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Lord Gargalen’s solar was decorated with a tapestry depicting the sigil of his house. In the tapestry, the rooster-like aspect of the red cockaritce was featured more prominently than its dragon-like aspect. His mother once told Doran, in confidence, that Lord Gargalen resembled a crowing rooster, merrily grooming, preening and parading himself for the crowd. “His loyalty to our House is indisputable, however,” Princess Loreza had added, “and his mind is sharper and far more subtle than his appearance might lead others to believe. And besides, the master-at-arms at Salt Shore is one of the best in Dorne, second only to ours.”
Lord Gargalen was not looking like a preening rooster at the moment. He bade Doran to sit, with a solemn voice and an even more solemn expression on his face. Have I done something wrong? Have I displeased him somehow? the boy wondered, anxiously. He could not bear to disappoint his mother, who had personally selected Lord Gargalen as the Dornish lord he would be squiring for. He was heir to the heir of Dorne. Everything he did, good and bad, but especially the bad, would reflect on his mother, on his grandfather, and on the Nymeros Martells in general.
After Doran had taken a seat, Lord Gargalen said, “A raven arrived from Sunspear no more than an hour ago. I thought to show the letter to you immediately, but my lady wife said it would be kinder to let the boy finish his supper.”
Kinder? Why would it be kinder to wait, unless the news was a terrible one? Doran’s first thought was of his mother, heavy with child. She had been in the fifth month of her pregnancy when Doran bade her farewell at Sunspear.
Lord Gargalen, seeing the stricken look on his squire’s face, immediately clarified, “Your lady mother has given birth safely. She is still recovering, your father wrote, for the birth was –“
“A month too soon,” said Doran, counting the days in his head. A stillbirth, he concluded. It must be. It was too soon, much too soon. A week early, two weeks early … then perhaps the child could survive, but not a month early.
The child. It would hurt less to think of the brother or sister he would never see alive as merely “the child”, but try as he might, he could not sustain that illusion for long. He thought of his mother’s pain, of his mother’s grief at the loss of another child, and he had to blink repeatedly to ensure that tears would not pool in his eyes. His mother would not have thought of his brother or sister as “the child.”
“A precious daughter for Princess Loreza, and a dear sister for you,” Lord Gargalen was saying, and Doran stared at him with incredulity written all over his face.
“A daughter? She lives?”
“She lives, yes.” Lord Gargalen smiled, ruefully. “I should have begun with that news, to spare you the apprehension.”
“She must surely die soon,” Doran said, staring at his feet, willing the tears not to come. “She will not live for long.” He finally raised his head, only to find Lord Gargalen giving him a curious and measured look.
“I was not praying for my sister to die,” Doran hastened to explain. “I was only –”
Staring truth in the face, no matter how much it would hurt. Preparing himself for the worst … no, preparing himself for the inevitable. Steeling himself for the heartbreak, which would surely come, oh it would surely come! There was no escaping it.
At nine, however, Doran did not have the words, or the wherewithal, to provide that explanation out loud. The boy halted, and said nothing else, fearing that further words might only make the situation worse. Your words could be a weapon as sharp as any sword, his lady mother often said, so use them wisely, Doran.
Finally, after a long and uncomfortable silence, he asked permission to return to Sunspear for a short visit, a request that Lord Gargalen granted with alacrity.
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Lord Gargalen sent his heir and four of his household knights to accompany Doran on the journey from Salt Shore to Sunspear. He also sent gifts for Princess Loreza’s daughter – dolls of various looks and sizes, exquisite miniatures of mythical creatures (including one of a red cockaritce, of course), and other toys that seemed more suitable for an older child than a babe in a cradle.
Galen Gargalen had an irreverent way of talking about his lord father that disconcerted Doran and left him tongue-tied most of the time. “My father will be disappointed if he thinks such gifts could induce Princess Loreza to betroth her daughter to a Gargalen,” Ser Galen remarked. “I am much too old for the little princess, alas, to my father’s eternal regret. One of my younger brothers could be a suitable match, age-wise, but Princess Loreza would not wish her daughter to be wed to a younger son, no doubt?”
That last statement ended as a question, and a question directed at Doran, no less. After a slight hesitation, Doran replied, mildly, “I could not speak for my mother, ser.”
Ser Galen laughed. “No man would ever presume to speak for Princess Loreza, I’m sure, not even her own son.”
Later, he said, in a more serious manner, with one hand on Doran’s shoulder, “I pray that your sister will live and thrive, well into her adulthood.”
Doran thanked him, and stayed silent for the rest of the journey, lost in his own thoughts. His brother Mors had lived three months longer than Olyvar, but Doran remembered him far less clearly, for he was only three when Mors was born, and he had just passed his fourth name day when Mors died. Mors had been born a sickly child, Doran was told later. He was small at birth, despite being a full-term babe, and he had trouble suckling milk from a succession of wet nurses, and even from his mother. His pitiful cries sounded more like the mewling of a newborn kitten, one of the wet nurses said.
When Mors died of a fever, there were whispers behind Princess Loreza’s back that his death was not in any way unexpected. Some babes thrived, and some didn’t, and you could often tell which from which from the start, the sentiment went, a sentiment Princess Loreza would not have appreciated. A mother’s grief, and a father’s grief, for that matter, did not lessen in the slightest just because their child was not expected to survive, she said. Losing a child was losing a child, regardless of the circumstances.
Olyvar was born red-faced and squalling, with cries that were even louder and more vigorous than Doran’s own cries at birth. He gobbled up his wet nurse’s milk with no trouble at all. He was a lively babe, prone to giggling and grinning, as Doran himself could attest. Doran was six when Olyvar was born, and he still retained a clear memory of his little brother. How Olyvar would wiggle his toes when he wanted to be picked up from his cradle. How he would lightly slap his own cheek as a sign that he wanted to be kissed on that cheek by his brother, or his mother, or his father. How he liked to wrap his fingers around their mother’s hair when she was holding him in the warmth and safety of her arms.
Olyvar went to sleep one night as a healthy babe, and he never woke up the next morning. He was not poisoned, the maesters assured them, after a lengthy examination of his body. It had been known to happen, these sudden and unexpected deaths of babes in their cradles, they were told.
Doran mourned them both, the brother he remembered very clearly, and the brother he wished he had more first-hand memories of.
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Doran found his mother in her bedchamber, but not resting or sleeping as he had expected. The lord treasurer of Sunspear was perched on the edge of the bed, engaged in a vigorous discussion with Princess Loreza, who was sitting up with three pillows bolstering her back. Lady Ambrosia was the third Ladybright in succession to hold that post. “The ladies of House Ladybright are all very bright, it seems,” Doran had once heard his father saying. His mother had snorted, calling it the weakest of japes, but the corners of her mouth were turned upward, and her shoulders were hitching as if she was trying to suppress her laughter.
Lady Ambrosia was the one who first noticed Doran’s entrance. She smiled and explained, “Your grandfather has gone to Yronwood to attend the wedding of Lord Yronwood’s heir, and in the absence of the Prince of Dorne, I must disturb your mother about matters of state during her recovery.”
Doran’s eyes wandered around his mother’s bedchamber, and he finally noticed the cradle, and the two women sitting on the trundle bed next to the cradle. The wet nurse and the nursemaid, he assumed. His sister had not yet been moved to the nursery. One of the women was knitting, while the other one was singing softly to the babe in the cradle.
His mother called out his name, and Doran turned to see that Lady Ambrosia had left the room. He went to his mother and leaned towards her, so she could embrace him from the bed. Her cheeks felt cold and moist when he kissed them, and the whites of her eyes were reddish all around, tell-tale signs that she had been crying not long before. Her eyes were dry, however. She would have done her best to erase any sign of tears before Lady Ambrosia came in, Doran knew. If Lady Ambrosia had come as a friend, as a former lady-in-waiting, as no doubt she had done on other occasions, Princess Loreza would not have tried to hide her tears. But on this occasion, Ambrosia Ladybright was there in her capacity as the lord treasurer of Sunspear to discuss a formal matter of state, so Princess Loreza’s tears must remain hidden from her.
“I am glad you are here. Truly glad,” his mother said, her hand grazing his cheek as if she needed to be sure that he was really home.
“Has Father gone to Yronwood too?” Doran asked.
His mother nodded in reply. “Your grandmother as well, and your uncle too. Your grandfather thought he needed all the reinforcements he could get. He brought a large retinue with him.”
Doran smiled. “I thought it’s a wedding, not a battle.”
His mother smiled in return. “With the Yronwoods, you could never tell.” Her smile vanished, as she said, “And weddings have been used to foment rebellions before. The Yronwoods, well, they are not …”
“The most loyal of our bannermen,” Doran finished his mother’s sentence, as he knew she wanted him to do.
The next few minutes were taken up with his mother’s questions about his life at Salt Shore. Doran assured and reassured her that everything was well, that he was treated kindly, but not preferentially compared to Lord Gargalen’s other squires, just because his mother was the heir to Dorne and his grandfather was the Prince of Dorne. Such a preferential treatment would only cause discord and strive with the other squires, his mother said, and would do nothing to train Doran to be a true knight and a good lord.
Finally, his mother asked, softly, “Would you like to see her? Your sister?”
Doran took a deep breath, before he nodded. “What is her name?” he asked. “Father’s letter did not mention it.”
“Elia. Her name is Elia.”
The wet nurse brought Elia to Princess Loreza. Cradled in their mother’s arms, his sister looked so small. So brittle. So breakable. So easily taken away, snuffed like candlelight blown by the wind. These were not thoughts a loving brother should be thinking about his sister, he suspected. He had to concentrate deeply to count the rise and fall of her chest. Her existence seemed so precarious, so temporary, like grief and heartbreak waiting to happen. And yet, when she opened her eyes, black eyes that looked huge on that tiny face, he could almost believe that his sister would live forever. No, not forever, but that she would outlive him, at least.
He had been praying that his sister would live, against all the odds, for his mother’s sake, so his mother would not have to mourn the loss of another child. But now he prayed for his sister to live for her own sake, for Elia’s sake, for the black-eyed babe who was brought into the world too soon but seemed adamant to remain in it as long as possible.
“She is a fighter,” their mother said, kissing Elia’s brow.
Doran prayed that he would be the first of his mother’s children to survive the cradle, not the only.