Chapter Text
It rains on the morning of Argella’s wedding. She wakes to the patter of water on the windows, and as the maids pull back the curtains, stoke up the fire, and bring buckets of water into the room to fill her tub, the rain gradually increases from a light drizzle to a downpour. Argella, sixteen and too tall and very tired, for she has never slept well in these rooms, and doubts that will change once she is moved into her new royal apartments, pulls the sheets around her shoulders like a cloak, and listens to it. In the stormlands there is at least one rain-shower a day, most days, even in the death grip of a summer like this, gone into its second glorious year. They will have a rich harvest come the changing of the seasons.
That’s not the case in the Crownlands, where it rains infrequently in the hotter years, sometimes going weeks without a drop so much as striking the ground. Argella watches the rain turn the high red walls of the keep glossy scarlet, just outside her blurry windows, and decides it is a gift from the gods to her. Not from the Seven, although she considers herself devout, but from Elenei to her. Elenei is the daughter of the Sea and the Wind, and when she dances across the sky, she shakes rain loose from the clouds. In the Crownlands they say that the rain is the Mother weeping for her lost children. In the Crownlands they say and do many things that Argella finds foreign and distasteful.
“I’m sorry, m’lady,” one of her maids tells her sympathetically, as she undresses her for her bath. “I’ll say a prayer that the foul weather passes before the ceremony. We don’t want your gown to be ruined.”
“It will be ruined anyways,” Argella says, as she steps into the tub. “I have it on good authority that Mathos Celtigar’s bet money that he can strip it off me faster than Simon Swann.”
The tub would be quite large for a small girl of sixteen, but Argella is a Baratheon, and never had much hope of being small. She stands six foot one and has powerfully built shoulders and thighs, which must be hidden, by the decree of courtly fashion, under mounds of silk and satin, to disguise a figure that is far from slender or pliable. The wind rattles at the windows, and she smiles as fingers work through the tangled hair at her scalp.
“They wouldn’t dare, m’lady,” the scrubber ventures. “Prince Duncan would never stand for it. You’re to be his princess!”
“No,” Argella corrects, eyes still closed. She kicks her feet up to rest on the opposite edge of the tub; it’s really quite uncomfortable being hunched like this in two feet of rapidly cooling water. “I shall still be a lady, I’m afraid. When Duncan is king I will be queen consort. Never princess.”
A busy silence falls. She takes pity and lets them do their work in peace. Afterwards, she smells of milk and lavender. While her long ringlets are being combed out, and she is bundled in a robe, Mother comes in, pink-cheeked and worrying at her lower lip, although she still manages to find the time to berate the girl brushing Argella’s hair, taking up the comb herself and dismissing the servants from the room. Argella leans back into the familiar sensation. It’s been a very long time since Mother combed her hair. She has spent the majority of her time at court these past three years of betrothal, with an endless string of chaperones and guardians, primarily Queen Betha and her septa, occasionally her own parents. Argella stands a head taller than her mother, but sitting down it is easy to pretend she is a little girl again, and this simply any other feast or celebration.
“They say the rains should pass by midday, so the tourney will continue as planned,” Mother says, in that forcibly bright and gritty tone of hers, like broken glass or sand. “That’s fortunate, isn’t it? Ormund was so looking forward to it.”
Argella makes a lazy noise of assent.
Mother pauses, having reached the end of all her curls, and then splays her palm flat on Argella’s head, as if to impart some wisdom or blessing. “He left Jenny Mudd at Summerhall,” she says quietly, because there are little mice and spiders and birds all around the Red Keep, and they all wind their merry little way back to Aegon and his upstart Hand. Argella’s impending good father has never been anything but kind, gracious, and conciliatory to her and her family. But they do not forget, and neither does he. Her father was one raven away from declaring rebellion against the Iron Throne when Aegon finally managed to bring his boy to heel.
“I told you,” says Argella peevishly, twisting around in her chair. “He’s not fool enough to bring a mistress to court so soon-,”
“You would be surprised,” Mother snaps, “at the lengths men will go to prove your judgement wrong, Argella. We will ensure that he never brings her to court. I’ll not have it. Your father will not have it. My grandchildren will not share their cradles with new Blackfyres.”
“Haven’t you heard?” Argella arches an eyebrow. “She’s barren. Daeron says Small Dunk’s had her a hundred times over by now, and she’s yet to get.”
“Or he’s yet to seed,” Mother pinches the end of her nose sharply. “I mislike this familiarity with the third-born. Daeron Targaryen is not your little friend.”
“Well, I think he’s wonderfully funny,” Argella twists her mouth into a petulant little mockery of a pout, “and it irks Duncan so, I can hardly help it.”
She stands up, moving towards her dress, draped pristine across the freshly made bed. “Call them in, won’t you? I hate to sit around in a robe.”
“This is the last chance I will have to speak with you for some time,” Mother moves after her, catches her by the hand. “Argella. Look at me.” Argella looks. Mother is a Wylde, so she is practically minuscule compared to the rest of the family, with ash blonde waves and a pert nose and small, grey-green eyes. Now they are hard as sea glass. “It is his shame, not yours. They will jape about it, during the bedding. You must block it out. Go somewhere else in your head,” her hand travels up to cup Argella’s far away chin. “Show him what can be gained from keeping to a wife’s bed. Remember what I told you, with Septa-,”
“I know what to do with a man, Mother,” Argella says irritably. “You can find them rutting in empty alcoves and stable stalls here, a whole menagerie’s worth. I wonder that there are not more Waters scurrying about.”
“Gods willing, there will be none from your man,” Mother lets go, then leans up on her tiptoes to kiss her cheek. “My fierce girl. Remember my words,” she jerks her head at the window, where the rain continues to torrent. “Elenei is watching over you.”
Argella holds Ours is the Fury close to her heart, but she was not raised to disregard her mother’s lineage, either, although they were never storm kings. You listen for the thunder. You hide from the wind. But you run from the rain, and the rising waters it brings. Those are her mother’s words, are they not? The words of House Wylde? “We rise with the waters.”
At Rain House, the wells never run dry. At Rain House, the walls are coated green with ivy and vines, and wreathed with mist, from the first day of spring to the last day of autumn. For all that she and Mother may be different as the night and day, it was Mother who taught her that the rain could be a different sort of fury. One that you did not even notice at first, the steady drip-drip-drip, building up to a crescendo, until it came bursting through every crack and crevice it could find, until it howled and surged and swept you off your feet, until it had scoured every surface clean.
Last night, during the little sleep she got, she dreamed of a walk with Ellyn Morrigen, her dearest friend. Deep in the Rainwood, they huddled under a great tree for shelter. Argella felt the wet moss under her fingers when she laid her hands on the trunk. Ellyn stood with her head back, catching raindrops on her tongue. Little tendrils of hair frizzed around her forehead. When she looked at Argella, her dark eyes were wet and shining. Argella wanted to let go of the tree trunk and hold her instead, but she could not. She was too afraid the storm would pass, and they would have to go home. They stood there instead, staring at each other, locked in a moment between raindrops.
She is glad they forewent the idea of a wedding breakfast. It is easier to make this sort of walk on an empty stomach, although her cousin Alys offers her rosewater on their way to the palanquin. She could only pick two ladies to ride with her, who will help hold her train as she enters the Great Sept of Baelor. She has no sisters, and could not favor one Wylde over another without causing offense, so she selected the Dondarrion’s only daughter, chipper Leona, and Ellyn. As Father hands her off to the litter-bearers, they both kiss sweetly on the cheek.
Leona is so excited that her mouth glances off Argella’s chin instead. Ellyn watches her with her sad dark eyes and her raven dark hair, then steps forward solemnly and presses her lips to Argella’s cheekbone. The hair on the back of her neck prickles when Ellyn steps back, her hands clasped formally in front of her. Ellyn is wearing the teal green of her house colors, and aquamarine glitters around her pale throat. Argella thinks she has never looked lovelier than she does now, in her sorrow.
Argella has many faults, and she will easily admit that that worst of them, like her father and Argella the Storm Queen before her, and her brothers after her, is her pride. She is a prideful, stubborn thing, and to see Ellyn so bereft brings some savage joy to her, although it is not Ellyn’s fault, it is not her fault, it is not anyone’s fault. “You are very beautiful today, Gella,” Ellyn tells her, in that refined lady’s voice they must always use when complimenting one another in public, an aesthetic admiration without any trace of want, of need-
“Oh dear,” Argella grins, although she does not feel it, as she is practically lifted up onto the litter, her skirts bundled up under her, her golden veil of Myrish lace already dotted with raindrops, “and after I am wed, shall I be counted as beautiful every day?”
“Of course!” Leona chirps, while Ellyn looks away. Still the rain comes down. Still the city sloshes red and brown around them. Still she pretends this is not what it is. It is her duty to carry on as normal. She was warned, first by Septa, then by Mother, in the tense months following Duncan’s attempted elopement, although even the knowledge that there was an attempt is privy to a select few. Most believe he simply happened upon a peasant who took his fancy, and chose her as a mistress, albeit somewhat indiscreetly.
That is, she was warned never to speak of it with him. To pretend it never happened. To pretend he did not abscond in the middle of a trip to visit Riverrun and scamper off with a wench he met at Oldstones. “It will only invite bitterness and anger betwixt you,” Septa told her. “A marriage cannot survive on such things. You must put it aside- out of your mind, out of your heart, and pray he has the grace to do the same.”
“How can I?” Argella had scoffed. “He will not give her up.”
“In time, he may come to see your virtues. Not all men go firm into a marriage. You must be patient. When you have a child together, a little prince or princess, he is like to forget he ever knew her at all. Put it aside for now. Do not speak of it. A lady does not threaten or cajole her husband in such a manner. You remain gracious, and humble, and you abide, and you obey, and eventually, one develops an affection, a trust. Prince Duncan is a good man who made a mistake. Sometimes we women must lead by moral example. Men are weak to their lusts.”
“He did not say he liked to tumble her in bed,” Argella had said then, ignoring the scarlet flush flaring beneath that grey habit. “He said he loved her. He said she was the only one he could ever love. I heard him. He was prepared to abdicate for her. To throw me over and let Jaehaerys sit the throne. He would have given Celia Tully what was mine by rights. He would have had me sent back to Storm’s End in disgrace.”
“But he did not,” Septa had said tersely. “He saw reason, gods be good. He realized that duty must come before desire. He erred, but he came back to the light. You must guide his path, as the Crone does all ours. The burden of being heir is no easy thing. In time, you will find it in your heart to forgive him, to love him.”
Loving Duncan had never been something available to her. Argella could no more love him than she could wake with the moon and sleep with the sun. Forgive him, yes. Once, that had been something she could have done easily enough. She could have forgiven all sorts of slights- coming late to meals, or drinking too much at feasts, or pawing at her breasts, or sleeping with her chambermaids, or gambling money in taverns. What she could not and will not forgive is this. Not that he fucked a river maid. That he thought to bring her back to court and hand over his crown and claim to the throne. To cast her future into the fire the way one might a letter.
They could have been friends. They were friendly, once. Duncan was laconic and reserved but charming in his own way. He had endless amounts of patience for children and servants and animals. He could soothe an argument between his siblings with a few warm words or a bemused look. He was well-read and inquisitive. He both played the high harp and danced and jousted and hunted and sparred with ease. He seldom drank, seldom swore, and when he laughed his eyes crinkled shut. He was only three years her elder, something sure to make marriage more bearable.
But Duncan is also aloof and headstrong and impulsive. He is insecure and yearning. He is happiest when on the road. If he could be a wandering hedge knight, as his namesake once was, he would. He is stubborn, nearly as stubborn as her. He knows how to brood and sulk and scheme, as all Targaryens do. He has his mother’s willful spirit and Blackwood pride. They could have been friends. Now she must do battle with him for the rest of his life, or go to her grave known as a king’s unwanted wife. She will be no Naerys nor Aelinor Penrose. Marriage is not a matter of finding a husband’s virtues, Argella has been forced to conclude. It is a matter of finding a husband’s weak spots, the cracks in the armor, and forcing your only weapon, your wits, between them.
The rain has lightened considerably by the time the litter navigates through the packed and screaming streets to the Great Sept of Baelor, but it is still there, pricking at her flesh. Father waits with her brothers outside; Mother will have already gone in. Father is tall and broad she must still gaze up at him, even now that she is a woman flowered and of age. He smiles fiercely, triumphantly, down at her now, but for once holds his tongue, other than to say, “There’s my girl.” and kiss her on the brow.
Ormund’s mind is elsewhere from the distracted look on his squarish face; the tourney this afternoon, no doubt. She squeezes his arm, then bends slightly, despite the pressure from her stays, to kiss little Harbert, who is only ten. One day he will serve on the Kingsguard and be her leal man. For now he is one of many squires dashing after the Kingsguard, fetching saddles and armor. The wind ruffles at her veil as they begin the slow procession inside. Smallfolk are shouting her name and tossing flowers already half rotten down before her feet. Argella crushes them underfoot gaily enough, smiles bravely, as if expected of her, for no one wants to see a bride weepy on her wedding day, and enters the sept.
They’ve made her rehearse the ceremony several times now, so this just feels like another iteration of it. Father escorts her across the marble floor, under the massive glass dome, now spattered with rain, between the giant statues of the Father and the Mother, glowing dull gold in the candlelight. The air is thick with incense and flowers and wax. There are thousands of eyes upon her now, but to Argella it is no more than a methodical movement, like a sun dial. Duncan looks strange in the shadow of the stained glass; it casts queer colors across his long face.
He has his mother’s looks; her dark brown hair and dark brown eyes, her long nose and sharp chin. But he has his father’s high cheekbones and long eyelashes and graceful neck as well. She wonders what little Jenny Mudd thought of him, when she saw him riding along the banks of the Blue Fork, dressed as a common traveler but undoubtedly regal in his bearing. When Argella first saw him she had been relieved he’d not inherited the Targaryen looks; she finds the pale hair and violet eyes of his father and a few of his siblings more strange than beautiful. Now she couldn't care less whether or not he was the very picture of Aegon the Conqueror or not.
Duncan. King Duncan, they will call him. No doubt his ancestors would be rolling in their grave to hear such a thing. Nearly a century and a half after the Conquest, and their line has been reduced to a dragon-less family, half of whom look more Northern than anything else, the firstborn of whom bears a commoner’s name and no crown upon his head. Duncan loathes to wear even a circlet. They have that much in common; she finds the headaches bothersome, else she would have some smith hammer her out the gaudiest monstrosity of a crown she could imagine. His hair is damp and plastered to his scalp; when they kiss, she tastes the rain on his thin lips.
Thankfully, they wait to toll the bells until the wedding party is coming down the steps of the sept, for they’d surely be immediately struck deaf otherwise. Argella smiles out at the crowds and waves, her hand locked in her husband’s. Her husband’s. She feels as though she’s slipped on a wet cloak, now clinging to her like a second skin. There is something very final about the sounds of these bells. The rain has passed, although the skies above are still blustery and grey.
She wonders if the rain has moved further south, to Summerhall. She has never been, although it is much closer to Storm’s End than King’s Landing. Summerhall will someday belong to Jaehaerys and his wife, as tradition dictates. Duncan and her will have Dragonstone, that decrepit, ancient fortress, and Jaehaerys and his pretty Tully bride will have the lovely, airy summer estate. That’s alright. Dragonstone, much like Storm’s End, could outlast a siege for years if it had to. That’s what matters to her. She thinks of this Jenny, wandering the empty halls of the palace. Does she know today is her beloved’s wedding day? Is she weeping for the husband who could have been hers, had he defied his father, the Small Council, the Grand Maester, and the High Septon who just performed their marriage? Or is she bitter and furious, ripping down tapestries from the walls and smashing dishes?
Argella decides she doesn’t care, and squeezes Duncan’s hand. She doesn’t know why. To warn him, to mock him, to comfort him? He stares straight ahead, grave-faced as a man watching a burial. When he does smile, it is a wan ghost of one. He is heartbroken, she realizes then. To have to be with her, touch her, call her wife. His heart has split in two from this separation from his true love. Her cheek stings where an hour earlier, Ellyn’s lips had kissed it. Now Ellyn is just another face in the crowd of well-wishers, arm in arm with her husband, Lord Stokeworth. Argella feels that familiar spiderweb of loathing ghost along her spine.
After the festivities are through, he will take Ellyn back to Stokeworth and resume attempting to get a son from her. They’ve not even been wed a full year. When Ellyn had informed her of the betrothal, Argella had raged like a man would, hurling a goblet at the hearth and nearly overturning a table. Ellyn had lingered on the edges of her vision, watching her hungrily, as if gratified by this display. They can be quite cruel to each other, the two of them, although Ellyn wed Lyonel Stokeworth because she was commanded to do so, just as Argella wed Duncan because she was commanded to do so. The difference is that Argella was promised a crown to go with the unwanted husband.
She wants to look at Ellyn as gravely as Duncan is looking now, wants to mouth sweet nothings at her, wants to be able to stare longingly off into the distance. But she cannot. She is to be grateful, oh so grateful, that he deigned to follow through with this marriage. So she smiles and blushes and holds his hand, and says not a single word to him, nor he to her. They’ve seemingly agreed on that much, at least. Best to delay the inevitable for as long as they can.
During the opening ceremonies of the tourney, Argella sits above the stands and drinks wine and bites into a plump summer’s peach, the juice running down her chin, while Jaehaerys and Shaera murmur to each other behind her. Unlike their elder brother, Jaehaerys and Shaera, who are barely a year apart and often mistaken for twins, have significantly less of their mother’s Blackwood looks. Jaehaerys looks nearly identical to his father, Aegon, instead, with near the same haircut and face, although he is shorter than both Aegon and Duncan, who both stand well over six feet tall. Many men are shorter than Argella. Duncan is not one of them. She finds that to be very regrettable.
Shaera looks quite similar to her aunt Daella, the one wed to old Lord Tarth. Her hair is as silver-gold as her brothers, perhaps slightly paler, and she wears it in a long plait to her narrow waist. Her eyes are much lighter than Jaehaerys’, however, really more lilac than any other shade of purple. She has a mouth inclined to pouting or petulance, much like Argella, and her eyebrows are arched, so she often looks vaguely surprised or bemused. She is less gawky, as well, with a heart-shaped face. Shaera is beautiful, to be sure, a true Targaryen princess, and she is only fourteen. Men already speak of how lucky a man Luthor Tyrell will be, although Argella has seen the two together and can already tell that marriage will be an unhappy one. Shaera likely says the same thing of her and Duncan to Jaehaerys. They are always whispering together, those two, sharing private discussions and private japes.
The King is arguing with Daeron, who is all of twelve but who seems determined to be knighted by age fifteen, in regards to Daeron not being permitted to participate in anything beyond riding the rings tomorrow. Argella likes Daeron best, of Duncan’s siblings. He is quick-witted and sarcastic and reckless, and said the most foul and funny things when they first had word of Duncan’s… absconding. He is also a third-born son to the core; neither the heir nor the spare but a born warrior, throwing himself into training with a passion and zeal of a man twice his age. Daeron’s hair is platinum blonde, but his face is long and his eyes as dark as his mother’s.
Said mother is down below, debating something with half a dozen Blackwood relatives- for they seem to breed like rabbits, that family- Rhaelle attached to her side, as always. Rhaelle’s dark curls are quite similar to Argella’s, only a few shades lighter, and her eyes are an indigo that looks more blue than anything else, particularly in the summer. She is only ten, Harbert’s age, and round-faced and plump, unlike the rest of her siblings, and more devoted to her mother than any of them, arm in arm with her as though they were old friends, and not mother and child.
The tourney is only expected to last several hours today, and with the weather uncertain everyone wants to make the most of it. There will be three days in total, shorter than the week’s long debacle her father had pushed for, but longer than the modest day the King had at at first argued for, ever mindful of his treasury. Argella hopes they’ve wasted boatloads of money on this, all for the sake of stroking some wounded Baratheon egos. There is a brief archery competition, and then the jousting begins in earnest. Argella watches, and waits, and pops grapes into her mouth until she sees Ormund’s helm emerge. Her elder brother unhorses six men in the span of an hour and a half, until only a scant six or so remain.
Duncan sends his cousin, Mathos Celtigar, toppling off his white stallion, then defeats an Ashford and a Hardyng. Ormund knocks out a Lannister of Lannisport and a Hightower. Then it is just the two of them, Targaryen and Baratheon, brothers by marriage now, and Argella stops drinking her wine. This is her wedding gift from Ormund, after all, and she has been so very eager to see it. They tilt once, twice, thrice. Then again, the crowd holding its breath- few have all the details, but most are to some degree aware of the recent tension between the two houses. On the fifth tilt, she knows before it even happens. Ormund’s lance cracks Duncan’s shield, his horse shies away, and he falls, hard, to the dirt. The stands erupt.
Argella leaps to her feet, and is not at all humble or shy when she reaches forward to take the offered crown of dragon’s breath, golden cups, and yellow roses from her brother. Ormund tilts up his helm; his face is red and haggard, and he is not smiling but looking to her for approval. It has always been this way, although he is her elder by two years. “Thank you,” she says, voice rich not just with his victory but what feels like some comeuppance, at long last, and he inclines his head as she settles the flower crown atop her mussed curls.
The black ribbon winds around her neck, while Duncan’s squire helps him to his feet and another fetches his horse. The two knights shake hands. Argella sits back down, and smiles jubilantly at Jaehaerys and Shaera. Shaera averts her eyes as if confronted with a severed head. Jaehaerys gives a barely perceptible smile. “It was well struck on your brother’s part.”
“Wasn’t it?” Argella flips the ribbon over her shoulder. The sun has briefly come out, cheering the crowds up even more.
Said sun has long since set by the time they are feasting in the queen’s ballroom. Argella eats her fill quickly and then spends most of the night dancing, only once or twice with her husband. She dances with Father, she dances with her brothers, she dances with his brothers, she even dances with men she despises like Mathos and Simon, she dances with towering young Tristan of Tarth, son of Daella, sweet Sam Tully and oblivious Luthor Tyrell and even the littlest of boys- Maegor Targaryen, Mad Aerion’s only son, is a chubby boy of eight, and oft declared the sweetest child at court. She realizes she is trying to prolong the bedding as much as possible, and that is only the natural, as is the twisting in her gut when the first demands for it begin.
Unbidden, her gaze finds Ellyn, seated at her husband’s side. Ellyn looks at her; her mouth twists in pity or anger, and then she looks away, murmuring some excuse to Lord Lyonel and swiftly rising and walking out of the ballroom. Argella then looks to her parents; Father is drunk, but not so drunk to have no mercy for her, he is waving Ormund over even now, while Mother insistently glances the way of the high table, where the king and queen sit, straight-faced and straight-backed, Aegon smiling benevolently and Black Betha looking as though she’d rather be anywhere but surrounded by a thousand mirrors and revelers. She does not want to look for Duncan, for the story his face must tell.
Ormund is rough with the other men; he sends two randy squires sprawling with a single shove, scoops her up into his arms with ease, despite her long limbs and height, and snarls at a chastened Simon Swann, “One fucking hand near her and I’ll cut it off and feed it to you in bits, Swann.” Mathos Celtigar is rather put out, but manages to tear open the back of her gown anyways. Without even looking behind her, Argella neatly plows an elbow into his mouth. He recoils with a shout of pain.
“I’m bleeding!”
“You sound as though you were the one being bedded down tonight, Matty,” Argella says with a simpering, venomous look directed his way, and the men around her explode with laughter and jeers. The walk to the bedchamber is very short, but then again, Ormund is moving awfully quickly. He kicks open the door, sets her down as she struggles to hold up her gown, her crown of flowers nearly falling from her head, and then says, “You tell your dragon prince that the joust today will look like a lover’s quarrel if he mistreats you tonight. If he won’t get off you, you make a claw,” he demonstrates, “and you grab his balls and squeeze-,”
“Goodnight,” Argella says firmly, pushing him out of the doorway.
It takes the women substantially longer to get Duncan into the room, since they can hardly just pick him up and carry him, but he arrives within a few minutes all the same, stripped down to just his breeches. Argella has already gotten down to her silken shift when he enters, and is kicking away her dirtied gown as he slams the door shut behind him. He glances at her, reddens, and then moves over to the windows. “Bloody hot in here.”
He’s clearly in a fine mood. She ignores the dread churning in the pit of her stomach. It will be quick, and once you’ve done it the first time, it gets much easier. That is what every woman says. That is what Ellyn told her, although her hand was up Argella’s skirt at the time. She remembers Mother and Septa’s advice. She should hold her tongue, remain demure and sweet, compliment him, pretend at shy pleasure, and bide her time. She gains nothing by provoking an argument on the very first night of marriage. She gains nothing by making an enemy of her husband by berating and scolding him for his indiscretion. She needs to wait. She needs to-
“Won’t you take that out of your hair?” Duncan asks flatly, having gotten the windows open. It’s not raining, but it could; the air wafting into the room is cool and damp. She unconsciously touches the lopsided crown of flowers, meets his reproachful stare, knows he is likely angry with her for goading her brother into humbling him at a tourney her father demanded, for not saying a word to him all evening, for dancing and laughing and drinking instead, for being so obviously smug and gleeful at her success- good luck getting this annulled, she ought to scream- and she knows she should say, “Yes, my lord,” and take the stupid crown off and lay back and go somewhere else in her head, like Mother said.
“No,” she says instead. “Come now, husband, I thought you liked your women wild, with flowers in their hair? Shall I call for a tub and pretend to be bathing in a river? Then you could be the bold young knight who stumbled upon me, and I’ll run, and you can catch me-,”
“Stop it,” he snaps, as if she were a child throwing a tantrum in public. “Enough. We won't speak of that. Whatever you’ve heard- it’s baseless rumors, nothing more-,”
“So you do not keep a mistress at Summerhall?” Argella pretends at indifference, running her fingers through her curls. “My apologies.”
“Our wedding night,” he says tersely, “is no time to be discussing such things. You are my wife. I am your husband, in the eyes of the Seven. I do not ask that you forgive me, or like me. I only ask that you do your duty, as I have done mine.”
“Can a man count it as having done his duty when he must be practically bludgeoned over the head with it?” Argella asks coldly. “Is it like a cloak, then? You took it off at Oldstones, you slipped it back on when you returned to court-,”
“Argella,” he puts a hand to his face, his voice comes out muffled. “I understand that you are angry. You have every right to be angry. But I will not discuss this with you now.”
“Then when? Before you slip back to Summerhall to comfort her?” She may as well be screaming into the wind. It doesn’t matter. She’s hurting him. She finds she enjoys it. “They say she is barren, but if I do not fall with child within the year, perhaps the High Septon will annul our marriage on grounds of your weak seed. Then you could be with your Jenny, and I could wed Jaehaerys instead-,”
He strides over to her; she leans forward eagerly, anticipating the blow, because if he blackens an eye or splits a lip his mother will throttle him before her father even gets the chance- but instead he rips the flowers from her hair and hurls the crown Ormund gave her at the floor. It lands in a dusty, dark corner.
He clambers onto the bed, and she lays back; his hand skims her shift, then hesitates. Argella, still staring at the discarded crown, blindly yanks up the fabric for him. “It’s been a very long, difficult day for both of us,” he says, in a much calmer tone, trying to be gentle with her, to reassure her. As if she were quailing before him, the great monster who- gods forgive him- threw some flowers away. He’s not even good at being cruel. “We need to consummate it, but I don’t wish to injure you. We can go as slowly as you like-,”
“Given your recent misadventure, I trust you know what to do with a woman,” Argella says, still not looking at him. “Get on with it. I don’t wish to go anywhere slowly with you, Small Dunk.”
He gets on with it. It takes him a very long time to fall asleep beside her, afterwards. She doesn’t know if he’s wracked with guilt or anger, and frankly doesn’t care. Eventually, his breathing slows, and when he begins to softly snore she rolls over onto her side, as far from him on this bed that she can manage, closes her eyes tightly, puts her hand between her legs, and thinks of how Ellyn feels and smells and tastes. She does not cry, because she is a Baratheon and her eyes are closed and she means to fight to the bitter end.
The tourney concludes. The wedding festivities end. Her parents and Ormund return to Storm’s End. Ellyn returns to Stokeworth. Duncan spends three bitter months in her company at court, dutifully coming to her bedchamber once a week, and flees for Summerhall at the first opportunity. It does not rain again, and the days are long and hot. Argella spends much of her time in the gardens, lounging by a fountain she and Ellyn used to come to, when they were together at court. She’s an indolent woman; she’s no interest in needlework nor weaving, and she’s not terribly fond of reading either. Sometimes she plays cyvasse with Leona, or teaches Rhaelle how to play the lute, something she is proficient at.
Other times she goes out riding with Daeron and his closest friend, little Jeremy Norridge, and sometimes her Wylde cousins, Alys and Wynafrei, accompany them, or young Maegor and his jubilantly widowed mother, Daenora. They say Daenora wept with joy when Aerion drank wildfire and died screaming. Argella’s fondest wish as a little girl was to someday be a great widow herself, but she needs Duncan to get an heir on her first, something that is not going to happen with any haste with him so frequently gone. Still, as much as she would like to be a mother, she’s in no particular rush herself. It would infringe on her drinking.
They are coming back from the Kingswood when they’re alerted to some commotion within the throne room, where court should still be in session for the day. Argella exchanges a bemused look with Daeron, who dashes ahead, Norridge on his heels, and then takes Daenora’s slender arm and follows after, Maegor holding her other hand, at a much more sedate pace. It is late in the day, so the upper gallery is not as packed as it would have been earlier, but there is still audience a-plenty for what is playing out down below.
Aegon sits the throne, looking thunderstruck. Black Betha stands at the foot of the perilous steps, her hands clenched in unladylike fists at her sides. Murmurs and whispers abound. Aegon’s Hand looks as though someone just put an axe through his skull; all dull shock and bulging eyes. Argella almost smiles at the thought, but then she sees the two at the center of this storm; Jaehaerys and Shaera hold hands and a bloody sheet between them.
“Oh no,” Argella says in delight.
“Whoever the septon was, he’d best set sail for Essos,” Daenora muses beside her. “My cousin His Grace might have to call for his first head.”
“You broke your own betrothal to our aunt Daella to wed our mother,” Jaehaerys addresses his father with the stiff manners of a terrified but determined lad of fifteen. “Now I ask that you honor the marriage betwixt Shaera and myself, as your own father did yours.”
“Wait for it,” Daeron mutters, torn between disgust and begrudging impress at their daring. Argella would not have thought mild-mannered Jaehaerys and demure little Shaera capable of it either. He mouths along as Shaera opens her mouth.
“Your Grace, please, I love him!”