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“He has his mother’s eyes.”
“And his mother’s hair. And his mother’s complexion. He looks more Dornish than Targaryen, your father will no doubt complain.”
“My father is a fool. Pay no heed to his grumblings. He is a man of endless grievances. Nothing will ever truly satisfy him. If our son had been born looking more like his father instead of his mother, my father would have snidely remarked that he looked like my uncle. Our children will never please him, because their father had never pleased him. My father has been despising me since long before I wed you, and he would have continued to despise me even if I had wed a bride of his choosing. He will still try to blame it all on you, no doubt, and on your Dornish blood, but it is a lie, a great big lie. He is a man whose words should not be of any consequence to us, to either one of us.”
In his passionate denunciation of his father, Daeron sounded his age, for once, only ten-and-seven, a year younger than Myriah herself. This was progress of a kind, she thought. Earlier in their marriage, her husband would not have opened up to her to that extent, would never have confided as much to her regarding his father, or regarding anything else for that matter. He was courteous. She was courteous. They both took so much pain to be so damn courteous with one another that nothing of any substance was ever really spoken or shared between them, for months and months and months.
My prince. My princess. My lord. My lady. She grew tired of courtesy. She had not thought it possible, trained as she was in that art from the time she learned to speak, but there it was, the impossible made flesh. Courtesy could be your armor as well as your weapon, no doubt, but it could also be an insurmountable barrier. And it could also be … so very, very, lonely.
This, Myriah despised admitting, and for a time even rebuked herself for feeling, for it seemed such a weakness, such a fragility so unbecoming for a Princess of Dorne. She was the descendant of such luminaries like Princess Nymeria and Princess Meria, strong-willed women with steadfast resolve and fortitude, who had allowed nothing to turn them away from their purpose. Surely neither of them had ever been brought low by something as dreary and as commonplace as loneliness?
But perhaps they had. They were living, breathing human beings after all, flesh and blood creatures like Myriah herself, not just the stuff of legends, not just larger-than-life figures.
In a hostile court full of sideways glances and half-whispered remarks about Prince Daeron’s Dornish bride, Myriah wanted – and needed – more than just simple courtesy in her marriage. The marriage that had brought her to this hostile court in the first place. The marriage that had deprived her of her birthright, that meant she would never reign as the ruling Princess of Dorne.
It will take time, her own mother had said, to build a connection. That is true for any marriage, even the ones between allies instead of enemies. No city was ever built in a day, and no marriage either.
Enemies? We are former enemies now, Dorne and the Seven Kingdoms, Father says, and we are well on our way to becoming allies. Do you not believe so, Mother? Do you think Father is wrong?
Former, for now. Who knows what could happen in the future? That is why this marriage is of such vital importance, Myriah. As a mother, my heart bleeds at the thought of sending my daughter to the dragon’s den, to the heart of the enemy’s camp. But as the Princess Consort of Dorne, I know that it must be done, for the sake of Dorne, for the sake of the Dornish people. We are none of us private creatures, daughter. We are creatures of state; that is our great burden and our great privilege.
It would have been much harder for Myriah to resign herself to this marriage, this marriage arranged by a treaty and born of a need for peace on both sides, if Prince Daeron had been old enough to fight on Dornish soil during King Daeron’s vainglorious conquest. Thank the gods he was only a boy at the time, so Myriah did not have to wonder which of her people had been slain or wounded by his sword hand, every time her husband touched her. She did not have to wonder if her husband was recalling the face of a Dornishwoman he had raped and butchered, every time he looked at her. She did not have to wonder if he had cheered and screamed “Fire and Blood!” as he participated in the burning of another Dornish town, every time he spoke to her.
Her husband’s father had fought on Dornish soil, though; had drenched his sword with Dornish blood and still reminisced fondly about “those glorious days,” as he called them. Would Prince Aegon’s sword hand itch once more, when he saw his grandson with the dark eyes and the dark hair? Myriah shuddered at the thought.
My son is a better man than his father, her good-mother had told her, implying, My son will not be the kind of husband that my own husband has been to me, nor will he be the kind of father that his own father has been to him.
Nonetheless, Prince Aegon would still be her son’s grandfather. There was no changing that fact, just like there was no changing the fact that he would always be her husband’s father.
A child bonded a couple for life, thought Myriah, as she watched her husband gently kissing their son’s brow. Bonded, as in connected. But also – a more disturbing notion – bonded, as in tied down forever. She had given birth to a child with the blood of the Nymeros Martells as well as the Targaryens, but her son would carry the Targaryen name, not the Nymeros Martell name. Her son would grow up in this court, not in her father’s court in Sunspear. Her son would grow up on this soil, not on Dornish soil.
How long would the peace forged between her father and King Baelor last? This son of hers, currently sleeping peacefully in her husband’s arms, would he, too, one day take arms against Dorne, just like his Targaryen grandfather did? This babe she had labored for a full day to bring forth into the world, whose trembling first cry had brought tears to her eyes, tears of unadulterated joy, would he one day cause his mother to cry tears of sorrow and anguish? Would he one day march into Dorne to do battle against his Nymeros Martell grandfather and his Nymeros Martell uncles? Would he one day be a kinslayer, a kinslayer and the butcher of Dorne?
Should that ever come to pass, how would she feel, years from now, to know that she had given birth to the destroyer of her own people, that her own womb had carried the seed of Dorne’s destruction?
This son of hers, who had already claimed his place in her heart, from the moment she first held him in her arms, would he one day perish at the hand of her father or one of her brothers?
Oh, she could not bear it! She could not bear for any of those possibilities to come to pass.
No, none of those eventualities must ever be allowed to happen. She was not without recourse. They were not without recourse, she and her husband. Their son’s fate must be of concern to her husband too, even if he did not necessarily share her concern for Dorne’s fate.
Her husband had confided to her his deepest fear regarding his father. Now it was her turn to confide to him her deepest fear regarding their son. The cure to loneliness was not just in receiving confidences, but also in giving them. A marriage could be built on the basis of a shared purpose, not just on the basis of love. Love might come later, or it might not, but that shared purpose would carry them forward as one, at least for a time.
We must raise our son to be the kind of man who would never wage war between his father’s people and his mother’s people, they both resolved, that very night.
It was a start, possibly a belated one, but it could also be the beginning of something more, of something enduring.