Chapter Text
“‘One would not profess that King Aenys had pursued much policy in his short reign atop the throne, but it would be his daughters who would emphasise the importance of marriage alliances; of the three there would be a ditty: ‘one married for love; one married for honour; one married for duty’.” The ensuing scoff echoed over the trundles of the wheels ‘neath the carriage-boards that swung uneasily up and down the pot-holed Riverlands. “The Citadel’s maesters have gone much too far, my princess!”
Said princess had leant her head back as she listened to her companion reading aloud, violet eyes closed as though by such she could will herself not to see the gold and green gilding of the wheelhouse decoration. Amongst the gilding the braids of her own silver-gold tresses fell back, as though vines to root her in place.
“They are all admirable means to marry,” she said.
Lady Ambrose’s nostrils seemed more like those of a stampeding bull’s as she continued: “That may be so, Princess Vaella, but who is this maester to comment on his betters, either way?!”
“One who speaks true,” Vaella Targaryen made a careless gesture. “Though if he was naming them in order, I would imagine it would be ‘one loved power, one loved wealth, one loved the Realm’ – Rhaena, myself, and Alysanne. Thus the elder two are queens, and I remain but a princess.”
“Had the Queen Mother agreed to Prince Duilo’s suit, mayhaps my princess would be a queen in all but name – queer Dornish tradition there, but as Princess of Dorne…” and then as expected of a Reacher lady, the comment was then quickly followed by: “…it would not be seemly that royal blood be lost to the Red Wastes, and Lady of Highgarden is a very grand honour.”
“T’was Mother who wanted Duilo… it was the first time I had seen Uncle Aerion and Lord Rogar come to an agreement so quickly,” Vaella shook her head, her eyes glazed as though recalling a distant memory, before she frowned in thought. “I am uncertain of this maester’s historical tract, my lady – had our marriages truly spanned the realm, I would have married to Dorne. Yet Rhaena married the Stark – how that happened I dare not know – and Alysanne married our last remaining brother, and I married Garth – two queens and one lady of a great house does not make a grand union for the Iron Throne.”
“No doubt it would check Dorne, my princess,” Lady Ambrose’s absent defence seemed almost an instinct, as though long depredations from Dornish raiders had aroused the hatred in her Reacher blood. “And it would be much better if the Prince of Dragonstone would favour our little lady Galatea! The late Prince Aerion must be properly mourned, of course, and no doubt Their Graces would make every arrangement for his widow and little Princess Laetitia… and no doubt many suitable ladies would be present for little lord Gaunt.”
At this Vaella fought a snort. “I would not have my son be a consolation to those chits who vie to be Princess of Dragonstone – for every day Aegon does not marry, every day the eligible maids of the Realm would not rest. Like as not Lord Garth already has plans – Rhaena’s girl, mayhaps.”
“Princess Maeve Stark?” Lady Ambrose echoed, shuddering. “No doubt born outside the light of the Seven, raised under the gaze of bloody trees.”
“The Conqueror lost one dragon and one sister-wife before the Conquest even began to the Winterlands, and it took but one visit before he turned the Dread around to battle Dorne instead of conquering the Winterlands,” Vaella’s gaze fell onto the fine embriodery of her dress. “It was only an incautious word…”
And our family died for it, and so much sadness, from one of Viserys’ ill japes. Oh, Grandmother Rhaenys, would that you had told us more to frighten the children.
“…” Lady Ambrose turned her head to avoid the gaze directed, and started as she peered out of the wheelhouse. “The ruby ford.”
Vaella sat straighter to peer out, the better to see where two decades afore the Lord Commander had battled the Faith Militant. The Washing of the Faith had left the Faith Militant defanged and dependent on her royal brother to succour. And to further restrain the Faith after the loss of the Tyrells so long ago and the Gardeners an inconstant ally, her hand in marriage had been offered…
The Vaella back then had no knowledge of these matters; the Vaella of now, four and ten years hence, understood better, but all of Vaella Targaryen stared at the ruby ford and then upstream and froze as every muscle locked in place, her skin jumping with each step taken across the surface of the Trident–
A whooping cry like a bird with a laugh, a breeze fluttered past the tassels that hung overhead as the splash of footsteps dashing across the Trident echoed; there the figure rose from the waves, the longboats up and down the rivers so much flotsam as that figure emerged like the rising sun from the edge of the world, as though dawn personified to walk amongst mortals. With each laughing stride that echoed in her wake, the silence or murmurs echoed of awed terror.
Where those who rode dragons were akin to men without their mounts, for that one moment Vaella remembered her late Mother’s second wedding, where once and for all the mythic Einherjar proved to exist – those born of Stark blood and learned at the feet of the Lord Commander, who each could fight an army on their lonesome and assume the magics of the rivers and mountains.
“T- T- That…” Lady Ambrose frowned as far in the distance, the roar of dragons echoed past the rivers. “That… Queen Rhaena? Her… child?!”
“My niece… an Einheri,” Vaella echoed in a hushed whisper. “That… I think Alysanne’s hopes for her eldest to marry Dany would be dying. My late uncle had argued for a union with the Starks – one that would have Stark blood and a link to the Lord Commander birthed to House Targaryen. And now that my uncle has passed to his deserved rest… His Grace would no doubt listen.”
“I daresay Harrenhal had never seen such a surfeit of dragons since its burning,” was Lady Ambrose’s parting words.