A Feast for Crows
Page 37
"Nor is he his sister."
It was true. Tommen was a good-hearted little man who always tried his best, but the last time Ser Arys saw him he had been weeping on the quay. Myrcella never shed a tear, though it was she who was leaving hearth and home to seal an alliance with her maidenhood. The truth was, the princess was braver than her brother, and brighter and more confident as well. Her wits were quicker, her courtesies more polished. Nothing ever daunted her, not even Joffrey. The women are the strong ones, truly. He was thinking not only of Myrcella, but of her mother and his own, of the Queen of Thorns, of the Red Viper's pretty, deadly Sand Snakes. And of Princess Arianne Martell, her most of all. "I will not say that you are wrong." His voice was hoarse.
"Will not? Cannot! Myrcella is more fit for rule . . ."
"A son comes before a daughter."
"Why? What god has made it so? I am my father's heir. Should I give up my rights to my brothers?"
"You twist my words. I never said . . . Dorne is different. The Seven Kingdoms have never had a ruling queen."
"The first Viserys intended his daughter Rhaenyra to follow him, do you deny it? But as the king lay dying the Lord Commander of his Kingsguard decided that it should be otherwise."
Ser Criston Cole. Criston the Kingmaker had set brother against sister and pided the Kingsguard against itself, bringing on the terrible war the singers named the Dance of the Dragons. Some claimed he acted from ambition, for Prince Aegon was more tractable than his willful older sister. Others allowed him nobler motives, and argued that he was defending ancient Andal custom. A few whispered that Ser Criston had been Princess Rhaenyra's lover before he took the white and wanted vengeance on the woman who had spurned him. "The Kingmaker wrought grave harm," Ser Arys said, "and gravely did he pay for it, but . . ."
". . . but perhaps the Seven sent you here so that one white knight might make right what another set awry. You do know that when my father returns to the Water Gardens he plans to take Myrcella with him?"
"To keep her safe from those who would do her harm."
"No. To keep her away from those who'd seek to crown her. Prince Oberyn Viper would have placed the crown upon her head himself if he had lived, but my father lacks the courage." She got to her feet. "You say you love the girl as you would a daughter of your own blood. Would you let your daughter be despoiled of her rights and locked away in prison?"
"The Water Gardens are no prison," he protested feebly.
"A prison does not have fountains and fig trees, is that what you think? Yet once the girl is there, she will not be allowed to leave. No more than you will. Hotah will see to that. You do not know him as I do. He is terrible when aroused."
Ser Arys frowned. The big Norvoshi captain with the scarred face had always made him feel profoundly uneasy. They say he sleeps with that great axe beside him. "What would you have me do?"
"No more than you have sworn. Protect Myrcella with your life. Defend her . . . and her rights. Set a crown upon her head."
"I swore an oath!"
"To Joffrey, not to Tommen."
"Aye, but Tommen is a good-hearted boy. He will be a better king than Joffrey."
"But not better than Myrcella. She loves the boy as well. I know she will not let him come to any harm. Storm's End is his by rights, since Lord Renly left no heir and Lord Stannis is attainted. In time, Casterly Rock will pass to the boy as well, through his lady mother. He will be as great a lord as any in the realm . . . but Myrcella by rights should sit the Iron Throne."
"The law . . . I do not know . . ."
"I do." When she stood, the long black tangle of her hair fell down to the small of her back. "Aegon the Dragon made the Kingsguard and its vows, but what one king does another can undo, or change. Formerly the Kingsguard served for life, yet Joffrey dismissed Ser Barristan so his dog could have a cloak. Myrcella would want you to be happy, and she is fond of me as well. She will give us leave to marry if we ask." Arianne put her arms around him and laid her face against his chest. The top of her head came to just beneath his chin. "You can have me and your white cloak both, if that is what you want."
She is tearing me apart. "You know I do, but . . ."
"I am a princess of Dorne," she said in her husky voice, "and it is not meet that you should make me beg."
Ser Arys could smell the perfume in her hair and feel her heart beating as she pressed against him. His body was responding to her closeness, and he did not doubt that she could feel it too. When he put his arms upon her shoulders, he realized she was trembling. "Arianne? My princess? What is it, my love?"
"Must I say it, ser? I am afraid. You call me love, yet you refuse me, when I have most desperate need of you. Is it so wrong of me to want a knight to keep me safe?"
He had never heard her sound so vulnerable. "No," he said, "but you have your father's guards to keep you safe, why - "
"It is my father's guards I fear." For a moment she sounded younger than Myrcella. "It was my father's guards who dragged my sweet cousins off in chains."
"Not in chains. I have heard that they have every comfort."
She gave a bitter laugh. "Have you seen them? He will not permit me to see them, did you know that?"
"They were speaking treason, fomenting war . . ."
"Loreza is six, Dorea eight. What wars could they foment? Yet my father has imprisoned them with their sisters. You have seen him. Fear makes even strong men do things they might never do otherwise, and my father was never strong. Arys, my heart, hear me for the love you say you bear me. I have never been as fearless as my cousins, for I was made with weaker seed, but Tyene and I are of an age and have been close as sisters since we were little girls. We have no secrets between us. If she can be imprisoned, so can I, and for the same cause . . . this of Myrcella."
"Your father would never do that."
"You do not know my father. I have been disappointing him since I first arrived in this world without a cock. Half a dozen times he has tried to marry me to toothless greybeards, each more contemptible than the last. He never commanded me to wed them, I grant you, but the offers alone prove how little he regards me."
"Even so, you are his heir."
"Am I?"
"He left you to rule in Sunspear when he took himself off to his Water Gardens, did he not?"
"To rule? No. He left his cousin Ser Manfrey as castellan, old blind Ricasso as seneschal, his bailiffs to collect duties and taxes for his treasurer Alyse Ladybright to count, his shariffs to police the shadow city, his justiciars to sit in judgment, and Maester Myles to deal with any letters not requiring the prince's own attention. Above them all he placed the Red Viper. My charge was feasts and frolics, and the entertainment of distinguished guests. Oberyn would visit the Water Gardens twice a fortnight. Me, he summoned twice a year. I am not the heir my father wants, he has made that plain. Our laws constrain him, but he would sooner have my brother follow him, I know it."
"Your brother?" Ser Arys put his hand beneath her chin and raised her head, the better to look her in the eyes. "You cannot mean Trystane, he is just a boy."
"Not Trys. Quentyn." Her eyes were bold and black as sin, unflinching. "I have known the truth since I was four-and-ten, since the day that I went to my father's solar to give him a good night kiss, and found him gone. My mother had sent for him, I learned later. He'd left a candle burning. When I went to blow it out, I found a letter lying incomplete beside it, a letter to my brother Quentyn, off at Yronwood. My father told Quentyn that he must do all that his maester and his master-at-arms required of him, because 'one day you will sit where I sit and rule all Dorne, and a ruler must be strong of mind and body.'" A tear crept down Arianne's soft cheek. "My father's words, written in his own hand. They burned themselves into my memory. I cried myself to sleep that night, and many nights thereafter."
Ser Arys had yet to meet Quentyn Martell. The prince had been fostered by Lord Yronwood from a tender age, had served him as a page, then a squire, had even taken knighthood at his hands in preference to the Red Viper's. If I were a father, I would want my son to follow me as well, he thought, but he could hear the hurt in her voice, and he knew that if he said what he was thinking, he would lose her. "Perhaps you misunderstood," he said. "You were only a child. Perhaps the prince was only saying that to encourage your brother to be more diligent."
"You think so? Then tell me, where is Quentyn now?"
"The prince is with Lord Yronwood's host in the Boneway," Ser Arys said cautiously. That was what Sunspear's ancient castellan had told him, when first he came to Dorne. The maester with the silky beard said the same.
Arianne demurred. "So my father wishes us to believe, but I have friends who tell me otherwise. My brother has crossed the narrow sea in secret, posing as a common merchant. Why?"
"How would I know? There could be a hundred reasons."
"Or one. Are you aware that the Golden Company has broken its contract with Myr?"
"Sellswords break their contracts all the time."
"Not the Golden Company. Our word is good as gold has been their boast since the days of Bittersteel. Myr is on the point of war with Lys and Tyrosh. Why break a contract that offered them the prospect of good wages and good plunder?"
"Perhaps Lys offered them better wages. Or Tyrosh."
"No," she said. "I would believe it of any of the other free companies, yes. Most of them would change sides for half a groat. The Golden Company is different. A brotherhood of exiles and the sons of exiles, united by the dream of Bittersteel. It's home they want, as much as gold. Lord Yronwood knows that as well as I do. His forebears rode with Bittersteel during three of the Blackfyre Rebellions." She took Ser Arys by the hand, and wove her fingers through his own. "Have you ever seen the arms of House Toland of Ghost Hill?"
He had to think a moment. "A dragon eating its own tail?"
"The dragon is time. It has no beginning and no ending, so all things come round again. Anders Yronwood is Criston Cole reborn. He whispers in my brother's ear that he should rule after my father, that it is not right for men to kneel to women . . . that Arianne especially is unfit to rule, being the willful wanton that she is." She tossed her hair defiantly. "So your two princesses share a common cause, ser . . . and they share as well a knight who claims to love them both, but will not fight for them."
"I will." Ser Arys sank to one knee. "Myrcella is the elder, and better suited to the crown. Who will defend her rights if not her Kingsguard? My sword, my life, my honor, all belong to her . . . and to you, my heart's delight. I swear, no man will steal your birthright whilst I still have the strength to lift a sword. I am yours. What would you have of me?"
"All." She knelt to kiss his lips. "All, my love, my true love, my sweet love, and forever. But first . . ."
"Ask, and it is yours."
". . . Myrcella."
It was true. Tommen was a good-hearted little man who always tried his best, but the last time Ser Arys saw him he had been weeping on the quay. Myrcella never shed a tear, though it was she who was leaving hearth and home to seal an alliance with her maidenhood. The truth was, the princess was braver than her brother, and brighter and more confident as well. Her wits were quicker, her courtesies more polished. Nothing ever daunted her, not even Joffrey. The women are the strong ones, truly. He was thinking not only of Myrcella, but of her mother and his own, of the Queen of Thorns, of the Red Viper's pretty, deadly Sand Snakes. And of Princess Arianne Martell, her most of all. "I will not say that you are wrong." His voice was hoarse.
"Will not? Cannot! Myrcella is more fit for rule . . ."
"A son comes before a daughter."
"Why? What god has made it so? I am my father's heir. Should I give up my rights to my brothers?"
"You twist my words. I never said . . . Dorne is different. The Seven Kingdoms have never had a ruling queen."
"The first Viserys intended his daughter Rhaenyra to follow him, do you deny it? But as the king lay dying the Lord Commander of his Kingsguard decided that it should be otherwise."
Ser Criston Cole. Criston the Kingmaker had set brother against sister and pided the Kingsguard against itself, bringing on the terrible war the singers named the Dance of the Dragons. Some claimed he acted from ambition, for Prince Aegon was more tractable than his willful older sister. Others allowed him nobler motives, and argued that he was defending ancient Andal custom. A few whispered that Ser Criston had been Princess Rhaenyra's lover before he took the white and wanted vengeance on the woman who had spurned him. "The Kingmaker wrought grave harm," Ser Arys said, "and gravely did he pay for it, but . . ."
". . . but perhaps the Seven sent you here so that one white knight might make right what another set awry. You do know that when my father returns to the Water Gardens he plans to take Myrcella with him?"
"To keep her safe from those who would do her harm."
"No. To keep her away from those who'd seek to crown her. Prince Oberyn Viper would have placed the crown upon her head himself if he had lived, but my father lacks the courage." She got to her feet. "You say you love the girl as you would a daughter of your own blood. Would you let your daughter be despoiled of her rights and locked away in prison?"
"The Water Gardens are no prison," he protested feebly.
"A prison does not have fountains and fig trees, is that what you think? Yet once the girl is there, she will not be allowed to leave. No more than you will. Hotah will see to that. You do not know him as I do. He is terrible when aroused."
Ser Arys frowned. The big Norvoshi captain with the scarred face had always made him feel profoundly uneasy. They say he sleeps with that great axe beside him. "What would you have me do?"
"No more than you have sworn. Protect Myrcella with your life. Defend her . . . and her rights. Set a crown upon her head."
"I swore an oath!"
"To Joffrey, not to Tommen."
"Aye, but Tommen is a good-hearted boy. He will be a better king than Joffrey."
"But not better than Myrcella. She loves the boy as well. I know she will not let him come to any harm. Storm's End is his by rights, since Lord Renly left no heir and Lord Stannis is attainted. In time, Casterly Rock will pass to the boy as well, through his lady mother. He will be as great a lord as any in the realm . . . but Myrcella by rights should sit the Iron Throne."
"The law . . . I do not know . . ."
"I do." When she stood, the long black tangle of her hair fell down to the small of her back. "Aegon the Dragon made the Kingsguard and its vows, but what one king does another can undo, or change. Formerly the Kingsguard served for life, yet Joffrey dismissed Ser Barristan so his dog could have a cloak. Myrcella would want you to be happy, and she is fond of me as well. She will give us leave to marry if we ask." Arianne put her arms around him and laid her face against his chest. The top of her head came to just beneath his chin. "You can have me and your white cloak both, if that is what you want."
She is tearing me apart. "You know I do, but . . ."
"I am a princess of Dorne," she said in her husky voice, "and it is not meet that you should make me beg."
Ser Arys could smell the perfume in her hair and feel her heart beating as she pressed against him. His body was responding to her closeness, and he did not doubt that she could feel it too. When he put his arms upon her shoulders, he realized she was trembling. "Arianne? My princess? What is it, my love?"
"Must I say it, ser? I am afraid. You call me love, yet you refuse me, when I have most desperate need of you. Is it so wrong of me to want a knight to keep me safe?"
He had never heard her sound so vulnerable. "No," he said, "but you have your father's guards to keep you safe, why - "
"It is my father's guards I fear." For a moment she sounded younger than Myrcella. "It was my father's guards who dragged my sweet cousins off in chains."
"Not in chains. I have heard that they have every comfort."
She gave a bitter laugh. "Have you seen them? He will not permit me to see them, did you know that?"
"They were speaking treason, fomenting war . . ."
"Loreza is six, Dorea eight. What wars could they foment? Yet my father has imprisoned them with their sisters. You have seen him. Fear makes even strong men do things they might never do otherwise, and my father was never strong. Arys, my heart, hear me for the love you say you bear me. I have never been as fearless as my cousins, for I was made with weaker seed, but Tyene and I are of an age and have been close as sisters since we were little girls. We have no secrets between us. If she can be imprisoned, so can I, and for the same cause . . . this of Myrcella."
"Your father would never do that."
"You do not know my father. I have been disappointing him since I first arrived in this world without a cock. Half a dozen times he has tried to marry me to toothless greybeards, each more contemptible than the last. He never commanded me to wed them, I grant you, but the offers alone prove how little he regards me."
"Even so, you are his heir."
"Am I?"
"He left you to rule in Sunspear when he took himself off to his Water Gardens, did he not?"
"To rule? No. He left his cousin Ser Manfrey as castellan, old blind Ricasso as seneschal, his bailiffs to collect duties and taxes for his treasurer Alyse Ladybright to count, his shariffs to police the shadow city, his justiciars to sit in judgment, and Maester Myles to deal with any letters not requiring the prince's own attention. Above them all he placed the Red Viper. My charge was feasts and frolics, and the entertainment of distinguished guests. Oberyn would visit the Water Gardens twice a fortnight. Me, he summoned twice a year. I am not the heir my father wants, he has made that plain. Our laws constrain him, but he would sooner have my brother follow him, I know it."
"Your brother?" Ser Arys put his hand beneath her chin and raised her head, the better to look her in the eyes. "You cannot mean Trystane, he is just a boy."
"Not Trys. Quentyn." Her eyes were bold and black as sin, unflinching. "I have known the truth since I was four-and-ten, since the day that I went to my father's solar to give him a good night kiss, and found him gone. My mother had sent for him, I learned later. He'd left a candle burning. When I went to blow it out, I found a letter lying incomplete beside it, a letter to my brother Quentyn, off at Yronwood. My father told Quentyn that he must do all that his maester and his master-at-arms required of him, because 'one day you will sit where I sit and rule all Dorne, and a ruler must be strong of mind and body.'" A tear crept down Arianne's soft cheek. "My father's words, written in his own hand. They burned themselves into my memory. I cried myself to sleep that night, and many nights thereafter."
Ser Arys had yet to meet Quentyn Martell. The prince had been fostered by Lord Yronwood from a tender age, had served him as a page, then a squire, had even taken knighthood at his hands in preference to the Red Viper's. If I were a father, I would want my son to follow me as well, he thought, but he could hear the hurt in her voice, and he knew that if he said what he was thinking, he would lose her. "Perhaps you misunderstood," he said. "You were only a child. Perhaps the prince was only saying that to encourage your brother to be more diligent."
"You think so? Then tell me, where is Quentyn now?"
"The prince is with Lord Yronwood's host in the Boneway," Ser Arys said cautiously. That was what Sunspear's ancient castellan had told him, when first he came to Dorne. The maester with the silky beard said the same.
Arianne demurred. "So my father wishes us to believe, but I have friends who tell me otherwise. My brother has crossed the narrow sea in secret, posing as a common merchant. Why?"
"How would I know? There could be a hundred reasons."
"Or one. Are you aware that the Golden Company has broken its contract with Myr?"
"Sellswords break their contracts all the time."
"Not the Golden Company. Our word is good as gold has been their boast since the days of Bittersteel. Myr is on the point of war with Lys and Tyrosh. Why break a contract that offered them the prospect of good wages and good plunder?"
"Perhaps Lys offered them better wages. Or Tyrosh."
"No," she said. "I would believe it of any of the other free companies, yes. Most of them would change sides for half a groat. The Golden Company is different. A brotherhood of exiles and the sons of exiles, united by the dream of Bittersteel. It's home they want, as much as gold. Lord Yronwood knows that as well as I do. His forebears rode with Bittersteel during three of the Blackfyre Rebellions." She took Ser Arys by the hand, and wove her fingers through his own. "Have you ever seen the arms of House Toland of Ghost Hill?"
He had to think a moment. "A dragon eating its own tail?"
"The dragon is time. It has no beginning and no ending, so all things come round again. Anders Yronwood is Criston Cole reborn. He whispers in my brother's ear that he should rule after my father, that it is not right for men to kneel to women . . . that Arianne especially is unfit to rule, being the willful wanton that she is." She tossed her hair defiantly. "So your two princesses share a common cause, ser . . . and they share as well a knight who claims to love them both, but will not fight for them."
"I will." Ser Arys sank to one knee. "Myrcella is the elder, and better suited to the crown. Who will defend her rights if not her Kingsguard? My sword, my life, my honor, all belong to her . . . and to you, my heart's delight. I swear, no man will steal your birthright whilst I still have the strength to lift a sword. I am yours. What would you have of me?"
"All." She knelt to kiss his lips. "All, my love, my true love, my sweet love, and forever. But first . . ."
"Ask, and it is yours."
". . . Myrcella."
