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“—and children, yes. Very sad.” The queen pulled her daughter closer to her and kissed her cheek. The cheek unmarred by greyscale, Jon did not fail to note. “We are sorry for the little ones, of course, but we must be sensible. We have no food for them, and they are too young to help the king my husband in his wars. Better that they be reborn into the light.”
That was just a softer way of saying Let them die.
- A Dance with Dragons
You bury your father in the middle days of spring.
It is a bad time for death. Each instance you turn your head a little to stare out your chamber window, you see the jays nesting in the trees of the godswood, calling love to one another, making home. In the rooms of your mind, this picture paces side by side with that of your father’s white-shrouded corpse fading beneath each turn of the spades, his neck still bent at that queer, unnatural tilt.
Your mourning dress sits ill upon your figure, cut overlarge, and you have always been too pale for black. Imry mocks you when there is no one else around, tugs on your dust-colored hair and says, “What a droll witch of a widow you would make, little sister.”
He was not always cruel, you think.
In the yard the dogs are chasing after one another, bitches yowling as they are set upon by anxious males. You saw your uncle drown their pups once, when you were twelve. He had gone out the postern gate with a squirming sack in one hand, strolling down towards the Honeywine, and you followed, knowing yet wanting to know more.
The sack hit the moving water with a splash and a chorus of yelps, then vanished, gurgling. You moved; the dead leaves beneath your feet whispered, one to one. Your uncle turned. He opened his mouth, as if to lie.
“We had no use for them,” you said. You understood. Even then, you understood.
Now your mother moves up and down the corridors of Brightwater, veiled and silent, and the horse that killed her husband sleeps standing in a stall below your feet. You remember the maester telling you that in the days of the First Men, kings were buried with their mounts at one side and their dogs at the other, but your father was no king— only the dust beneath your uncles’ heels, and today more so than ever.
At night they talk of sending you away, their voices traveling up the stone walls to where you lay, listening, and in the darkness cut around a single candle flame you mouth words to yourself, it will not happen, it will not happen. You are not ignorant of power. Power is the gold on Alester’s finger and the jewels in Melara’s hair; power is the size of a room and the make of a dress; power is a word upon a tongue.
In the daytime it rains, softly, for by the time the storms come rolling over the Reach they have already been tamed by the cliffs of the east, and the jay’s nest outside your window grows fat with life. Later, when you walk down to the grave with little Erren’s hand in yours, the earth will be wet and singing. You kneel to tuck his hair behind his ears, and tell him that today is not a day for fear. He does not know like you know. He did not see Axell throw the pups into the Honeywine.
You rise, and grind your toe into the new grass above Ser Ryam Florent’s corpse. “Father was nothing,” you say, and you have never been your father.
You wed your husband in the early days of summer.
He is tall, and thin, and morose; when he meets your eyes it is with a strange mixture of grit and reluctance. As he drapes the cloth of gold over your shoulders, you see his hands— gloved hands, hidden. He does not wear his finery well. At the feast he pulls absentmindedly at the silver buttons of his doublet, gaze drawn to a point somewhere beyond charted distance.
And he does not dance, but that is just as well, for neither do you.
Your wedding dress sits well upon your figure, the color of your eyes made a little brighter by the gold in the cloth. This is a good time for weddings. The great storms have come, rinsing the keeps of Westeros clean of blood, and your mother has reminded you what it is the rain does for flowers.
Now you are getting to your feet, your fingers touching the strand of skin above your lips. It isn’t so bad today. Today, nearly nothing has been so bad as you imagined. The doves coo in the rafters, and the guests have hidden their jeers.
It is only when you are outside the bedchamber that the world misaligns again. Your husband does not seem to notice and moves past you, smelling of lemons and salt; his hand—gloved, still, the leather smooth in the firelight—slowly pushes open the door, then stops.
The two shapes rutting on your wedding bed grow still and look up, one full of mirth, the other fear. You shriek your cousin’s name. She tumbles away from King Robert Baratheon, first of his name, her breasts swaying as she tries to cover them, her cheeks a flaming red. The wedding guests are all laughter, but you are silent; your husband is silent. You can see the king’s manhood as he tugs his britches on, and then your eyes wander, to his neck and to his ruddy face. He seems to glow. Even in his shame, he glows.
Delena is running past you, her hair brushing against your cheek as she shoves through a hungry crowd. But the king does not run. He walks, slowly, unsteadily, and places a heavy hand upon your husband’s chest. “I’m so quite sorry,” he says, “but, but list’n, I’d give her a go after you finish up with this one; yours isn’t much t’ look at, m’ afraid.”
You smell the king’s breath, see the coarse hairs upon his chest and the coarser ones upon his chin, and then you wait to hear what Stannis Baratheon will say.
“Leave.” He blinks. Blue eyes, but not his brother’s eyes. His do not seem to know how to smile.
When the door does close at long last, it is with a soft thud of wood upon stone; outside, you can hear shuffling footsteps, whispers like dead leaves. Surely someone will stay to put an ear to the keyhole. That is how such things always go.
In silence, you watch your husband turn from you and, slowly, finger by finger, remove his gloves. In silence, you turn from your husband and, flame by flame, blow out every candle in the room.
As he touches you in the darkness, firm, militant, his temple pressed against the edge of your brow, you close your eyes. You do not think of the birds outside your window, singing, making home. You do not think of the king, laughing, naked. You do not think of any of these things.
You birth your daughter in the grey hours of morning.
Dragonstone has no godswood; now your view is of the sea, flat and dark as your husband’s eyes. Hidden now, a low cloud hovering over the water. You will not see the sun for hours. Instead, the fire.
This babe is your second, though you suppose that is not quite fair— she was the first to breathe, the first to stir. But you enjoy the consistency of thinking the other way. Now you may have a household of second children, latecomers all.
The maester has washed her and warmed her, and the nursemaid has fed her, and now she has been set into your arms. By the orange glow of the flames, you see her dark hair, and the cloth that binds her, white as a funeral shroud. You find yourself thinking of the bag of pups, swaying in Axell’s meaty fist. Strange, how he did it himself.
We have no need of them.
The room is warm, and still thick with the smell of blood. If you are very, very still, and the babe does not gurgle too much, you can hear the waves hissing upon the strand beneath the keep. It is not the sound of the Honeywine, singing as it swallows, serving nature’s purpose, but it is near enough to make you tremble.
You look down to the shape at your breast. You tell her power is a son inside a tower and an heir to sit the throne; power is a sword and a steed; power is a word upon a tongue.
You tell her, “Now I have only the last, and all for you.”
You do not think she listens, but you tell her all the same.
You find your god at the chilly tip of autumn.
Each night the seas fling themselves upon the rock, ceaseless, inevitable, tossing forth gifts of driftwood and shells and old bones. Each night the gulls roost in the crumbling towers, and you lay awake hearing their talk as it is passed down from stone to stone. Each night you prolong your slow, ongoing retreat. It will not happen, it will not happen.
Her coming is quiet. She walks to the castle alone, presents herself with smiles, says her name in a voice that sounds as if there are pearls caught beneath her tongue. And then she rises, brushing dust from her skirts, and asks for your husband.
“He is away. In the capital.”
Her head turns. For the first time, you see the light in her eyes, the color of it, see the ruby at her throat gleam, brighter than all your jewels put together. Its owner smiles again, asks, “And why are you not with him, my lady?”
You stiffen. “I was needed here.” I was not wanted there.
Melisandre hears the truth, the lie, and she laughs. “Oh, yes,” she says. “I see.”
The next time you meet her you are alone, with only the fire, and she asks you to look, her fingers light upon your wrist. “You must not be a cold woman by nature,” she says. “Else why would the flames love you?” And they do, they do. You turn your head a little to stare into the hearth, and see a body on the steps, a glowing bar of steel, snow on the mountains. A crown. There is heat in your throat, your belly, between your thighs. In that instant you forget what it means to breathe.
She places one hand upon your breast, above your heart. Smelling of boiled blood. You think of the dead kings now, their beasts’ necks opened upon their graves. She has yet to ask but already you are clasping her arm, answering.
Power is the silk on her waist and the red in her hair; power is the bank of a flame and the black heart of wood.
Power is a word upon a tongue.
So you say it. So you say “Yes.”
You don your crown in the white, pale face of winter.
It is a fine day for burning. The seabirds are screeching in their perches and the sky is not so very grey as to foretell rain. As you walk down to the shore where your men have built the pyre you touch your lip again, straighten your skirts, pull loose strands of dust-colored hair behind your ears. In the rooms of your mind each hearth is now low, and waiting, waiting.
Fire has been to man what the river is to dogs, the sharpened dagger to a flock of sheep. When your uncles told you of Imry’s death, you had finished the needlework in your lap, and nodded. You did not think of his hands on your hands, the flowers he would give you as a boy, the sneer on his lips as a man. You did not think of any of these things. You did not think of your father’s grave. Only that it was for good.
In the little darkness that came after the Blackwater, it was you who found Alester and pressed the seal into his palm, smiling. You knew, even then, that it would come to this.
He steps forward in silence, sand slinking through his toes, and as the kindling is lit, the sky grows a little darker, and a cold wind begins to rise. Now he screams, dimly, at first, then louder, until that one sound occupies everything, and beside you, Axell is laughing, but it is not yet the time for laughter.
Axell lifts his hand, his red, meaty hand, touches your arm, as if to grasp, but you move away, for there is much need of you. The fire has proclaimed it so. You see him, one last time, over your shoulder; you think, Soon it will be your turn; you grind your heels into the sand.
Months earlier, as your husband strode across this same shore, his feet leaving pools of shadow in their wake, and reached into the fire with a hand—gloved—you had watched, trembling, your fingers snarled within one another. He had seemed to glow. In all his glory, he glowed. “Your sons will be the sons of kings,” Melisandre had murmured. Promised. She touched your neck; warmth drowned into your skin, knew you, embraced you. “Sons of god.”
Now he watches you. Now they all watch you. A white hand, pale as a funeral shroud, slips loose of red silk, stretches forth. Lord Alester Florent howls, the sails of your ships sing, the voices of your men light flames in the fires of your mind.
You step forward, out from darkness.