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Had he ever loved her? Or had he only loved his Essosi wife? These questions would only come after a long day of people whispering behind their hands, whispering about her and him, more than usual, so much that the official story would make its way to her mind, poisoning it with the delusion of romance that had been invented by others. It was hard to be fashioned into a heroine of a romance story – a romance that had killed thousands – and not wonder if there was not some truth to it. From her side, there was none, so perhaps there had been some from Daemon’s? To many, there was, even some of those who had seen how greatly Daenerys had come to love her husband, had seen her helplessness and fear at the thought that she might have to share him with another. They knew that Daemon had never been even a shadow in her mind and still…
They said it was love that pushed Daemon into rebelling. Drowning the realm in blood was perfectly acceptable if it was done for silver hair and a pair of purple eyes, it seemed. As long as they were hers and not Rohanne of Tyrosh’, even if Daemon was never said to do more than look at any other woman than his own lady wife more than once. It was his honourable nature, to his followers. It could not possibly be love.
Daenerys knew about the rumours from the very beginning and right then, she did not take them seriously. Not at all. Let people wonder if Daemon ever said the wrong name in the throes of passion with his Essosi wife! Later, it would humble her to remember that she had enjoyed it, not appreciating the danger, not recognizing it at all. She had even looked at Maron with earnest longing, yearning to see anger, irritation, something. If he believed that Daemon loved and desired her, perhaps he would start wondering if she had felt something akin to love and desire as well… because Daenerys knew that he had, for over a decade before he had wed her.
To him, brown eyes and black hair had been irresistible. Were they still? Daenerys had avoided to think of his onetime mistress – paramour, as she had been known, and now Daenerys could make the difference – until the woman would suddenly return in her mind each time she heard the name Jordayne, each time she saw Maron smile at seeing his firstborn after a long absence. He had always treated her, Daenerys, with kindness and she knew that love had grown for him, the way it had for her but at the same time, she felt guilt which was as unexplainable as it was ridiculous. Daeron had not asked her before betrothing her to Maron; she had not wanted to take the place in his life that he had given to another woman in all but name.
Daemon’s lie gave her the chance to be the romantic heroine instead of the wife.
And then, the tale ended or rather, it turned into reality. A war. Fought in her name, presumably, and even when Daemon was no more, the lie kept living. Of course it did. Aegor was alive and he would never let it go. In her brighter moments, the moments she felt filled with sun and light, Daenerys could appreciate the irony that just in one generation, the sad tale of her reluctance to wed Maron would obliterate the truth known to all of Dorne: that it had been Maron who had loved and shared his all with another; that it had been him who had gone to their wedding ceremony trying to chase away the ghost of a love gone wrong and not her.
History would record her pallor and silence during the Blackfyre Rebellion, her distance from her husband – and it would record it as pining for another, Daenerys knew. There was no one else in her bedchamber when he finally came to her bed late one night, so quietly that she had not felt his climbing in bed. No one to see her relief when she woke up and saw him, or how long she watched him sleep, overcome with feelings. No one to read the hundreds of unspoken words when he woke up and their eyes met and in those long moments, she knew that he had started to heal. She could hardly explain to every casual watcher what was really going on and if she had, they would have not believed her. The lie was far more enticing. The love of the great knight and the beautiful princess that had never come to be…
“Is it going to end? Ever?” Daenerys asked as she and Mariah sat under the blood orange trees, watching the children play, and the queen – her goodsister twice over – did not try to coddle her.
“I doubt it,” she said. “Those rumours about your mother and uncle have yet to die and it’s been twenty years already. People love romance, Daenerys – just not in marriage.”
She said it so lightly, the woman who was never spoken of in romantic terms. It was always about power and seduction with her, as if Daeron would be taken by such ruses. As if Mariah was incapable of true feelings, unworthy of them.
But Mariah had love – she had always had it. She had never spent nights in isolation and loneliness, wondering where her new husband was and with whom. Mariah also had the power of a woman who had been a man’s first love. Daenerys could have never had this. By definition. By the virtue of the twelve years that separated her birth from Maron’s.
“Elana was Maron’s lady love,” she heard her own voice say and was shocked; she was further mortified when she could not stop herself from adding, “I was just the lady wife.”
Mariah gave her a long look. “But you are much more now.”
Daenerys laughed bitterly. “Yes, I am, in his eyes. And in the eyes of half the realm, I am the tragic unwilling wife. In my own eyes…” She stopped, blushing angrily. Mariah just kept looking at her expectantly and Daenerys could not help herself: after all, Mariah might be Maron’s sister but she barely knew him; she had been the closest thing Daenerys had ever had to a mother, with Naerys being a faint memory engraved in her mind and her father not caring if she were near, so she had mostly grown up at Dragonstone.
Mariah was Dornish but she was a queen who had recently gone through the greatest challenge a queen could face. She would understand Daenerys’ concern. “I’m so glad that Mors is dark-haired!” she exclaimed and indeed, Mariah understood immediately and touched an olive hand made even darker by the Dornish sun to Daenerys’ pale-gold one.
“You have no reason to fear,” she said. “In Dorne, bastards would never be supported if they try to do what Daemon did. That’s why they enjoy the privileges they don’t have anywhere else. Garin won’t even have the support of his own mother’s family if he tries something like this. They’d rather have their daughter be Mors’ princess and mother of his heirs for sure than throwing their forces behind a boy trying to achieve what no bastard ever had. Elana Jordayne was no Daena Targaryen, Daenerys. She wasn’t this important or beloved. And Maron has never given any indications that he prefers Garin to your children, hasn’t he?”
Daenerys nodded but the truth was, Lady Elana had been important. To Maron who had grieved her death for many months as Daenerys watched helplessly, giving him the distance he had needed and thus feeding the rumours of her reluctance to have him. For Daenerys who hated herself about being mindful of the woman’s son when Elana had died protecting Daenerys’ own boy in the first days of Daemon’s rebellion. Mors’ betrothal to Elana’s niece was practically a guarantee that Garin Sand could make no trouble for Daenerys’ children but the ugly seed was already there, planted by the deeds of a man who had seen nothing but good from Daeron and repaid him with treason. Bastards were deceitful, greedy, untrustworthy by their very nature – in Dorne, Daenerys had come to dismiss these notion without thinking about it, just by living near bastards and seeing them having chances. Now, old biases had come again and she felt she would never find peace. But perhaps Maron would manage to give it to her. He had managed to do it once even as he had been at his lowest. He had built the Water Gardens for her. Daenerys could not think of anything that could compare but perhaps he would think of something.
Even so, it would not wash the irony. Daemon had never cared about her, had proclaimed to fight a war to free her, and eventually had built her a prison of suspicious looks from others and suspicions in her own heart just when she had felt like she belonged here. Now, she was truly in the cage he had announced Daeron had put her in. Save me, my lord husband, she thought even as she doubted that anyone and anything could.
The End