Princess Rhaenyra Targaryen
Bertha Celtigar once again adjusted the pillows that had slipped from behind the Princess's back and said with a measure of concern:
"You fuss as if your labor pains are about to begin." Having grown close to her ladies-in-waiting, Rhaenyra had permitted them to address her without ceremony.
"I fuss because I am weary of sitting in one place and being fat as an elephant," she grumbled in reply; the elephants she had seen in the menagerie here, behind the Black Verge, seemed a far better comparison than the accustomed dragons.
"Not much time remains," Bertha comforted her. "Maester Gerardys is so certain..."
"The maesters were certain about my mother as well," Rhaenyra snapped.
Lady Celtigar pursed her lips in offense for a moment but immediately softened and stroked her hand soothingly:
"Forgive me, I should not have spoken of that."
The Princess jerked her head and, marking her page in the book with a finger, turned to the slightly open window. The wind drifting from the gardens barely stirred the thin, almost weightless and translucent curtains, but a pleasant freshness reigned in the chambers nonetheless. The Great Archon's Palace, like Dragonstone, had been erected before the Doom by one of the last Valyrian viceroys of Tyrosh; then the Archon of Tyrosh, elected by the magisters, had lived in it; now the King and Queen of the Stepstones resided there, but the name remained the same. Within its walls, one was comfortable both in the damp autumn weather and, it was said, in the summer heat: of the first Rhaenyra was already convinced and could not wait for summer to be assured of the second. The Tyroshi autumn proved no less vile than autumn on the Blackwater.
When the weather and the maesters permitted walks in the palace gardens, the Princess would occasionally recall the song about the blue birds listening to the lamentations of the enslaved daughter of the viceroy, and wondered if she owed her new home to that girl's father. Daemon liked the song terribly, and not a single feast or reception passed without the court orchestra performing it, and the troupe of blue-haired dancers repeating their bird-like movements before the court.
"I received a letter from Laena," Bethany spoke to change the subject, and thrust her needle into a wide ribbon, as if putting a full stop to a reply.
"Has something happened?"
"No, save that her belly is already larger than yours, and everyone around is certain she expects twins."
"Poor thing," Rhaenyra sympathized with her friend. "Even with one..."
"I fear now that it shall be the same for me," Bethany confessed. "Such things were not seen among the Strongs, but Tygett's father had a twin, and his mother had elder twin sisters."
The daughter of the late Lord Strong, together with her uncle, sister, and little cousins, had moved to Tyrosh, where only a couple of months later Tygett Lanny, himself barely made a lord, had asked for her hand. After the wedding, the new Lady Lanny remained at court with her husband while stonemasons carved their castle from the coastal cliffs of Essos, which the distant descendant of Lann the Clever named Lion's Maw.
"Do not think of it before the time," Bertha advised.
"Easy for you to say—your lord uncle is in no great hurry to find someone for you."
"Lord Bartimos believes I am of more use here than in the castle of some lord."
"I agree with him," Rhaenyra said dryly, and Bertha smiled again, accepting the veiled apology.
It was unlikely Lord Bartimos was so greatly concerned with Bertha's usefulness, but the cipher of a lady-in-waiting to the Queen of Tyrosh truly meant more than the title of wife to a petty lord, which shone for the daughter of the younger brother of the Master of Claw Isle. Of course, her role at court meant much in the eyes of potential suitors, and a pair of heirs of former magisters had already sought her hand, but Lord Celtigar for some reason dragged his feet and gave no consent to the marriage. To be sure, the old families left out of affairs tried to find allies among the Westerosi nobility as quickly as possible, but the latter were in no hurry to welcome them.
On the other hand, time passed, and Bertha might sit too long as a spinster, and with her appearance, this was not to be done. Like many Celtigar women, Rhaenyra's friend was thin and somewhat flat, possessed slightly angular features which, of course, did not make her ugly, but neither did they allow her to be considered a beauty. Perhaps Bertha's only virtue could be called her expressive sapphire eyes, the legacy of old Valyrian blood. Some courtier, wishing to flatter her, had mentioned her thick pale-gold hair as a gift of her ancestors, but it bore no comparison to the hair of Rhaenyra herself or Laena and in color resembled straw rather than noble metal. And yet the Princess pitied her friend: if she were kept a maiden because of her looks, it would be terribly unjust; perhaps she should write to Lord Bartimos and suggest a couple of candidates...
From beyond the window came a sharp, gurgling dragon roar. Caraxes. So, Daemon had returned. Rhaenyra pursed her lips in displeasure. A few months ago, she would have run to meet him, and no belly would have been a hindrance, but now pregnancy had become a convenient excuse to remain in her chambers.
Having not spent a year in marriage, the Princess was disappointed by how quickly the passion that had scorched her and Daemon at first had subsided and burned out. Since childhood, Rhaenyra had been aware that she was a Princess of the House of the Dragon. By right of birth, she had received a dragon egg in her cradle, and this opened the sky to her; however, besides this road, others were open to her, trodden mostly by men: politics and war.
Uncle Aegon had tormented her considerably in his time with the High Language, and Tyroshi, and history, so she understood something of court life. She had, of course, been forbidden to participate in the conquest of the Stepstones, but now, after settling in Tyrosh, she could well travel through her kingdom, as the Conquerors and the Old King with the Good Queen had done, to unite her lands and demonstrate to vassals and subjects the proximity of the ruling family to them.
However, Daemon allowed her to do neither one nor the other. All attempts to take part in discussing the governance of the city met with soft laughter, a mocking smile, or a significant grunt, invariably followed by a change of subject, occasionally supplied with a remark about the unbearable boredom of state affairs. regarding visits, her spouse took a far more rigid and unequivocal position: as soon as she became pregnant, he began to let her fly only in his company, and Caraxes always keenly watched where Syrax flew, not letting her rise too high or fly further from Tyrosh than a pitiful couple of leagues. The she-dragon took this for signs of attention and, unlike her rider, readily tolerated them, allowing herself to be guarded.
Daemon's own behavior brought no joy either. Not only was he in Tyrosh only by fits and starts, spending more than half his time in King's Landing, but upon his return, her spouse did not spoil her with his attention. After Maester Gerardys, brought by him from Dragonstone, finally confirmed her pregnancy, Daemon moved to separate chambers and ceased to visit her. It reached the point where he might look in on her only once or twice a day, pleading business, and ceremonies, receptions, and feasts began to be held less often under the pretext that she could not attend them.
Did this infuriate her? Unbearably. Did she want to consign Tyrosh with its Black Verge to dragon fire once more? Every day.
However, an inner voice, which for some reason was strangely similar to Uncle Aegon's irony-filled voice, time and again gave the city another day, and she herself gave her husband a chance, hoping for something and believing that this very day something would change. The city might have stood, but her spouse was in no hurry to change.
"Has the King returned?" Bertha clarified the obvious. In Tyrosh, only Daemon could be called "King" even without any qualifications; of her father, they spoke more wordily: "His Grace King Viserys".
"Evidently," Rhaenyra shrugged indifferently.
"Tygett said he wanted to fly around the islands," Bethany remarked.
The Princess shrugged again, showing her indifference to royal affairs. Seeing her lack of interest, Lady Lanny returned to her sewing: on the ribbon, lion heads framed the green-red-blue stripes from the Strong sigil.
Rhaenyra sighed and returned to the "Deeds of the Archons". The Tyroshi chronicle from the Century of Blood told of the war with Volantis with a scope worthy of true dragon riders, not their wingless successors, and clearly distorted events, completely disregarding the accuracy of the numbers given, but it was captivating enough, especially when it came to the intrigues of the magisters. When she shared this observation with Uncle Aegon in a letter, he praised her for the correct conclusions as in childhood and almost seriously offered to send her the work of a certain maester from the Citadel and the notes of a Braavosi contemporary of the war, allegedly having more impartial judgments. Rhaenyra wrote the answer to him in Tyroshi, announcing that she would study her subjects from Tyroshi sources.
From the description of another naval battle between Tyroshi galleys and the Volantene fleet, terribly long and impossibly similar to the previous ones, she grew sleepy. For a time, the Princess fought sleep, jerking her head up from her chest under Bertha's reproachful gaze, but in the end, she did not notice herself losing this battle.
She woke from the book slipping from her hands; Rhaenyra started in surprise and opened her eyes. Much time must have passed, for it had begun to grow dusk outside the window, and candles had been brought into the room, already noticeably burned down. Beside her stood Daemon, thoughtfully leafing through the "Deeds"; the ladies-in-waiting were nowhere to be seen.
"Tormenting yourself with reading?" he asked, shutting the book.
"Amusing myself," Rhaenyra grumbled. She reached for the tome, but Daemon lifted it higher with a thin smirk.
"You are out of sorts again, my dear," the King concluded.
"Oh, so my mood has begun to interest you?"
"You are my wife. Should such things not interest a husband?"
"They have not interested you overly much of late."
"I was occupied, you know," Daemon shrugged, as if even somewhat offended. "It is not so simple to be Hand and simultaneously rule your father's seventh kingdom."
"Then perhaps it is better to leave one thing?" Rhaenyra asked venomously, knowing perfectly well that her husband would sooner throw himself on Dark Sister than give up anything he had received from the Iron Throne. Even her.
With his free hand, Daemon grabbed her chin, jerking her head up. Her heart skipped a beat and beat faster; he wouldn't... Or would he?
"Insolent," Daemon drawled with some grim satisfaction. The grip seemed to weaken, and his thumb, dry and hot, brushed her lips. Rhaenyra only clenched her jaw; she did not want to play by his rules.
"I am weary, Daemon," she announced, freeing herself. "I am going to sleep."
She got up somehow from the low sofa (the bastard did not even offer to help!), and pressing a hand to her lower back, more for show than out of need, hobbled away. Passing her husband, she snatched the book from him after all. Naturally, only because he allowed her to take it.
"I had counted on you keeping me company at supper," he threw at her back. "I urged Caraxes on all the way to arrive by sunset."
"I feel sick."
What exactly made her sick the Princess did not explain, and the unspoken question hung in the fresh air of the palace like someone's ghost.
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