to be in honor off. The girl had the good sense not to recoil and soon the King had passed her by, the Queen had watched still as a statue before she went to greet Lord Whent.

There were other Riverlords present in the Yard as well, though Cersei did not know any of them by sigill alone. The Tullys were not here yet from what she could see, that house she would know and she was unhappy to see that they were not. She would have loved to have spent a few moments alone with Lysa Tully, oh nothing would please her more than that.

Soon it was all said and done and Cersei was climbing up through the steps of Harrenhal with Rhaenys safely tucked in her arms with her maids and her ladies following behind her, her ladies soon peeled away from her to go to their own rooms and only her maids, carrying her trunks were the only companionship that she and her daughter had.

Thankfully, they soon found her room and her husband was waiting for her inside. Rhaegar had stripped off his armour was now dressed in a silk tunic and a pair of black trousers, a glass of wine being held by the rim in his fingers as he read from an old dusty scroll intently. The maids placed her trunks close to the bed, like everything in Harrenhal it was massive and it looked as though it was big enough to hold a dozen people at one.

Once the maids were gone and the door was closed, Cersei walked over to where her husband was sitting and gently cleared her throat to get his attention. Rhaegar looked up at her and smiled at the sight of both of them, he placed the glass of wine down at the side of the scroll and then picked it back up and placed it down on the floor instead before standing up.

Rhaegar took hold of their daughter and pressed a kiss to the side of her head while Rhaenys took hold of a few long strands of silvery hair and did not look like she would let go of them easily but at the same time Rhaegar did not seem to care at all about that. "I'm sorry I wasn't there to greet you in the yard my love, things needed my urgent attention and I needed a little time on my own to deal with them, was the ride in the wheelhouse pleasent?"

"Pleasent enough." Cersei muttered as Rhaenys let out a yawn and with a bit of persuasion from both of them managed to get her to let go of her Father's hair at which point Cersei carried her over to the crib that had been prepared for her and placed her in it and waited for her to fall to sleep before walking back over to her husband. "Now, what so urgently needed your attention? This dusty old scroll?"

"No, but it is important my love." Rhaegar said as he sat back down in his chair and looked down at the words for a long moment, a serious look on his face that she had only seen on his face once before, when he had insisted that their daughter must be named Rhaenys, as he read the same passage over and over again. Something about Ice and Fire and a falling star but Cersei could not make out the rest of the words from where she was standing. Her husband looked up at her then and spoke softly. "What do you know of prophecy?"

"Prophecy?" Cersei repeated slowly and softly, a shiver going up her spine and a twist forming in her gut. The simple question sent her falling back into the darkness of that day, the smell of strange oils, perfumes and spices in the air as she wandered into that tent, feeling immortal, as though nothing could harm her and wanting to know if she would be as happy as she knew in her heart she would be.

And she had been happy, for a time. Until all of her hopes had turned sour, till the witch had seen all her morrows in a drop of her blood and all the promise had turned to naught but rot and smoke and ashes. But she had been wrong, she had to have been wrong. She was a foolish, warty old woman who had simply wanted to scare her because she had woken her up. Nothing more and nothing less. She had no true power.

"Prophecy?" She asked with a small laugh that she did not feel as she shook her head. "There is nothing in it my love, nothing at all. Our days are not written out for us before we live them. They cannot be."

Her husband was quiet then for a moment looked down at the scroll for a moment before he picked it up and placed it on a long copper tube and then sealed it shut before he placed it in a large trunk. "Perhaps you are right. Perhaps, but there were old powers in the world, spells and the like in the days when the Children ruled this land, spells that could cause the sea to rise up and the trees to walk and lands to split clean in two. What's to say that spells that could see into the future was so far beyond them? There are rumours of course that the archmaesters have old tombs in the citadel in Oldtown. But who can say?"

"Who can say?" Cersei felt lighthead, she needed to lay down. "My love, I think I shall go to bed. It has been a long day."

Rhaegar nodded then and kissed her cheek and stared into the fire burning in the hearth, the wood happily burning away. Cersei walked over to the bed, it was too large to be truly comfortable if you slept in it alone but she was too tired and her head too light to truly stay away and she was asleep soon enough.

And as she slept, she dreamed.

Maggy the Frog stood over her, tall as a giant as two other giants, one golden and gleaming and another with the head of a dog stood off against one another, swinging their swords at one another. A giant red snake was swallowing it's tail and a pack of wolves ran over it's scales, chasing something that they could never seem to catch, though she could not see what they were chasing.

When the warty old woman spoke, her voice seemed to hold a laugh in it and her eyes seemed to glow in the light, though nothing was casting it. "Oh, you will wed the prince soon enough and he will have three children and so shall you, but he shall never be a king. Never."

"You shall be Queen though little one, and your sons shall be kings when kings become as common as coppers."

"And then, when you are left with nothing but ashes and blood, when death is all that is waiting for you, dark eyes shall bring your end."

Cersei shot up in her bed then, her entire body shaking despite the fact the fire was still burning away. It had turned dark and she was alone in the room, she pushed her covers away from her and got up to walk to the cradle, reaching down to pick up Rhaenys and holding her close to her as she went to sit in the chair by the fire. But still she shock as the laughter of the witch echoed in her ears and would not let her be.

End of Chapter Fifty-Eight.

Another chapter done and we have some of the first guests arriving at Harrenhal, I get the feeling that most of the Riverlords would put it off for a bit as they wouldn't want to arrive before the King after all.

So, a while back I mentioned that the prophcey that Cersei recived from Maggy was going to be diffrent and here we are. I hope it gives you all something to think about, let me know what you think.

Any who, if you enjoyed please review and leave a follow and favourite and constructive critcism is always welcome.

With much love and fondness,

DiscordantSymphony