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237 AC
“I want to be a knight, not a husband,” Daeron sulked on the night he was to meet his betrothed. His mother combed out his silver hair and skillfully twisted it into a braid behind his back as a maid fastened up the buttons on his high-collared black doublet. He was not yet ten; what need had he of a wife?
“And you’ll be a knight,” his mother told him calmly, running her hands along his shoulders. “First you’ll be a squire, then a knight, and then a husband.” She turned Daeron to face her and placed a kiss on his forehead. He squirmed away, conscious of the servants moving about around them, and scuffed his boot against the rug.
“This is only a betrothal, my little prince,” his mother assured him. “You will not wed for many years yet.”
Daeron glared at nothing in particular. “I don’t want to go down to the feast. I don’t want to meet her.” Once he met her, the pledge his parents had made on his behalf would seem all the more final; he would not feel so free to dream of swords and wars and great heroic deeds when the banality of marriage hung over his head like a great sharp axe.
His mother laughed. “Your father will be waiting for us.”
A servant opened the great heavy door to Daeron’s chambers and Daeron bolted; he heard his mother scramble out into the hallway behind him, and he was nearly to the narrow staircase leading to the kitchens when a giant in the gleaming white armor of his father’s Kingsguard scooped him up.
“Running from something, little prince?” Ser Duncan asked, and Daeron reflected ponderously on the indignity of being carried to the great hall slung over Ser Duncan’s shoulder like a sack of potatoes.
“Put me down,” Daeron tried to command, but Ser Duncan only laughed. He laughed kindly, but he laughed all the same.
“I’ll put you down so long as you promise to let me escort you to the feast with your mother.”
“I promise,” Daeron mumbled, and then he was back on his feet, Ser Duncan on one side and his mother the queen on the other, and there was nowhere to go but down the great stone steps to the feast.
It was a very boring feast. Daeron greeted his intended with all the courtesies his mother and septon had taught him, and she greeted him with an easy grace that made Daeron feel clumsy. Her hair was a shocking shade of orange, curling wild over her shoulders, and Daeron didn’t like her smile. It was a false smile, he realized when they had been seated together in a place of honor. It was a false smile, just like his.
239 AC
Even in winter, Highgarden was a beautiful place. Ice clung to the white towers and spires, making them glisten like the icicles that hung from the ramparts. Daeron looked wistfully out at the training yard, where he should have been practicing with all the other squires. But today Daeron was to be a prince again; the Redwynes were to arrive soon, and it would not do for Daeron to greet his intended in clothing stained with sweat and mud.
“Well, I want to meet Lenny the Carrot,” Jeremy Norridge said, taking a bite from an apple he had stolen from the kitchens. Even in winter, Highgarden’s stores of fruit rarely ran dry. Jeremy was sat on the edge of Daeron’s bed, kicking his legs against the side, seemingly unconcerned that the master-at-arms had not excused him for the day and would likely punish him for his absence later.
Lenny the Carrot was what Daeron had taken to calling her, although not in his family’s hearing, but his family was not listening now, and had not been since Daeron had been sent to squire at Highgarden the year before. Only Jeremy listened now, and sometimes Luthor Tyrell, but Jeremy could be bitingly rude, and Luthor--a few years older than the both of them and promised to one of Daeron’s sisters--was a dolt.
“What if I become king, and I have a carrot queen?” Daeron despaired. He could see the Redwyne banners at the gates, a cluster of grapes on a blue field. Carrots and grapes, he thought glumly, and I don’t like either.
“You can be the onion king,” Jeremy said around a bite of apple, “because your hair is the color of onions.”
“It’s silver.” Daeron’s father had once told him that it did a prince good to surround himself with friends unafraid to speak the truth, but Daeron didn’t think friends should be so bold as Jeremy was.
“Onions are silver,” Jeremy said. He slid off the bed and ruffled Daeron’s hair as he walked past him. He was Daeron’s age, though he stood several inches taller, and his hair was as dark as Daeron’s was light. Daeron shouldered him into the doorframe as they left the room, but Jeremy had him in a headlock by the time they got to the bottom of the stairs, and by the time they spilled out into the courtyard to meet the Redwyne retinue, Daeron’s braid was a tangled mess and Jeremy’s nose was trickling blood from an elbow he had taken to the face.
***
The wheelhouse creaked to a stop in the great courtyard beneath the gates of Highgarden, and Lady Olenna Redwyne, all of one-and-ten, stepped out to see two boys tussling in the mud and snow as knights tried to pull them apart. To one side stood Lord Tyrell, a portly man in the garish greens the Tyrells favored; next to him was a boy a few years older than Olenna, snow in his wild brown curls and a look of bewilderment on his face.
“Prince Daeron!”’ Lord Tyrell finally bellowed, and the boys disentangled themselves with another bout of shoving. The first boy to stand was the one Olenna had been promised to: Prince Daeron Targaryen, the fourth child of Aegon V. His shining hair and violet eyes gave him away; the boy he had been fighting with was tall and lean, but dark where Daeron was fair.
Olenna hated both of them. She hated the second one even more when he spoke.
“Lenny the Carrot,” he said to her, and bowed. “Your prince has told me of your beauty.”
Prince Daeron shot his friend a horrified look. “Jeremy--”
Olenna pulled her gloved hands out of her muff and leapt forward, knocking Jeremy off his feet and back into the dirt. She had played this game with her brothers back in the Arbor, before she was deemed too old for anything but singing and sewing, but if a prince could behave in such a manner, why not a lady?
She was shoving a clump of wet dirt into Jeremy’s mouth when strong hands pulled her away. She could hear her septa’s despairing wails and the gasps and whispers of her ladies-in-waiting, but all she saw was the stunned look on Prince Daeron’s face as his friend was dragged to his feet and led from the courtyard.
“My lady,” Lord Tyrell blustered, looking around him uncertainly, “House Tyrell is honored to welcome you to Highgarden.”
Olenna curtsied, glad her uncles had accompanied her on this journey and not her parents. Her uncles would be a sight more likely to overlook her lack of decorum. “I am honored to be here.”
***
“Lenny the Carrot,” Daeron mumbled sullenly into the fifth course placed before him. It was roast pig, basted in fine seasonings and dripping with grease, but he didn’t touch it.
“Daeron the Dirty,” Olenna mumbled back, cutting a slice of meat for herself. They had pride of place in the great hall, but after the feast their punishments for the day’s antics would begin. Olenna’s uncles had been amused by her scuffle in the yard, as she had known they would be, but her septas insisted she be confined to her guest chambers for the duration of her visit to Highgarden, except for such diplomatic excursions as would be required of her. Those, Olenna thought morosely, would be few enough.
It heartened Olenna to know that Daeron would receive much the same punishment; and worse, his father the king would be informed of his less than princely deportment. Jeremy was nowhere to be seen at the feast, and that pleased Olenna even more. She may not have acted a highborn lady today, but she would not be insulted by a squire from a lesser house.
“Do they teach ladies to fight so well in the Arbor?” Daeron asked. Olenna knew his tone; he spoke in the clipped, polite way she herself used when trying to insult someone under the guise of flattery.
“They do.” Olenna dabbed grease from her chin with a thick napkin. “Just as the Tyrells teach dragons to wallow in the mud like pigs.”
Daeron took the insult in silence, and so Olenna went back to her roast pig. She was too old to pick fights, she knew, and a girl at that; it was her place to smile and nod and sing and dance and one day marry whoever was placed in front of her by her parents. A dragon had been placed in front of her, no matter how dirty and sullen a dragon he was, and she was to make the best of it, as her mother had done, as her grandmother had done, as women had done since the world began. She had been given a handsome prince, and that made her luckier than most, but she had been given all the same.
Women only married for love in the songs, and though Olenna had a lovely voice, she did not much like to sing.
240 AC
Daeron took the stairs to the rookery two at a time, a grin on his face and Jeremy at his heels. The maester had sent a page to fetch Daeron from the training yard; a raven had come from King’s Landing, bearing the king’s own seal. Normally the message would be delivered to Daeron in his quarters, and he had worried briefly that such urgency meant ill tidings, but the realm was at peace, and Daeron hoped for a letter from his father.
The maester was not alone in the rookery; Lord Tyrell stood with Luthor, their faces hard as stone. Daeron had never seen them look so dour, and he froze when the maester saw him.
“We have news from King’s Landing,” the old man said. He held out a scroll, its seal unbroken, and Daeron took it. He wondered why the Tyrells should be here, why they should look so cross, if this unopened scroll was the only communication Highgarden had received from the king.
“Your sister has broken off her betrothal to my son,” Lord Tyrell said gruffly, just as Daeron was about to turn and leave the tower with his letter.
Daeron blinked. His eldest brother Duncan had broken off his own betrothal, he knew, but surely his sister could not have also been so bold. “She has?”
“She has,” Luthor Tyrell said mournfully. “I’ve only met her twice; I don’t know what I could have done to offend her so.She is beautiful, and I told her she was beautiful. She would have been happy at Highgarden, I know it; I would have given her roses and thrown tourneys for her and--”
“She has married her brother,” Lord Tyrell interrupted, pointing a finger at Daeron.
Daeron frowned. “Me?”
“Gods, you’re both daft,” Jeremy muttered. He snatched the scroll from Daeron’s hand, broke the seal, and read it silently. “She has wed Jaehaerys in secret.”
***
Daeron tore his father’s letter into pieces and let them fall onto the bed. Be dutiful, his father had urged, be dutiful even in the face of your siblings’ lack of care. We must think of the realm, his father had written, and of how best to keep it strong and unified.
Jeremy sat cross-legged beside Daeron, picking up the pieces of the letter and trying to fit them back together. He nudged Daeron’s side with his elbow. “A copper for your thoughts.”
“Mayhaps I’ll be king one day,” Daeron said, forcing a smile. “And my thoughts will be worth more than you can afford.”
Jeremy laughed. “But that day is not today.”
Daeron could not say quite why the idea of marriage still rankled him as it had when he was young. He was two and ten now, nearly a man grown, but still his betrothal lay heavy on his shoulders. His brothers and sister had married for love, yet here he was, promised to Lenny the Carrot. The only thing he agreed with her on was the distastefulness of the match; he certainly did not love her, nor did she love him.
“I don’t want to be married at all,” Daeron said quietly. “I want to be a knight. I want to be a warrior. I don’t want to have to worry about a lady waiting for me in a castle, or a newborn babe squalling through the night.”
Jeremy was quiet for longer than Daeron was comfortable with. Then, “When I’m a knight, I’ll pledge my service to you,” he said softly. “We can be as brothers, then, even if you have a squalling babe with carrot hair.”
“I accept your fealty,” Daeron said solemnly, though they were not knights, or brothers. He felt a bit lighter. “But you would do well not to anger my lady wife.” He grinned up at Jeremy. “I believe she won the last time you fought.”
244 AC
Though Olenna had visited Highgarden many times since she first knocked Jeremy Norridge into the dirt in front of Prince Daeron Targaryen, her stomach still twisted at the sight of that beautiful castle sloping gently out of the earth in a spray of flowers and sunlight. She had flowered nigh on a year ago, and was now a woman grown in truth, and she feared that this meeting between the two of them would end with wedding plans firmly etched in both families’ minds.
And what better time and place to plan a wedding than here, at Highgarden, during the glorious tourney Lord Tyrell was putting on to celebrate the arrival of spring? The king himself was to be in attendance, along with his queen and his heir, and Olenna would not be surprised if Aegon V wed her to Prince Daeron on the lists after the day’s jousting was done.
Prince Daeron was not on hand to greet Olenna when she arrived at Highgarden, but that suited her just as well; Luthor Tyrell--Ser Luthor, now--helped her from her wheelhouse and took her arm to lead her into the castle. Luthor was a kind man; he had often chastened those who called her Lenny the Carrot, and for that small mercy she was more grateful than she ought to have been.
“I’m to ride in the tournament,” Ser Luthor said.
Olenna looked up into his big, dark eyes. Something about them made her think of a cow. “I should hope so, Ser Luthor. I’ve heard ever so much about your victories in the lists.” She hadn’t, but his face lit up at the lie.
“I vanquished Ser Arthur Morrigen of Crow’s Nest half a year ago,” Luthor started, “and Ser Jon Marbrand of Ashemark, though we broke three lances before I finally unseated him--”
At the door to Olenna’s chambers, Luthor suddenly grew quiet. He shifted his weight nervously and ran a hand through his dark curls.
“I was wondering, my lady,” he said, refusing to meet her eyes, “if I could wear your favor in the tourney.”
Olenna smiled and tilted his chin up so she could see his handsome face. “It would be ever such a scandal, wouldn’t it? Shouldn’t I give my favor to my prince?”
Luthor’s face burned red. “I didn’t mean to offend,” he said quickly. He tried to look away, but Olenna kept one finger just beneath his jaw.
“You did not offend me, ser,” she said. “I will grant you my favor, but you will say nothing of it. No one shall know but the two of us.”
Luthor broke into a wide, giddy smile, and for a moment Olenna forgot that he had once put his helm on backwards just as a melee was starting around him.
***
Olenna was surprised to find Daeron in the Godswood the night before the tourney was to begin. She had expected him to be in the sept, lighting a candle to the Warrior as all the silly men in their stupid metal suits seemed wont to do before knocking each other down with sticks, and so she had come to the Godswood to be alone. Yet here Daeron was, his long hair shining silver in the moonlight.
“Daeron the Dirty?” she called.
He looked up and almost smiled. “Lenny the Carrot?”
“The very same.” Olenna hitched up her skirts and came to stand before him. “Have the seven deserted you, that you turn to the old gods?”
“I pray to both, tonight. I’ll pledge myself to whomever hears.”
“What do you pray for, Daeron?” Olenna asked.
“An end to this.” Daeron gestured to her, then to himself. “If my brothers and sister can marry for love, I see no reason that I cannot--”
Olenna grabbed his hand in one of her own and tugged him close, so close that their faces were only inches apart. “If I cannot, you cannot,” she hissed. He tried to pull away, but she released his hand only to grab his braid.
“Listen to me, dragon prince, and listen well,” she said through gritted teeth. “You think you are the only one in this great wide world cursed with such injustice, the only one forced to marry against his will, but you are not.”
Daeron tried to speak, but Olenna shook her head and yanked at his hair. “I do not want this any more than you do, Prince Daeron, but I am a woman, and even the noblest of women has less choice in these matters than the lowest of men. You may cry about it as girls cry when they are wed to men twice their age, or men who beat them, or men who get them with child until they do naught but birth and birth and birth until they die. Or you may count yourself lucky that you will not sob from the pain on your wedding night, or bruise beneath a heavy hand, or die in childbed; your greatest sorrow, dragon, is that you are marrying a girl with hair the color of a newly plucked carrot.”
Daeron stared at her, mouth open in shock. His eyes were flints of amethyst in the moonlight.
Olenna let his braid fall from her fingers. “I will learn to love you. The gods know I could have been granted worse. And you, Daeron of House Targaryen. You will learn to love me.”
Daeron looked up at the sky and shook his head, smiled sadly. “I will not, my lady. I cannot.”
246 AC
Daeron was silent when Jeremy entered him, and silent as Jeremy took his pleasure, and silent when Jeremy used his mouth to coax Daeron’s climax from him; Daeron was silent, because he knew he stood at the end of the world, and he was afraid that if he made a noise he would be found out, and the world would end all the quicker.
But still he kissed Jeremy after, and curled into him as Jeremy stroked his hair; this would be the last time, Daeron feared, for on the morrow he would leave for King’s Landing with Lady Olenna Redwyne, and within two moons he would be wed.
“I meant what I said,” Jeremy murmured, his voice too loud in the darkness of Daeron’s bedchamber. “I’ll pledge my sword to you.” He kissed Daeron’s forehead. “And not just this one,” he said, cupping his cock. “You’ve had this one for some time now.”
Daeron didn’t smile. “I don’t love her.”
Jeremy shrugged, the movement tipping Daeron’s head against his neck. “And she doesn’t love you. That’s hardly what marriages are about.”
“My father married for love,” Daeron mused, tracing Jeremy’s collarbones. “As did my eldest brother, and my brother after him, and my eldest sister.”
“You cannot marry for love,” Jeremy said simply. “But if love does not define marriage, then who are we to say that marriage defines love?”
Daeron snorted. “Did you read that line in a story, or are you wiser than you’ve let on all these years?”
“Do you prefer it when I’m crude?” Jeremy’s hand drifted down to rub the small of Daeron’s back. “In that case, would you like to know how I'm sure I have your love? They say a dragon must love and trust a man before a man can mount it, and I cannot count the number of times I’ve mounted you.”
Daeron’s laugh was half a sob.
***
Olenna braided back her hair; she wondered for a moment if she should leave it free, as she had heard that men liked to pull at a woman’s hair. But she did not much care what men liked, and thought it unlikely that Daeron would ask her to take it down. She smeared sweet-scented oil on her wrists and behind her ears and between her thighs, then pulled a thick cloak on over her dressing gown and stole from her chambers.
This was the way to a man’s heart, she thought bitterly, and so she had best get used to it; perhaps Daeron would even love her afterwards, or think he did. Olenna moved quietly through the castle, her hood pulled tight over her bright hair, and wished this felt the way moonlit trysts were supposed to feel. She felt breathless, yes, but only because she seemed to stand at the end of the world, waiting for the air to leave her lungs in a great gust and upend everything.
The door to Daeron’s chambers was unlocked, but Olenna was not surprised; few people locked their doors in Highgarden, as the prancing fools in green and gold seemed to think themselves impervious to harm.
And beyond the solar, Olenna found Daeron in his bed, naked beneath a heavy velvet cover, Jeremy Norridge holding him close.
“Oh,” Olenna said. She wanted to grab a fistful of Daeron’s hair and drag him from his lover’s arms, but all she did was turn away. “I’ll be in your solar, Prince Daeron.” Her voice was so cold she did not recognize it. “Meet me there so that we may discuss the terms of our engagement.”
It was only a few moments before Daeron joined her, his hair still mussed, his chest bare. He had pulled on a pair of breeches roughspun enough that Olenna thought them to be Jeremy’s, but that did not matter overmuch, not now.
“I will not be second in your life to any woman, nor to any man,” Olenna said sharply, when Daeron opened his mouth to speak. “I have no doubt that you could do your duty in the marriage bed when you must, and I could do my duty and birth your little dragons, but I will not, I will not, take you for my lord and husband if I am to be nothing more than a brood mare.”
“My lady, I promise you--” Daeron began, holding out his hands as though to placate her.
Olenna felt older than her years, but she supposed that was the price of being a woman. “That you will not long for Ser Jeremy in your bed? That I will not long for a lord husband who desires me?”
“What can we do?” Daeron exploded. He raked a hand through his hair and looked wildly around the room, as though answers lurked in the shadows. “I will be kind, and I will see that you are well looked after, and I--”
“Oh, what a fine display of chivalry, you’ll be kind!” Olenna yelled back. “That is the least of what I expect of you, the least!”
“I don’t want this any more than you do!” Daeron shouted. “Our families decided we would wed, and what recourse do we have now?”
“You are a third son.” Olenna felt the fog in her head clear. “You are the king’s son. You may have little enough choice in these matters, but you still have more of a say than I do. Don't let your father or mother have a choice, not now. Why should you wed someone if you truly cannot love her? Why should you sire children? Do you truly wish to be a husband or a father?”
Daeron’s shoulders slumped and he smiled sadly. “That has never been my wish,” he admitted. “I thought in time it might be.” He raised an eyebrow. “And you? Do you wish to be a wife and mother?”
Olenna frowned. She had considered the question, of course, but she had not expected him to ask it. “I do,” she answered, meeting his eyes. “If for no other reason than to ensure another generation will have my hair.”
“Lenny the Carrot,” Daeron said, and for the first time he sounded almost fond of her. He reached out to touch the orange curls fighting their way free of her braid.
“Daeron the Dirty,” Olenna said, brushing a lock of silver hair back behind Daeron’s ear.
“I will write to my father tonight,” Daeron promised. “It is long past time we ended this.”
“Write to your mother as well,” Olenna instructed him. “Tell her you have some idea as to who your spurned betrothed should be pledged to next.”
251 AC
Olenna was sat back against Luthor in the bath when the maester knocked on the door; Luthor moved as though to leave the great metal tub, but Olenna refused to budge. She called for the maester to enter the room, bemused by the way both Luthor and the maester refused to look at one another as the maester handed Olenna a scroll. When the door had closed behind the maester, Olenna looked down at the scroll he had delivered.
It bore the king’s seal, and a chill stole over Olenna despite the warmth of the water. Suddenly the langor in her limbs was gone, the pleasant ache between her legs a distant memory; she broke the wax seal and read the letter with a heavy heart.
Luthor kissed her shoulder. “What is it, my sweet rose?”
She was not a rose, nor was she sweet, but he said the endearment with such conviction that Olenna didn’t mind it.
“Prince Daeron,” she said, picking absently at the parchment, letting little bits fall into the bathwater. “He’s gone and gotten himself killed. Some little rebellion or other, and he put it down at the cost of his own life.”
“A brave and noble thing of him to do,” Luthor said gravely. “We will have a feast in his honor.”
“Ah, yes,” Olenna muttered. “A feast.” She read over the letter again. “Ser Jeremy Norridge is dead as well. At Daeron’s side.”
“We shall feast in his honor as well,” Luthor declared. “I knew them both as boys. They were my constant companions, my closest confidants. The gods have done them ill.”
Olenna laughed mirthlessly. “Oh, the gods were kind to them, Luthor.”
She could almost feel Luthor’s confused frown. “Kind? But they were struck down …”
“It was kind,” Olenna explained, “that the gods took them both together. It would have been cruel indeed for one to live on without the other.”
And though Olenna had chosen Luthor for herself, and though she loved him dearly for all the silly things he did to make her laugh, and the ways he pleased her in their marriage bed, she did not think there was any man in the world she would choose to follow into death.
***