Chapter Text
Conspiring with Queens
Rhaegar II
The little princess looks so much like her mother, the sister Rhaegar was forced to make a wife too soon: pale skin and red apple cheeks and tight silver-white curls, their wildness offset by her soft lavender eyes. His heart aches as the wetnurse sets his first child in his arms. Even after a moon’s turn of being in King’s Landing and coming to the nursery each night, Rhaegar still sees Shaena in all of Daella’s pudgy baby features.
Rhaegar is familiar enough with children, on account of having five younger siblings, though he seldom held them. As he does every night, Rhaegar raises the babe to his shoulder and whispers in her ear in High Valyrian, telling her how much her mother loved her. “You were much beloved. Even before your birth, your mother was excited to have you in our lives, little flame.”
Daella will always be more Shaena’s daughter than his own, he thinks as he cradles this babe in his arms. And for his sister-wife’s sake, he will protect her with everything he has and everything he is. Shaena was four years younger than he, barely a year past her first moonblood when their father demanded that the siblings be wedded and bedded.
Still speaking in his mother tongue, Rhaegar swears a solemn vow to their daughter, the one he made the first time he saw her. “You will not have your mother’s fate, sweet one. Your future is your own to make.”
From the moment of Shaena’s birth, she had been betrothed to Rhaegar. Aerys delighted in his daughter, small and female through she was. On her visits to court, he would hold her high for all the nobles to see and proudly introduce her as “your queen-in-waiting!”
Daella had a twin brother, but he died stillborn. If another brother ever follows, she will not marry him unless she wishes. Rhaegar will see that her choices are her own, damn the political consequences.
In his arms, his daughter squalls. Rhaegar passes Daella to the wetnurse. She slips into the side room where her own babe sleeps to nurse in private. Soon enough, the two children will be joined by another. The entire castle waits with breath bated to see whether Rhaella’s last child will be a prince or princess, and whether the dowager queen will survive her seventh childbirth.
Fresh pink blossoms stand in a vase beside Daella’s cradle and a bright yellow flower hangs on the wall above. Shaena would have known what flowers they were. She kept flowers in the small corner of the royal gardens, and always said that the sunlight gave her strength and chased away the lingering cough that never quite left.
Someone slips through the door to the nursery, startling Rhaegar from his floral reverie. The king takes his grandmother’s hand and kneels before her, kissing her fingertips and bringing them to his forehead. “Your grace.”
“Oh, my sweet boy. I thought I would find you here.” The elder Dowager Queen sighs. “Stand up.”
Shaera Targaryen is a small woman, even shorter and slimmer than her daughter. She looks twice her fifty years, her face beset by wrinkles and spots and her once-black hair streaked with stripes of grey. But her eyes are still the same laughing lavender they have been all her life, though their familiar fire has dimmed.
She takes him by the shoulders to study him, and he half expects her to levy a criticism with the gentle precision she used throughout his childhood. Shaena instead brushes off a speck of dirt from his doublet and smiles. “You will make a fine king, Rhaegar. I believe a finer one than even my own father, gods rest his soul.”
Feeling suddenly sheepish, he glances at the floor. “Lady grandmother, surely saying that is not what brings you to the nursery at this late hour.”
“I wanted to inform you that I have made a decision about my future.” She says, sweeping into a seat in a plush chair by the nursery hearth.
“A decision? I didn’t know there was a question.” He settles into the chair besides her.
“I have been accepted as a sister at the Motherhouse of Maris in Gulltown. Once Rhaella’s babe is safely delivered, I will leave the Red Keep within a fortnight.”
Rhaegar doesn’t know how to say his greatest fears, to speak into existence troubles with his mother’s birth. “Surely she will need you. Muna has only ever had you to guide her in a queen’s ways.”
“When I was born, my grandfather was king. Now, I am grandmother to the king. It is past my time, and past time Rhaella be allowed to manage royal affairs without my oversight.”
“But your family is here. Surely that means something.”
She scoffs. “What family? Daughter, wife, and mother of kings. Now all those kings are dead. My daughter is dutiful, but she is not loving. And why should she be? I let her grandfather and father marry her to Aerys too young; let my son hurt her in so many ways. I fought for her, but not hard enough.”
Rhaegar knows the relationship between mother and daughter, dowager queen and dowager queen, is tenuous at best. “What of your family’s love? The princes will need your guidance. I will need your guidance.”
“Dragons were not made for love. It does not exist, not in our house.”
“You married Grandfather for love.”
“Yes, but what became of our willful pride and youthful lust?” Shaera asks. “The ladies of my court, my former friends? They spurned me for my shame, for the secret marriage and the bloody blanket flown before the court in defiance of a king. Many of them admired Luthor Tyrell. More loved Celia Tully, kind and sweet as she was. Who was I against their popularity, ever increased by their grace when Jaehaerys and I had disgraced them?
“And after Rhaella’s birth, our bond burned out. My brother refused my bed, though I begged him for more children. We lived apart for the rest of our father’s reign, me with the children at Dragonstone, him in the Red Keep governing the realm. Even after Summerhall, when I could have given him another son, he rode off to fight against the Band of Nine.” Shaera shakes her head and stares into the banked fire in the hearth. “No, my marriage was not loving, and you saw what became of your parents’ love, what little they had to start. It too turned to ash.”
He sighs. “You are set on this, on leaving us?”
“I am.”
Rhaegar had hoped for time to mend those crumbling walls and build a stronger dynastic connection. But could such a foundation be saved? If his grandmother believed these things about their family, surely she would not be conducive for bringing them all closer. He has four robust brothers, a healthy daughter, his mother’s babe on the way. He will not be a new Viserys, to let discontent and strife and ego create fissures that crack apart the realm into a second Dance of the Dragons.
“I would have you return, at least once a year, so my brothers will still know you. Beyond that, write me often and inform me of the needs of the motherhouse. The funds are yours, whatever is needed for your own comfort and that of the septas who care for you. Whatever you may have of me, it will be yours.”
“Thank you, my boy.” Shaera takes his hand, and they are silent together for a long while. Eventually, she breaks the silence. “. . . perhaps it is a good thing your sister died as she did. Marriage between siblings seldom ends in love, not since the Spring Prince took Viserra for his second wife.”
Rhaegar drops her hand and strikes out defensively, voice more harsh than he is used to using with anyone, let alone his revered grandmother. “Shaena and I may not have loved each other as husband and wife, but she was still my sister.”
Shaera looks at him with all the wisdom of one who has lived intimately in the courts of four kings, and with all the judgement of a fool who knew the moment that made her foolish. “Your sister who loved your brother better. The strife of broken hearts like those . . . it could destroy kingdoms.”
Tywin Lannister, Lord of Casterly Rock, Warden of the West, and Hand of the King, is in his mid-thirties, with a head of thick golden hair and pale green eyes. He was long a dutiful advisor to Aerys, even as their relations grew tense when the king’s wandering eyes fell upon Tywin’s lovely wife Joanna.
Rhaegar considered asking his cousin Lucerys Velaryon to be Hand, at first, until Daeron comes of age. Tywin was a better fit, despite attempts to run the small council meetings as he did when Aerys was king, by leading and allowing the king to follow his fancy elsewhere. But Rhaegar means to be a better king than his father, and so here he sits while they discuss the issues of the realm.
The Hand is adept, cunning, resourceful. The people loved and still love his sister, but it is Tywin they fear. From that, Rhaegar hoped to grow respect from the lords and smallfolk both.
And yet, as the small council meeting draws towards it close, Rhaegar finds himself regretting his decision.
“Have you given any thought to a marriage, your grace?” Tywin says. “Many in the court are wondering what noble maiden you will make your wife.”
Tywin takes no slights well, even from a king. Rhaegar must tread carefully with his words. Tywin did not reject his decision when he sent Jaime Lannister into exile for killing his father during their assault on Duskendale. The action was meant to save Rhaegar's life and so the other knights in their company were sworn to secrecy, but it was still an action that needed consequence.
But Tywin’s insolence is legendary too. His daughter, wife, and second son arrived nary a moon after they returned to the City. Cersei Lannister has played constant attendance to her father since, doubtless to attract the king’s attention.
“I have four strong brothers and am young myself,” Rhaegar tells Lord Tywin, trying to keep the agitation from his voice. “What need have I of a wife yet?”
Four strong brothers, each mourning their deranged father and sweet Shaena in his own way. Daeron, who has accepted his place as both heir and advisor, but still clearly blames Rhaegar for killing the gentle sister he loved so well. he has forgiven, or so Rhaegar thinks, but Daeron will never forget. Aegon, who barely leaves the training yard or stables despite how hard it is for him to lift a lance. Jaehaerys, dour and dreamy, who hides in his books and the library tower reading about the dragons they will never know.
And Viserys, the youngest son of Aerys and Rhaella, who will never truly know the father he idolizes. Viserys rarely leaves their mother’s side, and when he does he stays close to his grandmother or eldest brother.
“You need an heir, your grace.” Lord Staunton says, still master of laws until the crown is placed on Rhaegar’s head. Then he intends to make more changes.
“The succession is secure. I have a sixth sibling, soon to come, who may be another prince.” And perhaps a king too, if he never marries again or has a son. If Daella is his heir, a younger uncle could support her against the rest. Rhaegar does not believe ill of his brothers, but they are still young and young men, especially princes, crave power.
Tywin is example enough of that, goading as he is. Later in the conversation, when they have veered from talk of wives and queens, he places a personal request. Rhaegar is readying to leave the small council chambers and return to his own as Tywin lingers, the other lords withdrawn.
“My daughter Cersei has enjoyed her life so far in the Red Keep, your grace. Despite the present circumstances of mourning.” He at least has the grace to acknowledge the black they all wear.
Rhaegar nods. “I am glad she finds our city and castle so welcoming.”
“Might I inquire, could she remain here, once the coronation celebrations are complete?”
Rhaegar knows what Tywin wants, but he will make the lord ask for it. It is the least he can do, to assert his authority as the true king. He manages, “Your family is always welcome in my halls, Lord Tywin. You are a leal and loyal vassal, and I am always glad of the presence of you and yours.”
Tywin looks like he has been made to swallow several frogs. “Would there be a place for her among your mother’s ladies?”
“I believe my mother would be happy for her service. I will ask her when I see her on the morrow.”
Tywin nods his head in acknowledgement. “Thank you, your grace.”
As Rhaegar goes back towards his apartments to ready himself for his evening meal with his younger brothers, he wonders how to address Tywin’s bald ambition. Perhaps his daughter would make a good queen. He does not know. Rhaegar has not interacted with her much before her arrival. But Shaena is too recently deceased for him to think about a bride, as he has told them all time and again.
Rhaegar can hardly refuse Tywin’s request, nor can Rhaella. It would be a grievous insult to assert that the Lord Hand’s daughter is not a fit companion though he is fit to serve the king.
He ponders these circumstances as he eats with his brothers, all of them quiet and lost in their own thoughts.
“How are you feeling, Muna?” Rhaegar asks as he sits on the low stool besides his mother’s plush divan, just abandoned by her companion. Outside, the bright orange dawn of a new day is spreading across King’s Landing and the red keep. Alaena Velaryon, her lady-in-waiting, curtsies and vacates the chamber in silence. The remnants of their breakfast are scattered on a nearby table. As he watches Alaena go in a flurry of sea green skirts, Rhaegar ponders the betrothal once briefly considered between him and his cousin, before he had a sister to take to wife, and if her uncle Lord Lucerys will bring it up again.
“Ready to birth this babe.” Rhaella shifts so she is in an upright position, shooing Rhaegar away when he moves to assist. “Even if your father were still living, I am sure she would be my last.”
“Is there anything else I can have brought for you?”
“No, I am well-attended. Alaena’s presence is a godsend.” Rhaella glances slyly at her son. “She’s been reading to me from that book of songs. Look and see if there are any you do not know.”
He briefly flipped through the pages of the blue songbook. The titles were familiar to him, or otherwise irrelevant references to Florian the Fool and other romances. The kinds of songs that Shaena and Alaena had loved to sing together, but nothing on the pages struck him.
Rhaegar takes Rhaella’s hand in his own and smiles sadly. “You know there is only one song that interests me yet.”
“Ah, yes. Your song of ice and fire.”
“Not my song. My children’s song. The dragon must have three heads, and I am meant to be their father.”
Rhaella raises her eyebrows and gives her son a pointed look. “A father must have a woman to make a mother.”
“Shaena passed four moons ago. She is barely burnt and buried. Surely you do not want to see your own daughter so easily replaced?” Again he thinks of Alaena, a descendant of Princess Rhae Targaryen and her husband Lord Jacaerys Velaryon. Was she so frequently near the queen that Rhaella considered her as a prospect? Or does his mother want him to wait for her baby to be born, for him to marry a second sister in thirteen years or more? She could very well be carrying another girl, and such a plan might explain her strong confidence that her child is a princess. Rhaegar grimaces. No Targaryen in recent memory has married two sisters, not since the Spring Prince two hundred years ago, but it had been done before when the firstborn sister died too soon. No matter whether the child is a prince or princess, the babe will be as a sibling to his own daughter. Not a princess meant to be a wife.
“Of course not, my sweet son. Wipe that look of consternation off your face. I would rather have Shaena back than my husband, would give up all the jewels and luxuries of our keep to bring her to life.” Rhaella takes his face between her hands. She tenderly caresses his cheeks. “But such a hope cannot be. So instead I wish for you to find happiness, for Daella to have many siblings and cousins for her friends, for our house to be secure.”
Rhaegar closes his eyes, accepting his mother’s touch for a moment, before pulling away. Rhaella brushes a loose lock of his curly silver hair behind his ears. “Enough of a marriage that will not be for a longtime yet. Speak to me of that which really brought you here.”
“Much and more, Muna.” He stands and pours tea from the silver pot warming on her breakfast table. Passing a cup into his mother’s hands, he settles back on the stool and begins the list of items for her consideration. His concerns are mostly around his formal coronation, which will be held in a moon’s time once the formal period of mourning is over for King Aerys the Second. Silently, Rhaegar knows both he and his mother finished their mourning days ago, perhaps even weeks.
They discuss his choices of crowns, finally agreeing that he would wear Maekar’s crown, rather than his father’s, with a delicate red-gold circlet to match commissioned for Daella. The date had been set for the first day of the new year, an auspicious date according to the maesters. Rhaella’s babe was due early in the first moon; the coronation was the only leave she would have from her confinement. The midwives fretted over it, and even Grand Maester Pycelle agreed, but the queen insisted on seeing the crown placed on her son’s head. Many others would see it, too. The list of lords in attendance was growing by the day, and the first of them were set to arrive in only a few more days.
“What of my cousins?” Rhaella asks. “Few though they are, I would enjoy seeing their faces at such an occasion.”
“I’ve summoned Lord Baratheon and Lady Cassana from Volantis. They will be taking ship to Storm’s End to fetch their sons for the occasion.”
Rhaella smiles over the rim of her teacup. “It has been some time since I have seen their sons. I don’t think young Renly has ever been to court. It will be good to see them. Do they bring brides for your brothers?”
“I asked them to cease the negotiations. I may marry one to an Essosi, but not all of them. There are more important things than blood purity, at least in my new reign.”
Rhaella raises a thin silver eyebrow and sips again. Rhaegar answers the unspoken. “Strong, healthy heirs, without the taint of madness. Loyalty from the lords of other realms, not just the crownlands or stormlands. Abundant dowries.”
“Tell me of your plans for my other sons.”
“Muna, I would not set a plan without your consent - ”
“I was a queen, once. I know the look of a king, the gaze in his eye as he contemplates and schemes. Include me, please. Though I know your father never wanted my advice, I still tried to give it in my own way.” She sets a hand on her swollen belly. “I know you do not mean to cut me out, but my current state does not make me weak. Only pregnant.”
“I know, Muna. I’m sorry.” He says sheepishly. “As for my brothers . . . your advice and consultation would be appreciated. Always. I seek to make betrothals for my brothers, to secure alliances amongst the kingdoms. Lord Varys hears whispers of another Blackfyre, far to the east beyond the Free Cities. I would like to be ready with a unified Westeros if these rumors prove true.”
“Should I expect a second husband?”
“Only if you choose him. You have enough for this family. At the hands of this family.” Rhaegar knows his mother well enough. She is about to ask more questions, offer her assistance. So he shares the rest of his scheme, though the plan is still only half-formed. “You do have a role in all this, though. Perhaps more important than even marrying a maiden for our house.”
“Mhm?”
“Lord Tywin has asked that his daughter be allowed to stay in your service after the coronation.”
“Which would put Cersei often near you. He was always sly, Tywin, though much of that cleverness is borne from the ideas of his lady wife.” A dark look crowds Rhaella’s face. “I’m sure this is her ploy.”
“I can ask him quietly to send Lady Joanna away, if you’d like, Muna. She does not need to enter the keep.”
“I will not have your reign sullied by petty disagreements of the past.” Rhaella responds, though her once-friend’s almost-affair with the King of the Seven Kingdoms was hardly a petty disagreement. “Besides, I know you better than they. The Lannisters are not so clever if they think you will be enticed by maid not far past her first flowering. Not when your last child bride died in the birthing bed.”
“Yes, but his request has birthed my plan.” Rhaella leans forward, intrigued, but her face winces in pain and she touches her lower back. Rhaegar takes a foot off the divan and slowly rubs circles on it, as he has seen her ladies do. She smiles in gratitude. Continuing, he says, “I’d like to form bonds with the great lords, as the last Aegon failed to do. Once the babe is birthed and you are relieved from your bedrest, I would ask you to invite eligible maidens from across the seven kingdoms to serve in your retinue, as the orphans of Summerhall did in our youth. We can consider them, as brides for my brothers. If the noble daughters are close at hands, my brothers might grow fond of their brides and not think of straying from their marital duties.”
“Very good, my son. Cersei Lannister will be one of these maidens, among the many. Pray tell me then, who are these other women who might marry my sons and be mothers to the next generation of our family?”
“Cousins of mine, daughters and sisters of the great houses.” He says and list names, his mother nodding in recognition. “And any you think to invite, for consideration as my brother’s wives, or just to keep you company.”
“So these women will join me here as a part of my court. What after, if they are not betrothed? Surely their families will feel slighted.”
“They need not know that betrothal is an option. They may think it, but the honor first and foremost is to serve the queen and her newborn babe.” Rhaegar shrugs. “They need not even be invited here. You’re free. To leave this palace, to have whoever you’d like in your company. Take the women to Dragonstone if you’d like, or on a progress. So long as they are in the queen’s company, no one will complain.”
She levels a look at him, like a displeased cat. “But they won’t be in a queen’s company, Rhaegar. Your wife will be queen, not me.”
“Some day, but not yet.” He levels a similar gaze at his muna, and continues as if she had not made the comment. “Can you think of an maiden of the north, to help reforge those distant bonds? There are few eligible women with noble enough blood to marry a prince. I thought perhaps the Manderly girl, though she is older than I and soon to be married to Lord Hornwood.”
“Why not Lyanna Stark, Lord Rickard’s daughter? She’s of an age with Aegon, and a cousin besides.”
Rhaegar’s brow furrows. “No Targaryen has ever married a Stark, or any northerner. The Pact of Ice and Fire was never fulfilled after Daena and Elaena had their bastards and Rhaena her vows.”
“You have blood besides that of House Targaryen in my veins, my son. My grandmother was Betha Blackwood, as you well know. Her niece Melantha was Lady of Winterfell.” She flexes her feet, and pulls away from his hands and back to her divan. “Lyanna is a cousin of sorts, even from a different tree than the others you have summoned. Bring her to court. With Elia Martell, she is the only cousin related to a lord paramount.”
“That is wise of you, Muna. I’m sure one of them will make a good wife for one of my brothers.” Rhaegar stands and kisses his mother on the forehead. “I must go meet with my small council, and oversee my brothers’ training in arms.” His mother looks at him as if she has something more to add. “Yes, Muna?”
“You will be a wise king, Rhaegar, but I worry you will be a lonely one.”