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Her mother’s bed smelled like lemon and honey. Arianne lay on her stomach, with her hands pressed under her chin to hold her head up, as she watched Belandra helping her mother change into a loose-fitting bedgown.
“Why do you think the babe will be a boy?” she asked, as she inspected her mother’s belly from various angles. “How can you tell? How can anyone tell, Mother? It’s not like we can look through the skin to see what’s inside.”
Her mother smiled, the great big smile that was Arianne’s favorite, the kind that made the skin around her eyes go all crinkly and caused her eyes to sparkle. She planted kisses on Arianne’s right cheek, then the left, and finally the right again, before saying, “There are ways to tell, my sweet girl, from the way a mother carries the babe.”
“What way?”
“Women’s way, Princess,” replied Belandra, exchanging meaningful smiles and knowing looks with Lady Mellario, before leaving the room.
“I will tell you when you are older,” Mellario added, sitting down on the bed next to her daughter.
“You always say that, Mother. Always!” Arianne pouted, turning her face away, but only for a moment. Her curiosity gained the upper hand. “When I am older, you said. Well, how much older?” she asked. “Next year, when I am six? Or years and years and years from now, when I am sixty?”
“Not when you are sixty, certainly. I wouldn’t wait that long. I will tell you long before that, I promise. I will tell you when you are six and ten, Arianne.”
Arianne scooted closer to her mother. She laid down her head on her mother’s lap, her eyes wide open, staring up at her mother’s eyes, as dark and shining as her own eyes. “When I am six and ten, how old will you be, Mother?”
Her mother wiggled Arianne’s nose. “Well, now, you know that it is not courteous to ask a lady about her age. It is a secret that only her husband may know.”
“I’ll ask Father instead. Father will tell me,” Arianne declared.
Her mother laughed. “He would, I’m sure.”
“How old will my little brother be, Mother, when I am six and ten?”
“Your little brother? How do you know that he will be so little? Perhaps he will grow to be bigger and taller than you are,” her mother teased.
“He may grow as tall as a tower, like Great-Uncle Lewyn, but he will always be my little brother, like Great-Uncle Lewyn will always be Grandmother’s little brother.”
Great-Uncle Lewyn liked to tickle the soles of Arianne ‘s feet until she was breathless with laughter. “Where did you learn to tickle so well?” she once asked him. “From my sister, of course,” he had replied. “Your grandmother used to tickle me all the time. She would not stop until I agreed to play the game she wanted to play.”
Arianne had tried to imagine her grandmother tickling her great-uncle, but she had a hard time picturing it. Grandmother was tall, of course, much taller than Mother, but even Grandmother’s head barely reached Great-Uncle Lewyn’s chest.
“When did you grow so small, little brother?” Grandmother always asked, every time her brother came to visit her in Sunspear. “When did you grow so youthful, big sister?” Great-Uncle Lewyn would always ask in return, and then the two of them would burst out laughing and laughing, as if they were still those young children deciding which game they were going to play that day. The two questions never got answered at all, Arianne noticed.
It was a running joke, Uncle Oberyn explained. They were not really looking for answers to their questions. They were just teasing one another, as siblings were wont to do, especially siblings who were close in age. Uncle Oberyn said that he and Aunt Elia used to tease each other mercilessly too. Not Father, though. Arianne’s father was much, much older than them, Uncle Oberyn said, and he always looked out for them and tried to protect them, but he almost never teased his younger siblings and he rarely joined them in their games and their silliness.
Arianne said it was a pity that Father did not have a sibling closer to him in age, someone he could tease and jape with comfortably. But Mother replied that Father was not really the teasing and japing type, more the earnest and dependable type. Mother also said that it was one of the things that attracted her to Father in the first place, because she had grown very weary of the endless horde of charming, teasing and japing suitors who were pursuing her hand in marriage back in Norvos.
“Will you tease your brother for being your little brother?” Mother asked.
“Sometimes,” Arianne replied. “But I will also look out for him, and try to keep him safe, like Father does with Uncle Oberyn and Aunt Elia.” She turned her head to face her mother’s belly, and whispered, “I promise, little brother. You can count on me.”
“What did you whisper to your little brother, Arianne?”
“It’s a secret,” Arianne said, with a grin.
It didn’t remain a secret for long. Mother tickled Arianne’s neck (her most susceptible spot for tickling, and her mother knew this very well indeed), and soon enough, Arianne had spilled her secret.
Afterwards, her mother said, “It is time to return to your own bedchamber, Arianne. We both need our rest.”
“Please, Mother, may I stay a little longer, just a little longer?” Arianne wheedled. “I want to sing a song for my little brother, to help him fall asleep.”
Mother raised her eyebrows. “But how can you tell that he has fallen asleep? It’s not like you can look through my belly, to see if he is really sleeping, or if he is only pretending to be asleep, like his sister likes to pretend.”
Arianne giggled, then replied, “If you are asleep, Mother, then he must be asleep too.”
“Ahhh, so the song is really for me, to help me fall asleep.”
Arianne sang a song about Nymeria and her ten thousand ships. She knew from experience that counting the ships was not as helpful as singing the names of the ships, to make you fall asleep. Her eyes felt heavier and heavier, as she got past the fifteenth name. She fell into a deep sleep long before her mother did. She dreamed of tickling her little brother’s foot, and she dreamed of their feet running across the pink marble of the Water Gardens.
Arianne did not wake when her mother kissed her brow, and when her father carried her to her own bedchamber.
___________________________
She visited her brother’s nursery every morning, to give him a good morning kiss. Her mother and her father got good night kisses from Arianne, and her little brother got good morning kisses instead, because his bedtime was earlier than hers and good night kisses might wake him up and turn him into a very, very cranky babe all night long, Mother said.
This time, Quentyn was not in his cradle when Arianne arrived, and his wet nurse was nowhere to be seen. Instead, Father was there, standing by the window that looked out to the east, holding Quentyn in his arms, watching the sun rising above the sea. Father was describing the color of the sky and the shape of the rising sun. Quentyn stared and stared, transfixed, barely blinking.
Arianne waved her hands in front of her brother’s eyes. He blinked, once, twice, three times, in quick successions. His chubby hands tried to grab hold of Arianne’s fingers. When he managed to snatch two of her fingers, she pretended that she was having a really, really hard time escaping from his grasp, which delighted Quentyn very much. His solemn face was suddenly transformed by the broadest of grins.
Father moved away from the window, and Arianne quickly followed him. He kissed the top of her head, slowly and gently. “Well, now, have you come to give your brother his kiss?” Father asked, somberly but affectionately.
Arianne nodded. “His good morning kiss,” she replied. Well … kisses, really. More than one. She kissed her brother’s cheeks, right, left, and then right again, the way Mother would often kiss Arianne’s cheeks. Then she kissed her brother’s forehead, and finally the top of his head, the way Father would often kiss Arianne. Although sometimes Father forgot the forehead kiss, and went straight to kissing the top of Arianne’s head, the way he had done just now.
Quentyn planted a kiss right smack on Arianne’s nose. That was his favorite spot for kissing, for some reason. Then he started fussing, turning his head left and right, waving his arms around as if he was trying to reach out for something that was just beyond his grasp.
“He wants to look at the sun again,” Arianne told her father. They walked to the same window, the one facing east. Quentyn pointed at the sun, but with his little finger, not his index finger. He only pointed at something with his index finger when it was a thing that frightened him, a thing that he wanted gone, Arianne had noticed.
The sun had not wholly risen. Some part of it was still hiding below the horizon. When Arianne was three, no, four, she wanted to know why the spear had disappeared from the sun. “Is the spear hiding, Father? Or did someone steal it? Why did it disappear? Where did it go, Father?”
Her father did not laugh at her confusion. He had patiently explained that the real sun, the one in the sky, did not have a spear piercing through it. That was only true for the sun in their sigil, not the sun of the world, Father had said back then.
“That is the real sun, Quent,” Arianne told her brother, pointing her index finger at the sun in the sky. “Not to be mistaken with this sun,” she added, the fingers of her other hand touching the red sun embroidered on her father’s doublet. Quentyn’s fingers promptly got busy trying to unravel the golden threads of the embroidered spear, so Father sat him down on the floor, facing away from the temptation.
Arianne sat cross-legged on the floor, some distance away from her father and her brother. “Come to me, Quent,” she coaxed, holding out both her hands, palms on top, like she was waiting to receive a precious gift.
Quentyn plopped forward from his sitting position, preparing to crawl towards his sister. “No!” Arianne exclaimed. “Not like that, Quent.” She made a gesture with her index finger and her middle finger pointing down and moving back and forth, to indicate walking. Quentyn seemed to understand that gesture. He held on to his father’s arm while slowly getting to a standing position, but halfway up, he seemed to reconsider.
Arianne cheered him on, “Don’t stop, Quent. You won’t fall down. You’ve done it before.”
Quentyn had been standing on his own two feet for almost a moon’s turn, and he had even walked quite a few steps while being held and propelled forward by his wet nurse and by his mother, but he had not yet taken his first step on his own. Uncle Oberyn had remarked, “That boy is a far more anxious babe than you ever were, Arianne. More scared of this, that and the other. His eyes peered nervously at the world as if we’re all coming to eat him.”
“He’s not scared!” Arianne had objected, indignantly. “He’s just … careful, like Father. He’s cautious and de … de … oh, what’s that word you always say about Father, Uncle?”
“Cautious and deliberate?”
“Yes, that.”
With his sister cheering him on, Quentyn was finally standing all the way up. Both of his hands held on to his father’s arm at first. After a while, he let go of one hand, and then finally the other. Now he was truly standing on his own two feet.
His father smiled. His sister clapped. But still Quentyn hesitated to move his legs forward. He looked at his sister, then turned back to look at his father, before looking down to stare at his own feet. He repeated the cycle a number of times. Sister, father, feet. Sister, father, feet. Sister –
All of a sudden, without any word of warning, Arianne stood up and walked away. Quentyn started to cry.
“Where are you going, Arianne?” Father asked.
“I’ll just be a moment,” Arianne replied.
She took something from Quentyn’s cradle and brought it back with her. The toy was a brown bear, stuffed with feathers, with mismatched eyes – onyx on the right, and ivory on the left. It used to belong to Arianne before she gave it to her brother, declaring, “I’m a big girl now. I don’t need a toy bear anymore. The bear can be Quent’s special friend now.”
Quentyn loved the bear. He slept with it every night. If the bear was taken away to be washed or to be given an airing under the hot sun, he would pine for it until it was returned to him.
Arianne held up the toy, shaking it around as if the bear was dancing. She started telling the story Mother had often told her, about how Mother saw Father for the first time when she was watching a troop of dancing bears. Father was wearing Martell colors, and Mother asked Hotah to find out the identity of the stranger who shone so brightly in red, gold and orange, the stranger she found even more captivating than any dancing bear.
Quentyn grew excited and animated, not so much by the story, which he did not understand at all, but by the dancing bear his sister was holding with both her hands. He waved his hands frantically, gesturing for Arianne to come to him and to give him the bear.
Arianne stayed put where she was. “You come here, Quent. Come and get your bear. You can do it! I know you can.”
Father placed his hands on Quentyn’s arms, helping to propel him forward. Quentyn took a few steps forward this way, as he had done before.
“No, Father, let him do it himself,” Arianne protested.
“We have to be patient, Arianne. He will walk on his own when he is ready,” her father replied.
“But he is ready, I can tell. He just needs a little encouragement, a little push forward. You have to let go of his arms, Father.”
“Trust me, Father,” Arianne added, imploringly.
Finally, Father removed his hand that was holding Quentyn’s right arm. Quentyn continued taking one step forward. Then, Father removed his other hand. Quentyn tottered unsteadily for a few moments, but he quickly regained his balance.
His steps forward halted, however. Arianne called out his name. “Quent! Come and get your bear. He misses you. He misses you very much.”
“Go to your sister, Quentyn,” Father encouraged him with a smile.
Quentyn put one foot forward, and then another one, and another one. Arianne scooted forward, so her brother could reach her sooner. Finally, he did. Arianne thought he was going to grab his favorite toy first, but he buried his face in Arianne’s chest, toppling her down from her sitting position. Now they’re both lying on the floor.
Arianne showered her brother’s face with kisses. “You did it! I know you could. You did it, Quent! You walked on your own.”
She tickled his stomach. Quentyn gurgled happily. They rolled around on the floor, Arianne and her brother, as Father went to tell Mother about Quentyn’s first step.
___________________________
“Let’s play in that pool, Quent.”
“I’m too young to play in the pools, Ari.”
“No, you’re not. You have passed your fifth nameday. And that pool is the smallest and the shallowest in the Water Gardens. You’ll be safe there, I promise.” It was mystifying to Arianne, her brother’s aversion to playing in the pools. Quentyn had been learning to ride horses since he started to run. Horses did not frighten him, but playing in the pools with other children seemed to do.
Arianne spotted her milk brother Garin playing in the second biggest pool. He waved at her, and then laughingly said to Quentyn, “Is you sister busy telling you what to do, my prince? That is her favorite thing in the world, telling us what we should do, ordering us around.”
Arianne stuck out her tongue in reply. Garin laughed even harder. Quentyn’s gaze switched back and forth between Arianne and Garin. The boy looked perplexed.
“Your brother is too in awe of you to object, Princess,” Garin continued, still in that same jesting tone.
Arianne sighed, in a dramatic and exaggerated manner. “I remember when you used to be in awe of me too, Garin.”
“Aye, back when we were still sharing my mother’s milk. Are you coming into the pools today?”
It was Quentyn who replied, “I’ll sit under that tree, Ari. You should go play with your friends.”
Arianne was tempted, truth to tell. Her best friends Drey and Sylva were playing in the same pool as Garin, and she also spotted her cousins Tyene and Nym playing in another pool, the biggest one. But the thought of her brother sitting by himself under the shade of the blood orange tree …
Quentyn was a very shy boy, not at all the type to put himself forward with other children, especially older ones. He would sit there quietly under the blood orange tree, counting the number of blood oranges on that tree, and the number of birds flying in the sky.
“Not today. I’m not going into the pools today,” Arianne told Garin.
She led Quentyn away from the pools. Quentyn paled, once they had reached their destination. “Are you going to swim in the sea, Ari? Is that safe, without Mother or Father with us? The sea is not like the pools and the fountains, Mother always says.”
“No, I’m not going to swim. We’re going to build sand castles on the beach.”
Quentyn finally smiled. “I love building sand castles.”
“I know you do. Which castle do you want to build today?”
They built a sand castle with a spike on top that was supposed to represent the Spear Tower, but the broken tree branch they used for the spike was too frail and puny, and it swayed to and fro with every gust of wind that came their way. When a particularly strong breeze finally toppled the branch, Arianne could not help but laugh. Quentyn was startled at first, but then he began to laugh as well.
That was how Mother found them, laughing together on the beach. She gathered them both into her embrace and showered them with kisses.
Arianne proposed, “Let’s build a sand castle that looks like the home you grew up in, Mother. Your home back in Norvos.”
“It’s not really a castle,” Mother said. “Only a manse. A walled manse on the side of a hill.”
“Then we should build the hill first,” Quentyn suggested, shyly.
As Arianne and Quentyn piled up the sand to resemble a hill, Mother started telling them about the illustrious three bells of Norvos, whose sound could always be heard even at the very top of the hill. The bells were called Noom, Narrah and Nyel, Mother said, and each had its own distinctive sound that could not be mistaken for the others. Nyel was her favorite, Mother said, because its sweet peals made her think of the blissful sound of a gaggle of children laughing together in harmony.
“Did we sound like Nyel, Mother, when Ari and I laughed together earlier?” asked Quentyn.
“There are only two of us. That’s not a gaggle,” Arianne pointed out.
The sound of their laughter was a hundred times sweeter than Nyel’s, Mother said, and in any case, about seven moons from now, there would be three of them, not two.
Quentyn did not understand what Mother meant, but Arianne understood immediately. “Now you can have a little brother or a little sister too, Quent. You’ll still be my little brother, but you will also be someone else’s big brother.”