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Maekar is familiar with the closed door of the birthing room. Dyanna. His daughters. Now his niece.
There is alarm when word reaches him of Myriah’s labors brought on early. The Blackfyre soldiers landed to fight her armies; that the stresses of rebellion exacerbated her condition is no doubt an unexpected boon to their enemies.
The midwives make a great deal out of the queen’s faultless previous deliveries and Maekar seeks to occupy himself elsewhere. He was made for battlefields and condemned to clerk women’s matters.
Maekar cannot expect word from Aegon at the front and must begrudgingly accept reports from scouts watching from a safe distance.
Ever impatient, Aegon came early. He was a picture of health in Dyanna’s arms.
Maekar doggedly marks out positions of allies and Blackfyres on the maps. He sends a servant for news of the queen.
“Nothing still, my lord.”
The first raven brings word. The fighting has begun. Maekar takes a fortifying sip of wine.
Candles burn low. He does not send for new ones. He dozes briefly in his chair, roused by the stiffness of his own bones. He requires action and there is none to be found here. To his steward, “Deliver all my messages to the queen’s apartments.”
Maekar ignores the sideways glances of the servants even as they bow and curtsy when he enters. “Chair!” he barks. “How fares the queen?”
Silence. Gods, does Maekar’s head ache as he takes his seat.
“There have been… complications, my lord,” one maid dares to speak up.
“And what the fuck does that mean? Bring me a maester or a midwife who can say anything of substance.”
A midwife Maekar recognizes from the princess and prince’s births emerges from the bedchamber, the sounds of groans quickly silenced behind the door. “Your Grace, the babe is not positioned correctly. We are doing everything to encourage the right one.”
“See that you do.”
The next missive placed in Maekar’s hand sinks like a stone in his stomach.
Blackfyre men have broken through the royal lines. Others hold, only just. Rumors spread like wildfire amongst the troops, as of yet to be verified.
Maekar crushes the note in this fist, listening intently to what he can through the wall. Myriah’s cries grow louder. Maekar winces at the sharp ones.
Another message comes and chills his blood.
It is widely said the prince consort was killed. His brother’s men are making a valiant stand, but may not long endure it.
Maekar turns the news over in his mind. He needs proof before he even considers telling Myriah what’s become of her husband.
A maester emerges. “Come with me, if you will Your Grace.”
Myriah’s room stinks of sweat and blood. No one has relit the incense in all the chaos. The moan from the bed is animalistic; Myriah bent on all fours as her ladies hold fast to her, murmuring reassurances.
“There isn’t much time, Your Grace. A decision must be made, and as the queen’s most senior relation –” the maester mutters to Maekar.
“Mother or child,” Maekar cuts to it.
The maester nervously wrings his hands. Nods.
Maekar has scores of regrets in his life.
Standing in a room much like this, Dyanna’s weakening hand in his.
The stale smell of vomit as Daeron tries to survive one more night.
A vision of Aerion’s burned flesh lives behind his eyelids when he cannot sleep.
The reverberating crack of iron striking steel.
Maekar will not regret his actions today. “Queen Myriah, at all costs.”
Myriah meets Maekar’s eye; he has no notion if she even heard him.
“See to it they both suffer as little as possible,” Maekar murmurs low, then strides out of the room.
Maekar stalks the passageways of the castle like a specter, no intent or destination until he finds himself in a corner of the keep he has little occasion to frequent: the nursery.
The septa gasps and quickly curtsies when Maekar enters, apologizing for the state of the room. He waves her off.
“I will sit with the prince and princess until duty calls me elsewhere.”
The children’s play is undeterred by their great-uncle’s arrival. Barely a year separates them; they do all things together. Maekar cannot recall his children behaving so agreeably with each other. He was too often contentious with his own brothers, deserved or no.
Maekar used to say Baelor, despite his natural aptitude, was wasted on statecraft. “Imagine what you could do if all your efforts were put to the battlefield.”
Baelor snorted. “And leave ruling to Aerys or Rhaegel? Neither of us would be so cruel.”
“You would put Daemon in his place once and for all. No one could question father again,” Maekar pressed.
“Bastard relations or no, men will always challenge the Iron Throne. I’d just as soon have both sword and pen at my disposal. We’re fortunate to have you to soldier.”
Maekar did not argue further and kept his selfish truth to himself. If Baelor were more the swordsman, he would be an even greater challenge in the training yard. Maekar would only stand to benefit.
Baelor’s diplomacy brought spearmen to Redgrass and Bryden Rivers had the glory of slaying Daemon. Maekar’s soldiering was an afterthought.
When Haegon Blackfyre landed, Baelor charged Maekar with the king’s army, but it was not Maekar who carried the day.
“Uncle Maekar, we’re playing soldiers how father showed us,” Baela says as she presents the tidy line of toys, her jaw set in Baratheon pride.
The little boy who shares Maekar’s name and his grandfather’s eyes sighs mournfully. “I wanted my dragon.”
“I understand your desire, but a soldier’s true asset is the iron resolve to see the battle done,” Maekar says. “It is everything.”
His great-nephew nods in limited understanding. He will one day, no doubt sooner than later.
Arguments in the small council frequently break out if Myriah’s eldest or her son is to be named heir. Maekar does nothing to quash them, remaining silent. He has his opinions and will give council if Myriah asks it, but it is her decision alone.
A soft voice, “Prince Maekar?”
A child who has not yet reached his fourth nameday and an old man who has far exceeded sixty both turn their head.
Maekar rises. Under his breath to the septa, “Whatever you hear, nothing to the princess and prince unless it is from myself or the queen.”
Beyond the door, the air is as tense as a bowstring.
“What of Queen Myriah?”
“Nothing of her delivery, Your Grace,” his steward says. “It’s Prince Aegon. They say your son routed the Blackfyres into retreat.”
Maekar could weep in relief. His son has delivered the one good thing this trial has seen.
Instead, “Let us hope Aegon has driven the bastards back for good.”
Maekar returns to the queen’s chambers, where the mood is somber: quiet, punctuated by ladies’ sobs. He wonders what news of the war has breached the walls.
Maekar looks to the cradle. He must face the child he condemned. The boy is bruised black and blue, a soldier laid out on the battlefield.
Maekar does not linger.
“The queen sleeps for now, but milk of the poppy will cloud her thoughts when she wakes.”
Now, more than ever, Maekar requires Myriah of clear, sound mind, but her pain was too great. He cannot wish the draught unpoured.
Maekar takes up his post at Myriah’s side.
The day wears on. Myriah does not wake, but murmurs faintly in her sleep. Maekar deigns not to listen, though her litany includes her husband, her mother, her father.
A winded guard delivers a muddied letter in Aegon’s hand.
The arrow struck Ormund clean through the eye. It must be a comfort to my cousin her husband’s passing came swift.
Brave or foolish, though I know what you will call it, Duncan risked life and limb to retrieve Ormund’s body. His leg was badly wounded for his troubles, but the maesters are assured he will not lose it.
I do not know when I will have time for another. Send word to Betha and remember me to my children.
Maekar snorts, but it is in fondness. Not a single boast of his victory, only words for others. It is rather like a letter he’d expect from Baelor.
Myriah is pale when she comes to. She weakly reaches for Maekar’s hand. He pulls back.
“They say my child is dead,” she says in dull grogginess.
“He did not survive.”
A grim sort of hope evaporates from her eyes. She did not know she delivered a son. “They would not let me see.”
Maekar agrees. Myriah ought to be spared the sight, but it will be a small gift before he shatters the rest of her world.
He passes the babe to her, watching as she silently accounts his tiny features, her eyes brimmed with tears. He does not ask if Myriah and Ormund had a name; who she believes the child favors.
Maekar’s voice is rough. “There was a choice, Myriah. You or the babe.”
He’s uncertain if Myriah’s heard him, lost in a haze until he sees the grim set of her mouth.
“You ordered my child dead, uncle?”
Yes.
“I ordered that you must live. Myriah, I’ve word from the Riverlands. The battle is won, but at great cost. Ormund was killed.” Blunt as ever, but it will do her no good to pretend otherwise.
“No,” she says in child-like disbelief.
“Aegon wrote to me. He would not report otherwise if he was uncertain.”
“No!” she cries again, clutching the babe to her chest like a doll.
This is the blackest day in Myriah’s life; a gentle voice will not change a thing. Leaning in as close as he dares, “You must live because you have two children still; they cannot be orphans. Live because a child cannot sit on the fucking throne, not with all the lords working to their own ends.”
“You chief among them?” Myriah spits out bitter disdain.
Where Maekar once dreaded being named Myriah’s regent, he would willingly take on that duty for her child, until he dropped dead in service to the realm; his only justice.
No one dares to say kinslayer. It took a quarter century for the bead of blood in Baelor’s skull to kill him. Maekar’s doing.
Myriah may have Baelor’s eyes, but it is Jena’s wrath Maekar faces now.
“Blame me, hate me, but I would not alter my decision if forced to do so a hundred times over. I will not condemn my brother’s last living child.”
Silent, angry tears run down Myriah’s cheeks. Coldly, “Leave, my lord.”
Maekar rises and bows. “As you will, Your Grace.”
Alone in his chambers, Maekar collapses in his chair, exhaustion wringing him out in ugly sobs.
Dyanna is not here, nor Jena. Kiera was the last person to watch him succumb to grief, united in their loss of Daeron.
Maekar thinks of Aerion, dead in exile. He could not ask for his son’s unspoken banishment lifted. He would not put Baelor in the position of denying his brother.
“I never saw him again, yet I spared her for you. Am I finally the better man, brother?” Maekar shouts bitterly.
The room remains silent.
Maekar inhales sharply, then sets about penning replies to Aegon, to the other commanders, and lords paramount. Let it be one less burden for Myriah today.
Passing the letters to Royce, “Inform me as soon as the queen has seen her children.”
The pride that swells Maekar’s chest every time he hears praise of Aegon’s victory is met with the bitter truth the kind of son he always hoped for came at such a cost.
It is a somber procession returning to King’s Landing. If Maekar embraces his son a moment longer than necessary, Aegon does not say.
“It was awful father.” Sniffing loudly, “Ser Duncan and I return to Summerhall on the morrow.”
“Make what you can of your time there. You’re to be called on to finally supplant me. Queen Myriah requires good council and I can no longer give it.”
Aegon grimaces. Maekar does not blame him. Asking Aegon, in his moment of triumph, to set aside his sword for a pen stings. Baelor did so with seeming effortlessness, but then Baelor…
“You will follow orders, damn you,” Maekar mutters.
He cannot abide the understanding look on Aegon’s face.
Despite his knack for surviving blows which would kill any other man, Ser Duncan still looks dead on his feet. Maekar recognizes the guilt stooping Duncan more than his mangled leg.
“You could not stop the arrow from finding its target, ser, unless you planned on slaying every last bowman,” Maekar says flatly.
“I owed it to him to bring Prince Ormund home. His father – and Queen Myriah,” Duncan hastily amends through the waver in his voice.
Maekar frowns. He cannot account for the queer friendship between House Targaryen’s most renowned knight and the Lord of Storm’s End, but then Lyonel Baratheon has always had a crudeness about him better suited to the smallfolk than the highborn.
Gods forbid it was Aegon struck down, Maekar knows Duncan would do the same, if not more to restore his son to him.
Maekar puts a firm hand to Duncan’s shoulder.
Debates arise in the small council while Myriah lingers in childbed. She returned only days after her other deliveries. She could not be absent in her earliest weeks of her reign, no mere new mother.
“Ser Duncan may be named Protector of the Realm again now Prince Ormund’s dead, gods be good.”
“Younger blood is required for these violent days.”
“Perhaps Prince Aegon, as he already receives one appointment?”
All heads turn towards Maekar, having remained silent through the proceedings. As if currying favor with him is of any value to these men now.
“I’m flattered you believe my son worthy of both Hand and Protector, but I will write Ser Duncan and ask him to return to his old post.”
There must be no accusations of gross overreach on Maekar’s part. He believes it is what Myriah would wish, though he knows less of her mind than he thought.
Myriah does not summon him. Her ladies assure Maekar she will emerge from seclusion for Prince Ormund’s funeral.
Aegon returns a day before the funeral with Betha, the letter conferring his new title in hand.
“Duncan will send his reply to the small council, but I’m forewarning you, he will not serve as Protector again.”
“The man would shirk his duties now?” Maekar is far too tired to keep the anger out of his voice. Ormund Baratheon was an able Protector while he lived, but Maekar had come to rely on Ser Duncan’s caution in the years before.
Aegon gives Maekar an exasperated look as he readies to meet with Queen Myriah in her apartments. “Accept it, father. You do not hold power over all of us.”
Betha confides in Maekar when it is the pair of them alone. “Ser Duncan and Lady Kiera had a terrible row over the appointment.”
That comes as a shock. Lady Kiera and Ser Duncan, strange pair that they are, have been well-matched since Ser Duncan humbly asked Maekar for permission to wed his good-daughter.
“As if this family is not fractured enough,” Maekar grumbles.
“Lady Kiera does not want to be made widow a third time when war is called again. Ser Duncan’s pride made him forget his duty to his wife and the children for only a moment.”
Betha surveys the state of the Hand’s apartments. Having serviced one man alone for years they are utterly unsuited to a family of six.
Not for the first time, Maekar silently thanks the gods for Aegon’s choice in bride. Betha will make the business of the realm less of a burden and hopefully curb some of Aegon’s outlandish notions.
The throne room is stone silent at the queen’s arrival for her husband’s funeral.
The seamstresses have evidently worked days and nights on her mourning attire; black velvet embellished with black silk embroidery, hints of Targaryen red and Baratheon yellow. She has forgone the veil so all the court may see her disciplined composure.
The gown’s most striking feature is not the costly velvet and silk, but its loose skirt over her still-swollen belly, empty of child. Her children stand at each side, small hands tight in hers.
Prince Maekar’s expression is a passable imitation of his lady mother’s, while Princess Baela clearly had tears wiped from her face moments before. She was her father’s pet, after all.
Ormund Baratheon’s body follows, covered in silk banners to spare the sensibilities of those who do not know what the force of a longbow’s arrow does to a man’s skull. Maekar might not have recognized the corpse in its bloodied livery but for the rings.
That does not even account for his posthumous wounds, shielding Ser Duncan, sparing his life in retreat.
One of the ladies-in-waiting reported back to Maekar the sight of her husband’s corpse broke the queen only a moment.
“She is very brave, my lord.”
There are no sobs from the queen today, but a single, ragged cry draws Maekar’s attention to Lady Baratheon, barely scaffolded by her lord husband. They’ve aged years overnight.
Dead sons do that to a body.
Myriah ascends the steps of the dais, with a face for cut marble, the children to the septas.
This is not the girl who trailed in the wake of her mother’s skirts; who sat at her father’s side in the small council and watched intently at his every ruling; who blushed when her betrothed flashed her bold grins from the tourney field.
Queen Myriah sits on her throne alone.
When Aegon and Betha’s children arrive in King’s Landing some days later, Maekar’s chambers descend into chaos. It reminds him too much of Dyanna and Summerhall; a pain in Maekar’s heart.
It is also giving him a headache. He must step out before he snaps at one of them.
It is a surprise to find the Queensguard assembled in the courtyard. Myriah leads her horse to the groomsman. When she spies Maekar, she crosses the yard to him, two guards following.
Maekar bows, “Your Grace.”
“Uncle.”
“You should not be riding again so soon.”
Myriah frowns. “The maesters advised it would restore my health.”
He will not argue it.
Maekar still wears his badge of office. It served for Maekar as it served for Baelor. He unpins it and hands it to her. “Aegon has commissioned one of his own, but you ought to have this back.”
She turns the badge over in her hand in consideration. “Walk with me, uncle.”
Maekar nods and Myriah loops her arm through his. She favors Jena in this light, though she stands taller than her late mother. Maekar allows himself to be led.
The silence between them is deafening.
Maekar clears his throat, “Aegon will give fair council, Your Grace; far more learned than mine, but be warned, he is incautious. His concern for the smallfolk will alienate even the most tolerant lords in time.”
Myriah nods. She still says nothing.
They walk until they are under the great tapestry drawn up in the earliest days of Jena’s illness, cut down from the loom in the weeks after her death.
Baelor and Jena are framed by Valarr and Matarys, Queen Myriah in imagined womanhood at the center, the future to carry on their house.
Maekar stands beside the flesh and blood Myriah, dead brothers staring down at both of them.
“Ormund is not even cold and already they speak of marriage,” Myriah hisses in a low voice. “Decency counts for nothing in these matters, I know, but would that they were less shameless.”
Maekar does not mistake her panic. “They wish to know how your allegiances will shift.”
“My children are my chief concern.”
“Another marriage may serve to protect you and your son’s crown.” Maekar winces, having spoken aloud what he never intended.
She does not miss his error. “King Maekar sounds very well to you, does it?”
“You named him, not I,” he says dryly.
It is easier to appease lords with a prince, Maekar could argue; a coward’s answer. It lends stability to the realm. Shall I show you the scar I took in service to you, a mere child, to halt another Blackfyre from seizing your birthright?
It was Baelor who told Maekar Jena safely delivered a princess that sweltering summer day a lifetime ago.
“Fuck,” Maekar muttered, otherwise preoccupied. He had wagered for a prince with his good-sister’s life to spare his own sons. He lost.
Baelor demeanor shifted lightning-quick from an unfettered contentment to a chilly judgement Maekar prayed he never had cause to provoke. “I will not allow any man to call my daughter or wife a failure in my presence.”
Not brothers, but the king and his servant. “Yes, Your Grace.”
Baelor’s expression softened, but not to his previous joy. Lined with worry, he twisted at the ring bearing his sons’ hair, “Jena lays blame on herself, which I cannot abide, not when we prayed for a daughter once. It should not be any less a blessing because she is my heir.”
Maekar has only the council of the dead for his niece now. “Your grandmother and likely your lady mother would plead Princess Baela’s case.”
“And my father?”
Maekar watched as his brother used every last ounce of his strength to live long enough to hold even one grandchild.
Baelor is so very far from Maekar now. “I truly do not know.” He clears his throat, “As to a marriage, remaining a widow is precarious but reminds them all you are the queen. No one else.”
“And what would you advise, as Hand?”
Roughly, “I’m no longer your Hand. It is your decision, Your Grace.”
In an exasperated sort of exhaustion, “Where is your courage, uncle?” Then gently, “What would you do?”
His niece and the Baratheon boy were an odd pair: staid princess and arrogant knight, but the love was plain to see. It is cruel how little time they had.
If his father or mother or anyone else began harping on a new wife while a newborn Rhae cried for Dyanna’s tender touch, Maekar is sure he would have succumbed to some violence. His wife has been gone half his life. There has been no one else.
Maekar shakes his head.
Myriah’s eyes are soft in gratitude. She kisses his cheek and squeezes his arm in assurance. Her rings catch in the light; gifts from her husband, jewels inherited from her mother. Baelor’s signet, refitted for a slender finger.
They resume their walk, now in a more personable silence.
“Ormund would have named our boy Lyonel,” she breaks their quiet softly.
Maekar supposes they could not all bear Valyrian names, even if the thought of one of his kin named for that man irritates Maekar to no end.
It had been an unlooked-for honor when Myriah presented her firstborn son to Maekar with his own name. But then her first year as queen had been a trying one and some sentimentality was to be expected. Maekar remained close at her side, as Baelor had asked of him.
And now it is time for Maekar to go.
Maekar returns home to a much quieter Summerhall than he last departed. Daeron and Aerion’s ghosts linger in its dark corners and silences.
Maekar still wears the mourning ring delivered to him by Ser Ducan’s last squire on Baelor’s passing. The boy’s long since knighted, Maekar imagines the courage to face him alone warranted the honor. If only Maekar had the forethought to save some part of Daeron and Aerion for himself, as Jena did for her boys.
The grief is easier to ignore when Aegon’s brood vied loudly for Maekar’s attention. But Summerhall is not entirely devoid of grandchildren.
It has been too long, Maekar despairs, seeing how tall and lithe Vaella has grown, made plain without her half-brother to tower over her. Daeron was the only child of Maekar and Dyanna’s to inherit Maekar’s height, now passed on to Daeron’s daughter.
Vaella smiles as her cat curls up on her lap in the warmth of the hearth-lit hall, then returns to her embroidery.
Vaella has Daeron’s true smile, not the insensible wine-sopped grin, but the one when his little brothers and sisters made him laugh, or when he looked to his wife.
The twinge in Maekar’s chest is not so painful.
At Dyanna’s desk, Kiera is bent over the household accounts, the duty returned to her from Betha. “As there will be no royal progress this year, I thought Daella and Rhae might bring their families for the summer and autumn,” she says. “It is too soon to ask Aegon to set aside council duties, but perhaps Aemon may find the time.”
Maekar nods in approval.
His injured leg still propped up, Duncan is absorbed in a letter, ignoring the hounds loudly snoring beside him.
“How does Arlan find squiring for his hedge knight?” Maekar cannot keep the amusement out of his voice. All the highest lords the realm at his disposal and Ser Duncan the Tall insisted on a man plucked from a tavern for his son.
“Ser Kevan is fair with him, but the road is a trial. Time away from lordly comforts will sharpen Arlan’s instincts.”
Kiera looks pointedly at her husband. No doubt she would keep her son closer.
“Arlan already has a good temperament. He’ll learn what he must,” Maekar says brusquely.
Both Kiera and Duncan beam in pride at praise of their son.
Maekar stretches his legs and leans back against his chair. For the first time in many years, he easily falls into an untroubled sleep.