Chapter Text
Duncan had been obsessed with songs and stories his whole life. When Rhaelle was seven, and he fourteen, she came upon her brother, drunk for the first time on Arbor Gold and truth.
"Father named me after Ser Duncan, his dearest friend, one of the greatest knights of the realm, but people whisper to each other in the streets, 'What has the Prince Duncan done that some hedge knight has not? What songs shall we sing about him?'" He sniffled. Rhaelle, hurting to see her brother hurt, offered to write one up herself and sing it from the parapets of every castle in the Seven Kingdoms, from the cliffs of Dorne to the icy top of The Wall.
Duncan had laughed, eyes red and soul weepy. "It's not truly about the songs, sweet sister. It is about the legacy."
It continues on this way for many years- until one day, it doesn't.
When Duncan comes back to the Red Keep after a dual purpose tour through the Riverlands and visit with their Mother's family and isn't melancholy, Rhaelle is immediately suspicious.
Daeron agrees, and it makes Rhaelle a little relieved, because he is a boy and Father will listen if Daeron says something, instead of just laughing her off like Jaehaerys and Shaera do when she brings it up.
(But then, Jaehaerys and Shaera are blind to the world around them, that does not involve the other, to an almost sickening degree.)
Rhaelle never expects for Daeron to burst into her room one night, though. "Duncansinlovewithapeasantgirlandheplanstorunawaytonightandmarryher!" He manages to get out in a single breath. Lanai Blackwood, their cousin and Rhaelle's best friend, looks at him with her mouth agape as he doubles over, panting.
With a stern order to Lanai to stay there, Rhaelle slips on a nightgown over her shift and all but flies to Duncan's room.
It's a punch in the gut, throwing open the door to his room to see all his belongings scattered about.
"Dunk?" She inquires, hating the tears in her voice that threaten to fall. Duncan, the sword Mother and Father had gifted him with when he'd been knighted in hand- he'd named it Blacktooth- turns around slowly.
Out of all her siblings, Duncan looks the most like their mother, with his curly dark hair and dark, dark eyes.
But when he experiences great emotion, his eyes turn the color of a great and terrible storm, and it is easier to see that Targaryen purple, reflected among obsidian.
"Duncan," Rhaelle cautioned, "what are you doing?"
Her brother- caught- straightened his back and turned around slowly, stiffly.
"You should leave, Rhaelle." He reaches a hand out in a non-threatening way, voice calm and steady like one would approach a wounded animal. Rhaelle, having been raised in court and no stranger to sharp tongues, turns her head and hisses, "Why? So you can run back to the Riverlands and whatever peasant girl you've found that put this insanity into your head?"
"Rhaelle," Duncan pleads with her, "I love her!"
"And what is it that you love about her? What's her name?" Rhaelle challenges, face screwing up to prevent the falling of tears.
Duncan's face lights up- and it twists at her heart, because she is eleven and knows this cannot be, they do not live in a world where people marry for love, with the rare exception of her parents- and the words can't seem to come out of him fast enough. "Her name's Jenny, she's from Oldstones, she has this bright red hair, like a flame and mesmerizing blue eyes like the sky, she has seen four and twenty years, and she can do magic! She's a woodswitch but more, Relle, she's wonderful...!"
"Oh, yes, because a marriage built on magic is certainly going to impress Mother and Father! The highborn and lowborn alike will certainly be impressed by a queen who's a bloody witch!" Rhaelle shrieks.
A voice that stops both Rhaelle and Duncan's hearts for a moment pipes up behind them. "No, no, Duncan, go back to the part about her 'bright red hair, like a flame and mesmerizing blue eyes like the sky.' And she's six years older than you, you say? Is that what you prefer, Duncan Targaryen? Or should I bow before you, like a girl who has not all but grown up next to you, a girl who has never even seen a highborn lord and stammer, and address you as 'my prince?' I mean, I cannot do anything about my own black hair or blue eyes that are more stormy sky than clear day, and I'm sorry if that is not to your taste, but I suppose that is what mistresses are for, isn't it? You get to hand pick those, or so I'm told." Jessa Baratheon leans against the door in a Baratheon yellow silk sleeping gown, the only sign of her agitation a rhythm the fingers of her right hand tap on the left arm she'd crossed over her chest.
Her eyes, though, were the epitome of her house words. 'Ours is the fury, indeed.' Rhaelle thought.
It crossed her mind, to be concerned for her brother for a moment, before she remembered her brother was an idiot and deserved this. Plus, Ser Warryck Celtigar, a member of the Kingsguard, stood only a little down the hall.
Face red, Duncan turns to look at her. "Rhaelle, you should go."
"I'm perfectly inclined to think she should stay. She's grown up in this court, she knows what happens between a man and a woman, she obviously has enough sense to try and talk you out of whatever folly you're attempting to commit. Have you even thought about anyone else, Duncan?" Jessa crosses the hazard that her brother has made of his bedchamber and sits primly on the edge of his bed
Duncan wilts under her words. The air is tense and heavy like the afternoon before an impending summer storm over the Blackwater.
Then winces at the appearance of Father, who materializes out of thin air like one of the many phantoms that haunt the Red Keep.
"What in the world is going on here?" Father's voice roars out, storming into Duncan's chambers. Ser Duncan the Tall- truly, Father's oldest friend (except maybe Uncle Aemon, who is on the wall)- is not long behind, and neither are Mother or Daeron.
"Oh, nothing, Fa-" Duncan starts, at the exact moment Jessa pips up, brightly, "Oh, nothing, Your Grace. We were just discussing mistresses and their role in a royal household." She is still seated at the edge of Duncan's bed, ankles crossed. "I thought I might as well go ahead and lay down my expectations, since we're to be married in a few short moons."
Daeron guffaws, and Rhaelle remembers something she overheard in Court, once.
"The seven hells hath no fury like that of a highborn woman scorned." She whispers.
This has the unwanted side affect of reminding (or alerting to) her father that she is, in fact, in the room.
Between clenched teeth, Father spits out, "Ser Theobold, would you mind escorting Daeron and Rhaelle to their chambers, please. And make sure that they stay there."
She and Daeron go to protest- open their mouths at the same time, even- but Mother and Father both shoot them a warning look. Father's says, 'Do not cross me right now or I will send you to the Black Cells, by the Gods' and Mother's says 'Do not cross your Father right now or by the Old Gods he will send you to the Black Cells.'
Daeron lets out a sigh, Rhaelle pouts, and Ser Theobold Hightower marches them to their chambers.
Lanai is asleep when she enters, and while Rhaelle normally is grateful for her cousin, whose vivaciousness helps fill her large, empty bed chamber, she would much rather be alone with her thoughts today.
At least her cousin isn't hogging all the blankets.
two months later
Jessa walks down the aisle of the Great Sept of Baelor, looking every inch the queen she will one day be. Her maiden's clock- heavy, in black velvet and yellow silk- is so long that it requires four maidens to help hold it up. The honor falls to Jessa's sisters- Gwyneira and Hyndi- as well as Rhaelle and her older sister, Shaera. Lord Lyonel Baratheon, known to the Seven Kingdoms as The Laughing Storm, is barely able to hold back tears as he removes the maiden cloak from his daughter's neck. His heir Ormund is much the same.
(Rhaelle is sure she sees one slip from the great lord's left eye when the Targaryen cloak, heavy black velvet with red silk rubies sewn on to look like scales, is placed around Jessa's neck by Duncan. Lady Sabine Baratheon- Jessa's mother and a Connington by birth- smiles even as tears stream down her face.)
The new couple repeats the Seven Blessings and the Seven Vows before their hands are bound together with white silk ribbon, and the High Septon proclaims them one in the sights of God and Men.
There is a lunch feast, and then the start of a tourney. They go through the first few rounds of jousting- and Rhaelle thinks that, maybe, Duncan looks happy next to his bride.
That night, before the start of their wedding feast, Lady Jessa Baratheon Targaryen is crowned with Princess Jocelyn Baratheon Targaryen's crown. (Jocelyn would have been the first Baratheon queen, had Aemon not died before his father Jaeherys the First did and left only a daughter, a girl named Rhaenys.) It's beautiful, made of gold that looks as yellow as the Baratheon colors and is studded with obsidian. Jessa has changed from her buttercream yellow gown with the black threading to a red silk gown, with black and gold threading that Rhaelle will despair to see torn apart in the bedding.
It is a look for a Baratheon Queen.
Years later, when Rhaelle's heart breaks for the first time, and she is half drunk on Arbor Gold and sorrow, she will ask her good sister about Jenny of Oldstones. Jessa will have had three children by then, two of them sons, one at her very breast the moment the question escapes her lips. Nursing Durran (who is all Baratheon coloring except for the eyes that look blue and purple, like pieces of colored glass over one another) Jessa turns to the window. "I was dismissed shortly after you were, so I have no idea what was said. But I went back to your brother's room right as the sun rose that morning, to find him sitting in the middle of his room. I must have watched him for near an hour before I spoke. And I told him this- he could marry me, and he could bring this Jenny girl to King's Landing, not to court, but put her in a manse... He could give an heir and a spare for me to birth, and he would never have to share my bed again if he did not so desire. But he could not get any bastards on her until after I had had his legitimate trueborn heirs. And if he did get any bastards on that girl, he could not legitimize them. He could acknowledge them, but not legitimize them. The last thing I will have is my son's throne threatened. The realm is still dealing with the mess left by Aegon the Unworthy and the Blackfyre pretenders." Jessa crossed the room and laid Durran down in his cot. Her goodsister looks at her with a brittle smile, "We wrote our agreement down, used our seals and two witnesses. Ser Duncan signed, as did your Uncle Aemon, when he came to the wedding. Four copies of it exist. One at Storm's End, one with Ser Duncan, one hidden in my rooms here, and on at The Wall." Rhaelle, having never been drunk before, throws up shortly after and goes to lie down.
It does not occur to her until quite a few years later when, recollecting on that conversation with her husband, she remembers Jessa nursing Durran, the spare to Duncan's heir, Aemon. And she remembers that Duncan was in the Riverlands visiting their cousin, Benton Blackwood, who had just been made Lord of Raventree Hall, and that the trip did take longer than it was originally supposed to.