Fic: Ours is the Fury for plaid_slytherin
Recipient: plaid_slytherin
Title: Ours is the Fury
Author: littleloonlost
Rating: Teen
Pairing: Argella Durrandon/Orys Baratheon
Word Count: ~4,000
Summary: How do you go from a queen to not being a queen?
She had never considered any dilemma between marrying for love or for duty.
The only surviving heir to a long line of warrior kings, Argella had never doubted that she and her father would seek the same things from a match. From a girl, she had known this. Her husband would rule the Stormlands by her side. His blood would flow in the veins of every Storm King to come. The seed must be strong.
The princes, in her childhood games, never rescued her from dragons. They led her armies, slaughtered her enemies. Her kingdom flourished on his strength and her determination. The waves rose all around them and the castle held.
When she breathlessly recounted these stories to her father, he would roar with laughter, all the more so if he had strongwine. He would slap her on the back so hard, she had to struggle not to stumble. That was her challenge to herself.
Argilac’s attendants often shook their heads or exchanged glances, sorry that their King had only a girl to carry on his line. But her father never looked sorry.
*
She’d thought there could be nothing more humiliating than being offered in marriage to Aegon Targaryen, a creature whose only strength lay in his soaring magical monsters, whose blood could be no thicker than horse piss for all the incest his family had practised for generations. Worse, he was already married twice over. By the law of any decent people, she would not even be his wife, but his whore.
She’d thrown her father’s cup of wine in his face. Blood flowed from a cut above his eye and it only made him laugh, which made her scream. Brilliant sunlight came through the windows, casting shadows all around them. There was not a cloud in sight. It made a mockery of the storm.
And those wives, Aegon’s own sisters of the full blood. Argella’s children would be stronger than theirs, their twisted inbred abominations. How long before they fed her babes to their dragons?
Argilac was not known as ‘the Arrogant’ for nothing. He had done many rash things. She and he had both often taken a certain pride in it. Not for them calm waters.
She felt now like someone had taken a scythe to their bloodline, severing father from daughter.
How could her father fear Black Harren when there were three maniacs who could lay waste to the Seven Kingdoms with flying demons, hatched through some dark magic?
That was the night she threw her maidenhead. Not with a knight, nor even a squire. He probably didn’t even have a right to a name. But what use was a name to a woman?
To think, she’d thought back then that she knew what humiliation was.
*
Argella had thought her father’s offer of her hand to the Lord of Dragonstone sealed her doom.
In fact, it was only a beginning.
The response, when it came, was more brutal than anything she could imagine, and Argella had first seen men die by the sword when she was in swaddling clothes.
It was another glorious summer’s day, but the King’s rage cast thunderclouds over the keep. Servants were fast-moving and huddled, to make a small and moving target, but Argilac, the old warrior, was a good aim. There was not an object in his chambers left unbroken. No-one spoke above a whisper.
Argella would never really know if her father realised the extent of his mistake. He would not see her.
She tried to push past his guardsmen, as was her wont, but they stood firm, whether she screamed, sobbed or slapped them. They did not budge even when she tried charm. That was not surprising. What price the wiles of a scorned princess?
Aegon, who had nothing to offer but dragon-breath, had spurned her.
Had that been the extent of the message, her relief might have outweighed her embarrassment.
Aegon’s envoy had worse to say than that.
Not only was she not worth marrying to a man who thought so little of the words that he’d taken both his sisters to wife, but he proposed Argilac dispose of her - and half his lands - in marriage to Orys Baratheon.
The man was nothing. A good soldier, she heard, but so were Argilac’s men. She’d only heard anything about him because people talked of nothing else, it seemed, but the Targaryens and their dragons. Orys, so the little birds sang, was one of them in all but name: Aegon’s bastard half-brother as well as his champion.
Orys Baratheon carried the tainted blood of the Targaryens and no doubt their abominable habits, but without even the small virtues of their name, their seat on Dragonstone - or their monsters. There could scarcely be a greater insult to the Stormlands than to propose him as a match for the Storm King’s heir - if Argilac paid enough in lands.
Surely there could be no greater humiliation than this.
After raging for three days straight, and still without once admitting Argella to his presence, Argilac composed his response.
He sent Aegon his envoy’s hands in a box, with a note that said, “These are the only hands your bastard shall have of me.”
That was another beginning, but an ending too.
*
Aegon and his sisters responded with fire and blood.
Though neither of the Durrandons - nor anyone else, she imagined - mourned Black Harren, the tale of what happened to him and his stronghold was enough to freeze the blood.
Nothing could be the same after that.
Aegon - calling himself King now! - did not show the Stormlands or Argilac the respect of facing them himself. Instead he sent the bastard Baratheon, along with his sister Rhaenys and her monster Meraxes.
Argella had always known her father would die with a sword in his hand. She could not blame him for his decision to ride forth to meet Baratheon in the field. She could call him a damned fool, but she couldn’t blame him.
At last the rains came.
*
Argilac had had a crown made for Argella when she came of age. It was lighter than his own, and more richly decorated. Just the same, she had always thought that she might choose to wear his crown, when the time came.
The time never came.
When word arrived of Argilac’s fall, and an enemy host on its heels, the first thing she did was order the gates barred. The second was a perfunctory and far from celebratory coronation, using the lightweight crown.
She spoke to the people, briefly, enough to persuade them there would be no surrender, not enough to let them see how small her hope was.
It was not long before the shadow of Meraxes fell across Storm’s End. Argella focussed on her breathing.
The beast was awesome, of course it was, but a Queen’s knees did not tremble and so Argella stayed steady. She would not stumble in the wind from the thing’s wings; she would not sweat in the heat from its breath.
A dragon might well kill her, but one would not demean her. Not again.
Rhaenys herself was not so impressive. Oh, she supposed almost any man in the realm would surrender to her given half a chance, but anyone could smile so easily with a weapon like that at her bidding.
And there would always be many who would wish to wipe the smile off her face.
If ever there had been a time when courtesy might have saved them, it was too late now.
“You are not welcome here.”
Rhaenys cocked her head to the side, a lock of silver hair wrapped around her finger. “I could say the same. Your King is defeated. This castle is not yours.”
“The King is dead. You address the Storm Queen, Argella Durrandon, the First of Her Name.” She might as well have said the Last, but her face gave away nothing. “Unless you are here to bend the knee, I would suggest you leave at once.” She could ignore the frightened murmurs around the yard. If they got much louder, they would drown out the blood pounding in her ears. “I don’t know what that monster is made of.” Her eyes darted in the dragon’s direction. She forced herself to see nothing. “But you are only flesh.”
Rhaenys looked slowly around the walls, as if trying to meet every man’s eye. She spoke to them.
“If you do not bend the knee, you will die. You were loyal to your King. That will not be held against you. But your King is dead. Bend the knee or you will all die.”
She mounted the dragon without waiting for a response.
Argella ran forward and immediately cursed herself for losing her composure.
“We will die to the last man!” she shouted. “You may take my castle, but you will win only bones and blood and ashes!”
Rhaenys smiled a smile so maddening Argella felt her mind shake loose.
And then she was gone, only the dragon’s great shadow falling over Storm’s End.
*
The worst part was not being dragged from her bed. It wasn’t the hands clamped over her mouth, even her nose at one terrifying point, or the hands pinioning her arms, or those seizing her legs to keep her from kicking. It wasn’t the half-dozen armed men tearing her nightclothes from her body and staring as if she were their last meal. It wasn’t the chains and the gag that replaced the hands - at least they meant she wasn’t to be killed immediately, and they took no liberties meanwhile.
The worst part was a long moment, stretching implausibly as her mind struggled to keep up. It was the realisation, against which she resisted with a valour that would have made her father proud, that these were his men. Her men. Men of Storm’s End. That was the moment, she understood later, that she ceased to be Queen. If her people had betrayed her so utterly, so readily, she never really had been Queen. Her struggle melted away with the recognition that one of them - oh, the one who had held her mouth shut - was the boy with no name who had consoled her when she had thought she was to be married to Aegon.
The worst part was a long moment. It did not end.
*
The journey to meet the Targaryen army was the longest of her life. She could see nothing but the image of the peace banner flying over Storm’s End. She brought the rage up with vomit and bile, and nearly choked before her treacherous escort thought to remove the gag. She would have retched again when they replaced the same sodden gag minutes later, but for sheer force of will. That was not lost to her.
After throwing her over the back of a horse, they were careful not to touch her. They seemed to think that made this exercise honourable. She would have killed them for their pride alone. They were happy to look, of course. She would have killed them for that, too.
The men became a little less happy as they approached the conqueror’s forces. They looked straight ahead now. The whistling grew more muted then died away.
I hope the bastard guts you all like fish.
Whispers began among the Targaryen soldiers, increasing as the word passed and some of the bolder men called out lewd suggestions.
Their stares did not burn Argella as the Stormlanders’ had. You could expect no better from these people.
She looked them in the eye as she was dragged past. At first she thought that quietened them, but it was something else.
Their commander had ridden through the ranks. After one look at him, it did not surprise her that his presence made them fall silent.
One would be brave to cross this man.
Her father had been brave.
“Lady Argella, I presume?”
There were some sniggers around the camp, but the bastard’s head swung round and they abruptly ceased.
She ought to protest. She ought to declare herself the Queen.
She said nothing.
One of her captors pushed himself forward. Argilac had knighted the man himself. “My lord,” he said, “My lord, I am Ser Robbard of Tarth. We come-”
Orys Baratheon stepped down from his horse. She could have sworn the ground shook.
“No more, Ser Robbard. You have done more than enough.” He held up a palm the size of Argella’s face and the man fell silent.
Her spine was rigid as he approached her. She was tall for a woman, but he cast a large shadow. She would not break his gaze.
He touched her arm and goosepimples rose on her flesh. He turned her wrist in his hand. With a start, she realised he was looking for the catch on her shackles. She stayed perfectly still as he released, first her wrists, then her neck, her ankles. A growl rose in his throat when he saw the skin rubbed raw where the chains had been.
He began to fumble with his own cloak-pin. Only then did Argella move, and then only to pull the gag from her mouth. She was glad he had not done that.
The bastard pulled his cloak free and wrapped it around her. She shivered.
He stood back from her and gestured an arm. “Come, my lady. We can make you more comfortable. You must be hungry after your journey.”
She took a ginger step and found that her muscles were stiff but still working.
Ser Robbard and the others moved to follow. Baratheon lifted his sword a few inches from its sheath.
“You won’t be required, Sers.”
*
Argella clutched a cup of hot wine. She had scarcely sipped it but the warmth gave her something to focus on.
They had found her some clothes and some water to wash in. Roughspun stuff and cold water, to be sure, but she would not complain. She still had his cloak, wrapped around her like a blanket. It smelled of man.
“King Argilac was a brave man,” he was saying. “He died well.”
She touched the cup to her lips but did not drink. She let the warmth travel through her skin. She didn’t need to hear the victor’s side of the story to know her father had died bravely. She had always known he would. He died better than he lived.
He must have realised she wasn’t listening.
“You should rest.” He hesitated in the entrance of the tent. “You won’t be harmed here, my lady. This is the best thing for your people. They will live.”
She couldn’t keep her tears at bay a moment after the tent flap dropped. But she did not let herself wallow for long. She dried the tears on the cloak he’d left round her and closed her eyes.
*
The army moved slowly towards Storm’s End.
It pleased Baratheon to have her dine with him. It meant having the best of the camp’s food, so she didn’t demur, except on the nights that Rhaenys was there.
He said it was pleasant to have some civilised conversation. Perhaps that was a jibe at her for saying so little.
One night, when they were so close to Storm’s End that her heart felt bruised all over, she expected to dine alone in her tent. Rhaenys had arrived that afternoon and Argella could scarcely have failed to notice her leave. Dragons at close quarters did not possess the virtue of stealth.
Nonetheless one of the men arrived with the usual courteous invitation to dinner.
“With Baratheon? Not Queen Rhaenys?” She spat the title out. She had learned quickly that no matter how gently she was treated here, Baratheon tolerated nothing in the camp that could be construed as disrespectful to Aegon or his sisters.
But only Baratheon and his attendants were there when she entered the tent. The uneasy expression on his face did not allay her suspicions.
“Where is Queen Rhaenys?”
“The Queen prepares to fly back tonight.”
“Back?”
“Back to the King. She brought word from him. He will want to hear... that the message got through.”
She took her usual seat at the table and noted she had already been poured a more than generous measure of wine.
“Well, I don’t imagine you would have told me she’d brought word if you didn’t mean to tell me what it was.”
A serving man made to dish out the first course, but Baratheon impatiently waved him away, along with his cupbearer and guardsman.
“King Aegon has honoured me greatly. He has made me Lord of Storm’s End.”
Argella stayed very still.
“He wishes us to be married. As soon as possible.”
She breathed carefully for a few moments and thought of her father. Then she met his anxious gaze with a clear blue-eyed stare.
“You will hear my terms.”
He started. “Terms, my lady? It is the King’s will.”
“The King has his will and I have mine. If that troubles you, there seems little point in continuing.”
A smile unfurled across his face. There might have been a bud of amusement growing there. Argella did not smile. She was no Rhaenys Targaryen.
“Very well, my lady. You had better tell me your terms, then.”
She nodded. “For my bride’s gift, you will give me the heads of those who betrayed me. All of them. With my father’s sword, before our wedding guests. Only then will I say the words.”
He looked surprised, but not at all troubled. “As you wish.”
“I will not leave the Stormlands.”
“I will have to spend time at court. After the conquest is complete. The King values my counsel.”
He puffed up at that. It made her speak more sharply than intended.
“You spend all the time at court you please. I won’t leave my home.”
He leaned across the table and covered her hand with his. It was the first time he’d touched her since that first day. There was no mistaking that this was a very strong hand indeed.
“My lady, you must know that I would die before I would let anything threaten my King.”
His eyes were very black. She would have pulled her hand free, but was afraid that she could not.
She spoke through gritted teeth. “No doubt you will leave enough of your men behind to forestall any uprising. And as you have seen, my men have shown themselves to be less than valiant when faced with your bloody monsters.”
“The dragons are not mine.”
“Have you ever wondered what would have happened if your father had put an egg in your cradle?”
He snatched his hand back. “Are you quite finished, my lady?”
“No. My children will not be fostered away from home. You have had your conquest, my lord. My children will not be hostages.”
“I doubt the King would object. At least, not as long as I am alive.”
To keep an eye on me.
“The dragons will stay away from the Stormlands.”
Neither of them spoke for a long pause.
“There could never be a hint of anything other than complete fealty,” he said at last.
She sighed. “I have played my cards, my lord.”
“Anything else?”
She took her first sip of the wine.
“I will need a new gown.”
*
They rode through the gates of Storm’s End together.
She concentrated on keeping her hands still on the reins, idly wondering what would happen if she yanked the horse aside and made a break. She wore a gown instead of chains this time, but she had no delusions about her position.
She would not look at Aegon’s banner.
It was a handsome horse, black, powerfully built. Baratheon had made her a gift of it, to mark their betrothal. She felt she had given him enough.
She took in the faces of the people lining the courtyard - faces once so familiar, now so strange. The last time she had stood here, she’d been sure they were all days away from death.
Baratheon dismounted from his horse and offered her his hand to help her down. Conscious of the eyes on them, she took it.
He spoke loudly enough for everyone to hear - though, in any event, she did not think the man knew how to whisper. “The wedding shall be on the morrow. Make ready.”
Argella was more than ready.
*
It felt peculiar, being in her own chamber, wearing her own gowns and jewels. She had insisted on the servants being changed, and as for those who had guarded her door... well, theirs would be among the heads Baratheon had promised her.
He paid her a visit that afternoon. He laid Argilac’s sword on the table between them, alongside the sweetwine and honeycakes.
He looked more than pleased with himself.
“The King has permitted me to keep this.”
She frowned. “The King? You slew my father, the sword is yours.”
“His Majesty has taken to keeping the swords of his conquests.”
“This was your conquest, my lord.”
He took her hand. “Anything that is mine is the King’s.”
She surprised him with a strong grip.
“I am to be yours.”
“And the King shall have our fealty. And you shall be defended by your father’s sword while there is breath in my body.”
It was the first time she smiled at him.
“There is another thing,” he said. His thick black eyebrows furrowed. “Before King Aegon would agree, I told him I would take your house’s sigil and your words.”
She pulled back and made as if to stand, but sat back down. Her lips moved silently.
“House Baratheon will fly the stag banner.”
“House Baratheon?!”
He stood and lifted the sword. It looked so much smaller in his hands than it had in Argilac’s.
“Do you want to be the last of a great house, Argella? Or the first?”
There was nothing to say.
He paused in the doorway. “Your father never intended you to rule alone, my lady.”
*
In spite of the haste and everything else, the wedding was quite a show.
A gown had been brought from Dragonstone - on dragonback, she grimly supposed. The voluptuous cut was not what Argella would have chosen, but she admired the dark blue hue of tumultuous waters and the cloth-of-gold accents, in tribute to her house. Or his. There were hundreds of pearls stitched around it. It was fit for a queen.
She was surprised at how little she felt when she saw the heads roll. Vengeance was not the crescendo she had imagined. But when Orys stood before her, face flecked with blood that had been shed for her, a traitor’s head shaking from each huge fist, it suddenly became possible to look forward. It had not been, before.
The castle had been hoarding provisions for a siege, so the feast was splendid. She had not realised how long it had been since there was music in Storm’s End until it rang through the halls, filling them in a way they hadn’t been since her mother died. There were no players but some of the soldiers did a play that Argella would, if pressed, admit was comical. Orys roared with laughter that nearly drowned out the music.
She had said nothing about the bedding, so she was surprised when he insisted on them walking to the wedding bed on their own feet and with their garb intact.
“You will all know we are truly man and wife when my lady brings forth my son,” he said with a generous wink.
I will.
He did not seem surprised that she did not bleed. Perhaps he thought that was why she’d wanted her captors dead. He would never ask.
He did seem surprised at her command of the situation. She enjoyed feeling his muscles tense, the touch of alarm in his gasp.
After, she was surprised she didn’t cool down. The chill night air was no match for his presence. She let one leg hang limply out of the bed like some slattern. She could hear the change in his breathing as he gathered himself to speak.
“Do you wish me to leave?”
She did not rush her answer.
“No,” she said.
End.
Title: Ours is the Fury
Author: littleloonlost
Rating: Teen
Pairing: Argella Durrandon/Orys Baratheon
Word Count: ~4,000
Summary: How do you go from a queen to not being a queen?
She had never considered any dilemma between marrying for love or for duty.
The only surviving heir to a long line of warrior kings, Argella had never doubted that she and her father would seek the same things from a match. From a girl, she had known this. Her husband would rule the Stormlands by her side. His blood would flow in the veins of every Storm King to come. The seed must be strong.
The princes, in her childhood games, never rescued her from dragons. They led her armies, slaughtered her enemies. Her kingdom flourished on his strength and her determination. The waves rose all around them and the castle held.
When she breathlessly recounted these stories to her father, he would roar with laughter, all the more so if he had strongwine. He would slap her on the back so hard, she had to struggle not to stumble. That was her challenge to herself.
Argilac’s attendants often shook their heads or exchanged glances, sorry that their King had only a girl to carry on his line. But her father never looked sorry.
*
She’d thought there could be nothing more humiliating than being offered in marriage to Aegon Targaryen, a creature whose only strength lay in his soaring magical monsters, whose blood could be no thicker than horse piss for all the incest his family had practised for generations. Worse, he was already married twice over. By the law of any decent people, she would not even be his wife, but his whore.
She’d thrown her father’s cup of wine in his face. Blood flowed from a cut above his eye and it only made him laugh, which made her scream. Brilliant sunlight came through the windows, casting shadows all around them. There was not a cloud in sight. It made a mockery of the storm.
And those wives, Aegon’s own sisters of the full blood. Argella’s children would be stronger than theirs, their twisted inbred abominations. How long before they fed her babes to their dragons?
Argilac was not known as ‘the Arrogant’ for nothing. He had done many rash things. She and he had both often taken a certain pride in it. Not for them calm waters.
She felt now like someone had taken a scythe to their bloodline, severing father from daughter.
How could her father fear Black Harren when there were three maniacs who could lay waste to the Seven Kingdoms with flying demons, hatched through some dark magic?
That was the night she threw her maidenhead. Not with a knight, nor even a squire. He probably didn’t even have a right to a name. But what use was a name to a woman?
To think, she’d thought back then that she knew what humiliation was.
*
Argella had thought her father’s offer of her hand to the Lord of Dragonstone sealed her doom.
In fact, it was only a beginning.
The response, when it came, was more brutal than anything she could imagine, and Argella had first seen men die by the sword when she was in swaddling clothes.
It was another glorious summer’s day, but the King’s rage cast thunderclouds over the keep. Servants were fast-moving and huddled, to make a small and moving target, but Argilac, the old warrior, was a good aim. There was not an object in his chambers left unbroken. No-one spoke above a whisper.
Argella would never really know if her father realised the extent of his mistake. He would not see her.
She tried to push past his guardsmen, as was her wont, but they stood firm, whether she screamed, sobbed or slapped them. They did not budge even when she tried charm. That was not surprising. What price the wiles of a scorned princess?
Aegon, who had nothing to offer but dragon-breath, had spurned her.
Had that been the extent of the message, her relief might have outweighed her embarrassment.
Aegon’s envoy had worse to say than that.
Not only was she not worth marrying to a man who thought so little of the words that he’d taken both his sisters to wife, but he proposed Argilac dispose of her - and half his lands - in marriage to Orys Baratheon.
The man was nothing. A good soldier, she heard, but so were Argilac’s men. She’d only heard anything about him because people talked of nothing else, it seemed, but the Targaryens and their dragons. Orys, so the little birds sang, was one of them in all but name: Aegon’s bastard half-brother as well as his champion.
Orys Baratheon carried the tainted blood of the Targaryens and no doubt their abominable habits, but without even the small virtues of their name, their seat on Dragonstone - or their monsters. There could scarcely be a greater insult to the Stormlands than to propose him as a match for the Storm King’s heir - if Argilac paid enough in lands.
Surely there could be no greater humiliation than this.
After raging for three days straight, and still without once admitting Argella to his presence, Argilac composed his response.
He sent Aegon his envoy’s hands in a box, with a note that said, “These are the only hands your bastard shall have of me.”
That was another beginning, but an ending too.
*
Aegon and his sisters responded with fire and blood.
Though neither of the Durrandons - nor anyone else, she imagined - mourned Black Harren, the tale of what happened to him and his stronghold was enough to freeze the blood.
Nothing could be the same after that.
Aegon - calling himself King now! - did not show the Stormlands or Argilac the respect of facing them himself. Instead he sent the bastard Baratheon, along with his sister Rhaenys and her monster Meraxes.
Argella had always known her father would die with a sword in his hand. She could not blame him for his decision to ride forth to meet Baratheon in the field. She could call him a damned fool, but she couldn’t blame him.
At last the rains came.
*
Argilac had had a crown made for Argella when she came of age. It was lighter than his own, and more richly decorated. Just the same, she had always thought that she might choose to wear his crown, when the time came.
The time never came.
When word arrived of Argilac’s fall, and an enemy host on its heels, the first thing she did was order the gates barred. The second was a perfunctory and far from celebratory coronation, using the lightweight crown.
She spoke to the people, briefly, enough to persuade them there would be no surrender, not enough to let them see how small her hope was.
It was not long before the shadow of Meraxes fell across Storm’s End. Argella focussed on her breathing.
The beast was awesome, of course it was, but a Queen’s knees did not tremble and so Argella stayed steady. She would not stumble in the wind from the thing’s wings; she would not sweat in the heat from its breath.
A dragon might well kill her, but one would not demean her. Not again.
Rhaenys herself was not so impressive. Oh, she supposed almost any man in the realm would surrender to her given half a chance, but anyone could smile so easily with a weapon like that at her bidding.
And there would always be many who would wish to wipe the smile off her face.
If ever there had been a time when courtesy might have saved them, it was too late now.
“You are not welcome here.”
Rhaenys cocked her head to the side, a lock of silver hair wrapped around her finger. “I could say the same. Your King is defeated. This castle is not yours.”
“The King is dead. You address the Storm Queen, Argella Durrandon, the First of Her Name.” She might as well have said the Last, but her face gave away nothing. “Unless you are here to bend the knee, I would suggest you leave at once.” She could ignore the frightened murmurs around the yard. If they got much louder, they would drown out the blood pounding in her ears. “I don’t know what that monster is made of.” Her eyes darted in the dragon’s direction. She forced herself to see nothing. “But you are only flesh.”
Rhaenys looked slowly around the walls, as if trying to meet every man’s eye. She spoke to them.
“If you do not bend the knee, you will die. You were loyal to your King. That will not be held against you. But your King is dead. Bend the knee or you will all die.”
She mounted the dragon without waiting for a response.
Argella ran forward and immediately cursed herself for losing her composure.
“We will die to the last man!” she shouted. “You may take my castle, but you will win only bones and blood and ashes!”
Rhaenys smiled a smile so maddening Argella felt her mind shake loose.
And then she was gone, only the dragon’s great shadow falling over Storm’s End.
*
The worst part was not being dragged from her bed. It wasn’t the hands clamped over her mouth, even her nose at one terrifying point, or the hands pinioning her arms, or those seizing her legs to keep her from kicking. It wasn’t the half-dozen armed men tearing her nightclothes from her body and staring as if she were their last meal. It wasn’t the chains and the gag that replaced the hands - at least they meant she wasn’t to be killed immediately, and they took no liberties meanwhile.
The worst part was a long moment, stretching implausibly as her mind struggled to keep up. It was the realisation, against which she resisted with a valour that would have made her father proud, that these were his men. Her men. Men of Storm’s End. That was the moment, she understood later, that she ceased to be Queen. If her people had betrayed her so utterly, so readily, she never really had been Queen. Her struggle melted away with the recognition that one of them - oh, the one who had held her mouth shut - was the boy with no name who had consoled her when she had thought she was to be married to Aegon.
The worst part was a long moment. It did not end.
*
The journey to meet the Targaryen army was the longest of her life. She could see nothing but the image of the peace banner flying over Storm’s End. She brought the rage up with vomit and bile, and nearly choked before her treacherous escort thought to remove the gag. She would have retched again when they replaced the same sodden gag minutes later, but for sheer force of will. That was not lost to her.
After throwing her over the back of a horse, they were careful not to touch her. They seemed to think that made this exercise honourable. She would have killed them for their pride alone. They were happy to look, of course. She would have killed them for that, too.
The men became a little less happy as they approached the conqueror’s forces. They looked straight ahead now. The whistling grew more muted then died away.
I hope the bastard guts you all like fish.
Whispers began among the Targaryen soldiers, increasing as the word passed and some of the bolder men called out lewd suggestions.
Their stares did not burn Argella as the Stormlanders’ had. You could expect no better from these people.
She looked them in the eye as she was dragged past. At first she thought that quietened them, but it was something else.
Their commander had ridden through the ranks. After one look at him, it did not surprise her that his presence made them fall silent.
One would be brave to cross this man.
Her father had been brave.
“Lady Argella, I presume?”
There were some sniggers around the camp, but the bastard’s head swung round and they abruptly ceased.
She ought to protest. She ought to declare herself the Queen.
She said nothing.
One of her captors pushed himself forward. Argilac had knighted the man himself. “My lord,” he said, “My lord, I am Ser Robbard of Tarth. We come-”
Orys Baratheon stepped down from his horse. She could have sworn the ground shook.
“No more, Ser Robbard. You have done more than enough.” He held up a palm the size of Argella’s face and the man fell silent.
Her spine was rigid as he approached her. She was tall for a woman, but he cast a large shadow. She would not break his gaze.
He touched her arm and goosepimples rose on her flesh. He turned her wrist in his hand. With a start, she realised he was looking for the catch on her shackles. She stayed perfectly still as he released, first her wrists, then her neck, her ankles. A growl rose in his throat when he saw the skin rubbed raw where the chains had been.
He began to fumble with his own cloak-pin. Only then did Argella move, and then only to pull the gag from her mouth. She was glad he had not done that.
The bastard pulled his cloak free and wrapped it around her. She shivered.
He stood back from her and gestured an arm. “Come, my lady. We can make you more comfortable. You must be hungry after your journey.”
She took a ginger step and found that her muscles were stiff but still working.
Ser Robbard and the others moved to follow. Baratheon lifted his sword a few inches from its sheath.
“You won’t be required, Sers.”
*
Argella clutched a cup of hot wine. She had scarcely sipped it but the warmth gave her something to focus on.
They had found her some clothes and some water to wash in. Roughspun stuff and cold water, to be sure, but she would not complain. She still had his cloak, wrapped around her like a blanket. It smelled of man.
“King Argilac was a brave man,” he was saying. “He died well.”
She touched the cup to her lips but did not drink. She let the warmth travel through her skin. She didn’t need to hear the victor’s side of the story to know her father had died bravely. She had always known he would. He died better than he lived.
He must have realised she wasn’t listening.
“You should rest.” He hesitated in the entrance of the tent. “You won’t be harmed here, my lady. This is the best thing for your people. They will live.”
She couldn’t keep her tears at bay a moment after the tent flap dropped. But she did not let herself wallow for long. She dried the tears on the cloak he’d left round her and closed her eyes.
*
The army moved slowly towards Storm’s End.
It pleased Baratheon to have her dine with him. It meant having the best of the camp’s food, so she didn’t demur, except on the nights that Rhaenys was there.
He said it was pleasant to have some civilised conversation. Perhaps that was a jibe at her for saying so little.
One night, when they were so close to Storm’s End that her heart felt bruised all over, she expected to dine alone in her tent. Rhaenys had arrived that afternoon and Argella could scarcely have failed to notice her leave. Dragons at close quarters did not possess the virtue of stealth.
Nonetheless one of the men arrived with the usual courteous invitation to dinner.
“With Baratheon? Not Queen Rhaenys?” She spat the title out. She had learned quickly that no matter how gently she was treated here, Baratheon tolerated nothing in the camp that could be construed as disrespectful to Aegon or his sisters.
But only Baratheon and his attendants were there when she entered the tent. The uneasy expression on his face did not allay her suspicions.
“Where is Queen Rhaenys?”
“The Queen prepares to fly back tonight.”
“Back?”
“Back to the King. She brought word from him. He will want to hear... that the message got through.”
She took her usual seat at the table and noted she had already been poured a more than generous measure of wine.
“Well, I don’t imagine you would have told me she’d brought word if you didn’t mean to tell me what it was.”
A serving man made to dish out the first course, but Baratheon impatiently waved him away, along with his cupbearer and guardsman.
“King Aegon has honoured me greatly. He has made me Lord of Storm’s End.”
Argella stayed very still.
“He wishes us to be married. As soon as possible.”
She breathed carefully for a few moments and thought of her father. Then she met his anxious gaze with a clear blue-eyed stare.
“You will hear my terms.”
He started. “Terms, my lady? It is the King’s will.”
“The King has his will and I have mine. If that troubles you, there seems little point in continuing.”
A smile unfurled across his face. There might have been a bud of amusement growing there. Argella did not smile. She was no Rhaenys Targaryen.
“Very well, my lady. You had better tell me your terms, then.”
She nodded. “For my bride’s gift, you will give me the heads of those who betrayed me. All of them. With my father’s sword, before our wedding guests. Only then will I say the words.”
He looked surprised, but not at all troubled. “As you wish.”
“I will not leave the Stormlands.”
“I will have to spend time at court. After the conquest is complete. The King values my counsel.”
He puffed up at that. It made her speak more sharply than intended.
“You spend all the time at court you please. I won’t leave my home.”
He leaned across the table and covered her hand with his. It was the first time he’d touched her since that first day. There was no mistaking that this was a very strong hand indeed.
“My lady, you must know that I would die before I would let anything threaten my King.”
His eyes were very black. She would have pulled her hand free, but was afraid that she could not.
She spoke through gritted teeth. “No doubt you will leave enough of your men behind to forestall any uprising. And as you have seen, my men have shown themselves to be less than valiant when faced with your bloody monsters.”
“The dragons are not mine.”
“Have you ever wondered what would have happened if your father had put an egg in your cradle?”
He snatched his hand back. “Are you quite finished, my lady?”
“No. My children will not be fostered away from home. You have had your conquest, my lord. My children will not be hostages.”
“I doubt the King would object. At least, not as long as I am alive.”
To keep an eye on me.
“The dragons will stay away from the Stormlands.”
Neither of them spoke for a long pause.
“There could never be a hint of anything other than complete fealty,” he said at last.
She sighed. “I have played my cards, my lord.”
“Anything else?”
She took her first sip of the wine.
“I will need a new gown.”
*
They rode through the gates of Storm’s End together.
She concentrated on keeping her hands still on the reins, idly wondering what would happen if she yanked the horse aside and made a break. She wore a gown instead of chains this time, but she had no delusions about her position.
She would not look at Aegon’s banner.
It was a handsome horse, black, powerfully built. Baratheon had made her a gift of it, to mark their betrothal. She felt she had given him enough.
She took in the faces of the people lining the courtyard - faces once so familiar, now so strange. The last time she had stood here, she’d been sure they were all days away from death.
Baratheon dismounted from his horse and offered her his hand to help her down. Conscious of the eyes on them, she took it.
He spoke loudly enough for everyone to hear - though, in any event, she did not think the man knew how to whisper. “The wedding shall be on the morrow. Make ready.”
Argella was more than ready.
*
It felt peculiar, being in her own chamber, wearing her own gowns and jewels. She had insisted on the servants being changed, and as for those who had guarded her door... well, theirs would be among the heads Baratheon had promised her.
He paid her a visit that afternoon. He laid Argilac’s sword on the table between them, alongside the sweetwine and honeycakes.
He looked more than pleased with himself.
“The King has permitted me to keep this.”
She frowned. “The King? You slew my father, the sword is yours.”
“His Majesty has taken to keeping the swords of his conquests.”
“This was your conquest, my lord.”
He took her hand. “Anything that is mine is the King’s.”
She surprised him with a strong grip.
“I am to be yours.”
“And the King shall have our fealty. And you shall be defended by your father’s sword while there is breath in my body.”
It was the first time she smiled at him.
“There is another thing,” he said. His thick black eyebrows furrowed. “Before King Aegon would agree, I told him I would take your house’s sigil and your words.”
She pulled back and made as if to stand, but sat back down. Her lips moved silently.
“House Baratheon will fly the stag banner.”
“House Baratheon?!”
He stood and lifted the sword. It looked so much smaller in his hands than it had in Argilac’s.
“Do you want to be the last of a great house, Argella? Or the first?”
There was nothing to say.
He paused in the doorway. “Your father never intended you to rule alone, my lady.”
*
In spite of the haste and everything else, the wedding was quite a show.
A gown had been brought from Dragonstone - on dragonback, she grimly supposed. The voluptuous cut was not what Argella would have chosen, but she admired the dark blue hue of tumultuous waters and the cloth-of-gold accents, in tribute to her house. Or his. There were hundreds of pearls stitched around it. It was fit for a queen.
She was surprised at how little she felt when she saw the heads roll. Vengeance was not the crescendo she had imagined. But when Orys stood before her, face flecked with blood that had been shed for her, a traitor’s head shaking from each huge fist, it suddenly became possible to look forward. It had not been, before.
The castle had been hoarding provisions for a siege, so the feast was splendid. She had not realised how long it had been since there was music in Storm’s End until it rang through the halls, filling them in a way they hadn’t been since her mother died. There were no players but some of the soldiers did a play that Argella would, if pressed, admit was comical. Orys roared with laughter that nearly drowned out the music.
She had said nothing about the bedding, so she was surprised when he insisted on them walking to the wedding bed on their own feet and with their garb intact.
“You will all know we are truly man and wife when my lady brings forth my son,” he said with a generous wink.
I will.
He did not seem surprised that she did not bleed. Perhaps he thought that was why she’d wanted her captors dead. He would never ask.
He did seem surprised at her command of the situation. She enjoyed feeling his muscles tense, the touch of alarm in his gasp.
After, she was surprised she didn’t cool down. The chill night air was no match for his presence. She let one leg hang limply out of the bed like some slattern. She could hear the change in his breathing as he gathered himself to speak.
“Do you wish me to leave?”
She did not rush her answer.
“No,” she said.
End.