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“My Prince!”
Joffrey straightened, wiping sweat from his brow and brushing back his dark hair.
"What is it, Tommard?"
"Lady Melara is looking for you; she says it’s urgent."
Joffrey sighed. Lady Melara, a friend of his late mother, had raised him since Queen Cersei had died giving birth to him. Joffrey loved her, though she sometimes annoyed him.
"Thank you, uncle," Joffrey nodded to his uncle Jaime, with whom he had been training all morning.
"Go on, don’t keep Melara waiting," Jaime smiled sadly.
Joffrey carefully watched his uncle’s reaction whenever Melara’s name came up since he had heard a rumor that Lady Melara had never married because she and Jaime had been in love since childhood, only to be forbidden by his grandfather Tywin. So far, he’d noticed that Melara did seem saddened at Jaime’s name, though Jaime’s face always remained stone-like whenever hers was mentioned.
Lady Melara Hetherspoon waited for him at the door. He had heard that in her youth she had been called a beauty, but time had been cruel to that beauty. Now, standing before him, was a faded woman whose once-cute freckles—what his father, King Robert, had called “sun’s kisses”—had become unsightly spots.
"My prince," she curtsied formally. "His Grace has announced that we should prepare to depart for the North."
"The North?" Joffrey raised an eyebrow in surprise.
"To Winterfell, Your Grace," interjected Mia, the king’s bastard. Joffrey cast a scornful look her way, but Mia Stone—or rather, Lady Mia Wallace, as she now called herself—pretended not to notice. "The king intends to visit Lord Stark."
"Is this Lord Arryn’s idea?" Joffrey asked, watching Melara closely.
"Indeed," she nodded.
"Uncle Stannis is furious," Bella chuckled, nudging a grimacing Gendry.
‘Uncle Stannis.’ Unlike Renly, Stannis always insisted the bastards call him "Lord Stannis," as was proper for bastards. Only Joffrey was allowed to call him ‘uncle.’ Only Uncle Stannis of all the Baratheons showed any respect for Joffrey’s late mother—not Robert, who daily betrayed her memory, nor Renly, who had long been scheming to marry the king to Lady Margaery Tyrell. ‘If Uncle Stannis were Hand,’ thought Joffrey angrily, ‘he’d have sent the Tyrells to the Wall ages ago, and their vile Margaery to the Silent Sisters.’ The Tyrells had besieged Storm’s End for a year, but no one cared—not Renly with his schemes, nor his father with his whores.
Lady Melara ordered Robert’s bastards to leave and turned to Joffrey.
"His Grace intends to betroth you to Lady Sansa Stark."
"Ah," Joffrey frowned. "So it’s decided..."
"Lord Stannis still objects," Melara pursed her lips. "He believes..."
"That I should marry Arianne Martell. I remember."
Arianne Martell was much older than Joffrey and, by all accounts, promiscuous, while Uncle Stannis’s second choice was his cousin Shireen, a sweet girl, but...
"It’s foolish. If only Grandfather would agree and convince Father that—"
"My boy, no one in Westeros would accept Targaryens."
"All it would take is to kill Viserys, and I could marry his sister, and our dynasty would face no opposition."
"But she’s the Mad King’s daughter! What if your children were mad as well?"
‘And what would my children from a Stark be? Savages, like her? Dwarfs, like Tyrion? Pillow-biters, like Renly? Drunks, like Father? Sad failures, like Uncle Jaime—and you? Mother, Mother, if only you were alive...’
"The future isn’t set in stone."
Melara smiled sadly.
"Yes, that’s what your Uncle Kevan said. Once, your mother and I planned to visit a witch in Lannisport to have our fortunes read, but your Uncle Kevan caught us. He said that speculating on the future was foolish."
Joffrey nodded.
"Well then, Stark it is. At least it’s not Tyrell."
Melara pursed her lips.
"Mace Tyrell would gladly agree to your marriage with his daughter, and then Lord Renly wouldn’t—"
Joffrey shrugged.
"Father and Lord Arryn had intended my marriage to Lady Stark from the start."
And Lady Tyrell was excluded precisely because she was Renly’s pawn. Renly, who constantly laughed at him. No, Joffrey would not let Renly win.
What would Mother have said? Surely, she would have convinced Father to bring the Targaryen princess back from exile... Joffrey was certain of it.
"Begin preparations to depart, Lady Melara. I assume the king is eager to leave for Winterfell."
Melara bowed and stepped aside. Joffrey turned back to Uncle Jaime, who stood staring into space, and Joffrey thought once more of his mother.
‘Oh Mother, if only you were here with us.’