Chapter Text
Myrcella watched Robb write a letter, only stopping to spare her a glimpse once over the desk which separated them. He had been too concerned with whatever it was he was working on to look up before, something she found at least a little insulting. He had bothered to steal her, anyways, and yet he didn’t seem to care now that she was in front of him?
They hadn’t given her a second to pause since the long journey. She wondered, briefly, if they had managed to steal any of her clothes, too. It was a silly wish, a child’s wish. She should have realized by now, that those wishes were gone. Her long, blonde hair was twisted and muddy. The edges of her dress ripped. The only symbol of home left was the necklace hung delicately between her breasts.
“My sister once sent me a letter at the hands of your mother, I believe,” Robb said. “Bend the knee, it said. I did not.”
“And Sansa stayed.” She felt herself flinching already, expecting a hand. It was a stupid act of defiance, and if there was one thing she should have learned from Robb Stark’s sister, it was that you could be beaten for far less.
No hand came. No anger, either. Robb, the great wolf of the north, grew smaller. “Aye. She stayed.” He cleared his throat. “How is she?”
“Alive,” she said. Brutalized, beaten. She could not say more, for none of it was good.
Would she be betraying her family if she said more? She didn’t particularly care all that much for her family, but she loved them all the same. Lannisters and Baratheons were a complicated group of individuals.
“I’m going to get her back,” he said, his fist clenching the quill so tight she was surprised it didn’t crack right in two. She could see now, in this blind anger, that Robb Stark truly was no more than a boy playing at king. He looked so painfully young with the weight of the world on his shoulders. She couldn't imagine Joffrey ever being able to carry it, and she couldn't help but feel impressed by the man in front of her if not at least a little pity. None of them had really been children for long. They could thank their parents for that.
“I’ll have someone show you to a tent, Princess Myrcella. Your uncle stays in a cell, but I hope you can think of yourself as more of a ward than a prisoner.”
“They use the word guest for your sister,” she said with a raise of her brow.
“Guest, then,” he replied, running a hand over his face.
“Could I see my uncle?” she asked, ducking her head before Robb could look back up in fear of looking too dominant.
Sansa had learned to be particularly good at this skill, tricking people into believing her to be daft, silly, submissive. Cersei was smart, but she enjoyed people knowing her intelligence too much to be subtle. Maybe others couldn’t perceive Sansa’s talent, but they were men emboldened by their own ego. Maybe that was one of the curse’s of being a woman—an ability to feel suffering, to see the survival it bred.
“You may see your uncle under the eye of a few of my guards. I would request you clean up first, though. I cannot have him thinking we’re treating you poorly.”
Myrcella dared to meet his eyes, and she was surprised to see something that almost looked like humor. He was a good looking boy near man. He couldn’t be much older than Joffrey if she recalled correctly, and yet there was something stronger, sturdier, more present. His shoulders broader and his jaw sharp.
“Are you going to treat me poorly, Your Grace?” she asked, unable to keep the emphasis off her final two words. Be smarter, she couldn’t help but chastise. And yet, she didn’t seem to bother Robb. Maybe men were bred differently up North.
Brutes, she could hear her mother hiss.
“You’re dismissed,” he said. His jaw was tight, and she wondered if he was thinking of Lady Sansa trapped in that big, horrifying castle. “I don’t intend to hurt you for crimes that aren’t your own.”
“My mother always did say you Starks were honorable,” Myrcella said.
“I assume Cersei Lannister did not say it with love in her heart.”
“No.” She surprised herself with the quickness of her response. “If I may be so bold, Your Grace, I say it with more respect.”
His gaze lingered, attempting to figure her out. Myrcella Baratheon would not be her mother’s daughter, though, a woman raised in a inhospitable place, if she was a puzzle easily solved with a glance.
After some time to wash up from a basin of water— cold against her skin—they let her see her uncle. There were four guards flanking her, and she wondered just how dangerous Uncle Jaime had proven himself to be.
He looked something quite ghastly, truth be told. He was tied to a post, smelling of dirt and shit and piss. His hair was greasy and ratted, his beard fuller than she had ever seen before. When Myrcella was younger, she had been certain her uncle was the perfect embodiment of chivalry. A true, proper knight. He was handsome to be sure, and no one could beat him in combat. Him and her mother looked like something out of a fairytale or one of her songs.
They didn’t sing about this part of war, though. It was just another reminder of all the cruelty in the world she was still getting a hands-on education of. When he looked up, his eyes blinking against the lowering sun, he seemed for a second as if he didn’t trust what he saw.
“Myrcella?” he asked, though his voice was barely more than a croak. How much had he spoken lately? Could she get him some water?
She reached forward, hands clasped onto the wood of the structure holding him. “Let me in,” she ordered, mustering as much strength as she dare.
The closest guard turned to the others, trepidation on his face. “I’m not sure King Robb would like–”
“Shall we go ask him?” She tried to keep her face cool and composed, when in reality she would much rather be soft. Smile kindly, not cause trouble.
Myrcella was fairly sure her mother had a hard time loving her for that very reason. Cersei had never known how to wield kindness as a weapon so she had never found purpose for it as a tool in her arsenal. Sometimes, Myrcella was certain she could see distaste in her mother’s eyes as she would watch her over dinner or the way she would help Tommen repair a broken toy.
There was use for kindness, Myrcella was sure of it, but maybe not here.
“The kingslayer, princess–”
Myrcella turned toward the cage and cleared her throat. “Uncle Jaime, they think if they let me in you'll use me to escape. Can you promise you will not?”
He nodded, wobbly, and Myrcella turned back to the guard. He looked like a true Northman—thick and bearded and burly. When was the last time he had seen a woman, perhaps?
“Sir,” she said, falling softer. It already felt more comfortable to her. “He may be wicked, but he’s my uncle and I am very far from home. If anything were to happen, I promise to march us right back to King Robb and bear the punishment justly owed to me.”
The man’s eyes fell to the delicate curve of her lips, and he nodded finally. When was the last time he had seen any of his family, she wondered.
“We will have to close the door behind you.”
“Certainly,” she said with a sure nod.
Her eyes returned to that of her uncle’s, and when they opened the door she rushed through to him. Her feet were already sinking into the mud.
“Your pretty dress,” he said as she dipped by his side.
She wasted no time in reaching out to his face, feeling the course hair against her delicate flesh. “What do I care of the fabric,” she replied, though now that she did think about it she wasn’t entirely sure how many dresses she had at her disposal. Maybe she should think more of it.
“How did you end up here?” he asked.
“I was on my way to Dorne. I’ve been promised to Prince Trystane, though we’d only been traveling for a few days when a small group of Northern forces scooped me right out of the caravan.”
“That’s quite a climate switch,” he said through something near a smirk. It was playful, and Myrcella released a laugh that was almost a cry.
Myrcella loved her Uncle Tyrion, but she could always tell his eyes held more warmth for Tommen than herself. He was small and odd, and she sometimes considered the possibility that Tyrion had seen something of himself. Her mother kept a safe distance from Myrcella, nearly as if she had felt guilty for birthing her a girl. Her mother’s eyes were all for Joffrey, anyways.
But Myrcella had always held a special place in her heart for her Uncle Jaime, and she was near certain he held it back for her. She loved that he could diffuse the tension, that he could send her a wink over his glass of wine and suddenly she felt as if she was in on a joke. There were times, too, where he’d look at her with softness so dear she felt truly loved—something both her father and mother had failed at.
It had seemed like fate, when she thought it over. Three Lannister children and three Baratheons. One for each of them, but now that same fate had done nothing but betray them. Maybe her and her uncle were too bound to one another.
“Robb Stark won’t hurt you. He’s too good. You have nothing to worry about.”
Myrcella nodded, chewing her bottom lip between her teeth. Her mother would have slapped the top of her hand for that. An unattractive gesture.
“Mother has done everything to try to get you back.”
It was hard to decipher the look which crossed his face. They were twins, him and mother, and Tyrion had always described their bond as “irreparably close” with a twinkle in his eyes she was only now becoming to understand. She didn’t know how to hold that truth entirely, yet.
“Now she will use those same efforts for you.”
Myrcella nodded. “Next time, maybe I can bring something to help wash you up a bit. You’re really quite disgusting.”
Before he could laugh, the guard was banging against the door. “Time’s up.”
“Be safe,” he whispered back quickly, hurriedly. “Even better, be smart.”
She patted his cheek again, feeling a near unbearable love for this man. For this family. “I will,” she assured him.
When she turned, she did not dare look back.
Days later, Robb summoned her to his tent early without warning. She did as she was told, slipping quickly into her dress and following the guard. Living so near battle was nothing like she was used to, but Myrcella had already begun to learn her way around the camp.
Yesterday, she had heard one of the soldiers whisper lady lion underneath his breath as she passed, and she couldn’t deny that it had made her stand up straighter. No one had ever considered her much of a lion before—too soft, too pretty—but she found she liked it. As sleep evaded her, she had whispered it to herself over and over. Myrcella, the Lady Lion.
Robb looked tired when she entered the tent and went to sit across from him. His hair was wild, his eyes rimmed in red, and he seemed to barely notice she had arrived until she was right across from him. That weight on his shoulder she had noticed upon first seeing him must have been catching up, because he seemed nearly crushed by it.
“Did you sleep well?” she asked, a simple pleasantry, but it seemed more cruel than she had meant for it. Clearly, he had not.
He did rise in his seat at the question, though, trying to take up more of the space. His father had been a large man, not entirely as large as hers perhaps, but he seemed to fill up a space when he entered a room. Myrcella had assumed Robert Baratheon sort of worked at compensating with his fine clothes and wine. He ordered others around to prove he was king, but he never seemed to truly believe it.
“It can be difficult to sleep with all the plans of battle to be made, but I try,” he said through a grim smile.
“I’m sorry to hear that,” she said with a small twist of her lips, one her ladies in waiting had called sweet and delicate. You’re nearly like a fine glass doll, Cara would say to her, though it had set Myrcella oddly on edge to think of it now. A fine glass doll only took one drop to shatter, to become sharp.
She did mean it, though. As much as she hated that Robb had ordered for her to be captured, he had only ripped her from being sent to one place she did not wish to go to another. Either way, she was a pawn in the great game of men who did not care a bit what happened to her. Here, so far, Robb had done nothing but treat her with civility.
“I want you to read the letter I am sending to your brother,” Robb said, passing the scroll across the desk to her. “I left space for a line or two if you wish to add something, though I hope you will be truthful.”
What was his truth, she wondered. Did he see himself as the villain in her story? Did he lose sleep over stealing another young girl away from her family?
Most of the letter was nothing but jargon, but the words that stuck out most to her were: What is done to my sister will be done twice fold to yours. Act Accordingly.
Looking across the desk to Robb, with his weary face and bleary eyes, the sentiment struck no fear in her heart.
Her Uncle Jaime had been right. He was too good to hurt her.
Myrcella did not meet Catelyn until nearly two weeks into her time at the camp. The only memory Myrcella did have of the woman was when her and her family had first arrived at Winterfell. She had looked rather striking that day—beautiful and strong, though it was clear she had not put more than passing thought into it. Well, that and the way she laughed as Ned Stark whispered something into her ear as they had broken fast. Her parents had never shared moments like that.
Catelyn didn’t ask if she could come in, not that Myrcella was in much of a place to argue. Her skin and hair reminded her instantly of Sansa. Myrcella stood up from her bed and curtsied.
“Lady Stark,” Myrcella spoke. “It is a pleasure to see you again.”
She seemed amused at the thought. “Surely you would prefer to see me under different circumstances.”
“That I might be able to amend.”
Catelyn was before her, only a step away. Her eyes trailed Myrcella’s makeshift braid. “I often sent away my daughter’s maid so I could brush out their hair myself. Arya would wiggle out and away at the first chance, so I gave up quickly, but with Sansa she rather liked it. Did your mother ever do that for you?”
Her mother would have declared that below her. That was a job meant for the ladies, not a queen. Before today, Myrcella would have never thought of a mother doing that.
“I cannot say she did.”
Catelyn hummed, and Myrcella couldn’t tell if she was passing judgement on Cersei or not. She seemed deep in thought, of what Myrcella could not begin to fathom. “Would you mind if I brushed out yours?”
Everything in King’s Landing had an ulterior motive. That she had learned from an early age, even if she sometimes struggled to figure out what it might be. Now, across from her, what could Catelyn want? How would this benefit her?
“If you can spare the time,” Myrcella said, and when Catelyn nodded Myrcella went to sit in her chair.
“All I have is time,” she replied. She grabbed the brush and undid the braid before she slowly combed her way through in a way that was something close to tender.
Myrcella found it hard not to lean into the touch. Catelyn was not harsh as if trying to display some sense of strength. All she did was motherly, and it made Myrcella’s chest tighten. Her daughters were gone from her, so were her other children left back at Winterfell.
For the first time she realized she had information that could change everything around her. Arya was not in King’s Landing. Myrcella was trapped here, but that did not make her helpless. She just couldn’t speak too soon until she knew the effect her words would have, what she could do with them.
“They never tell you how dull war can be between the fighting, but I have lived through it before.”
“You must worry terribly,” Myrcella said.
“It is hard not to, and yet when I show my concern it’s a mother’s worry. As if it’s merely a feminine trait and not a sensible one.” Catelyn tutted, eyes lost on the shine of Myrcella’s hair. “You are so unbelievably blonde.”
Myrcella smiled. “My ladies would often say I was filled with the sun through and through.”
“You do seem to have the sort of disposition.” Her words were hard to decipher, again, and Myrcella attempted to hear whether it was contempt or not. “All brushed out,” she said, laying a hand on the top of her head before retreating. “May I come visit you again, some night?”
Genuinely, Myrcella nodded. “I would like that very much, Lady Stark.”
In the brief glimpses she was allowed, Myrcella could tell Robb Stark was weathering. Maybe no one else quite noticed it, maybe he didn’t even himself. Maybe he was worse at putting it up around her, as if her word meant so little she could not spread a rumor. Not that she would, what could possibly be the point?
She knew she should be playing this game better, but when Catelyn came in at night or Myrcella spoke with Robb, it was hard to pretend to be anyone but herself. All her youth she was surrounded by people wearing masks, the dirty truth hiding underneath. It had always struck her as exhausting, so most days she tried to do nothing more than play smartly with what she was.
Today, Robb across from her looked on a last leg. She could not tell you what he had even called her in for, but as a guard rushed in with a scroll and fire in his eyes Myrcella felt herself sitting up straighter. Something was about to happen.
“I have news of Winterfell, Your Grace,” he said, bowing slightly as if in the rush he had forgotten it.
Robb grew larger, trying to regain his image. “Can it not wait?”
The guard looked between the two of them, eyes wide, mouth wider. “It’s been taken, Your Grace.”
Myrcella should not be here to hear this, not from a strategic point of view, but she could tell Robb was too concerned with the words that had fallen over the room like a thick blanket, clogging the air, to care.
“By whom?”
The guard shriveled up, and he stuttered over the next words. “Th- Theon Greyjoy.” He shifted forward and dropped the scroll, bowing once more before escaping out the front of the tent. The thick fabric flapped briefly with the wind, and Myrcella watched with bated breath as his eyes roamed over the words.
“That bastard, ” he said, pushing up from his chair to pace.
Myrcella watched him calmly, trying to remember all she had learned as she spoke with the men of the camp and Uncle Jaime. Theon Greyjoy had been the Starks ward, and Robb had sent him off to get them ships. It seemed in some way along that journey he had decided upon something else.
“Do you think he planned it the whole time?” she asked. Her words were slow, even. It was how she tried to keep up with the games everyone played in the capitol. She wasn’t stupid, but she wouldn’t say she was the quickest. When she tried to figure out why someone may do something, she started slow and gathered the facts, hoping to put together a fuller picture.
Robb seemed to have forgotten she was there, but when he jolted up he looked like a desperate man. In that moment, she figured he didn’t care quite who it was who sat across from him.
“I think he left with the intention of doing what he said,” he began, the words rolling out of him as if he, too, was trying to figure out the intention. “It must have been when he returned home and spoke to his father. My mother told me not to trust a Greyjoy, and here I was being fool enough to think him loyal.”
Myrcella wished they lived in a world where loyalty meant everything. Loyalty and honor and kindness. Whenever she said something of the sort people always told her how naive she was, how childish, but she didn’t think it was to hope for a world that was better. If she sunk to the same level of those fighting in the dirt then she was part of what was making a worse world.
“I’ll have to send men after him to retake Winterfell. What am I if I can’t keep my own home safe. Gods, Bran and Rickon are there.” He fell back into his chair and ran a hand over his beard before letting out a loud groan. Bending forward, he hit his hand into the table and all his papers and quills shook. He looked up to her. “Can I assume you will not spill what you’ve learned in here? Would you do me that kindness?”
I am your prisoner in all but name , she nearly replied, but what good would that do her. For a moment, she tried to imagine what she would be doing if she had made it to Dorne. Maybe her pale skin would have freckled over in the sun. Maybe she would have fallen in love. Or maybe, she would have missed home so terribly while she adjusted to a spot she found no solace in it was torture.
“If you let me speak freely,” she said, sitting up straighter. What must she look like? A blonde girl with delicate shoulders and more delicate face, trying to look as sturdy as her mother could with a simple glance. Who was she kidding? “Your grace,” she added.
His face was unreadable, and she could tell he probably wanted nothing more than to have her leave and let out his anger in full. Instead, she dared not remove her gaze. He nodded.
“Theon Greyjoy was your father’s ward, yes?” she asked. He nodded again. “Do you remember what you said to me the first day I arrived at camp?”
His brow furrowed, and she waited. Eventually he answered. “I do not.”
She bent forward, her elbows on the arms of her chair, and leveled her gaze. “I hope you can think of yourself as more of a ward than a prisoner, you said. Do you think, after returning home after so long, he may have felt more like a prisoner than he originally thought? He may have saw what was taken from him?”
“My father was nothing but kind to him,” he said, venom in his voice. This was the angriest Myrcella had ever witnessed the great wolf, and she could imagine him on the battlefield just like this. There was an energy in him that seemed to spark outwards, that might zap you if you touched it. “He was part of this family, he was my brother .”
His voice cracked a little on the last word, and Myrcella wanted to reach out. There was a great sadness sitting right alongside all that anger. She took a deep breath, instead, and tried to get to her point.
“My intention is not to say he is right,” Myrcella said. “What he did was ill-thought out, it was betrayal of the highest order.”
“What is your point, then?” he asked, his voice still a growl. He seemed to be growing more tired with every exchange of words, though.
“My mother always said to know what someone will do, you have to know what they want,” Myrcella said. “Neither can you control someone until you do. It seems to me Theon is trying to prove himself—he wants to be seen as powerful. By his men, no doubt, who probably think him a false Iron Islander. To you, for doubting he could do anything of import because he was not a true Northman.” Robb looked about to interject, and she waved her hand lightly to halt his words. “I don’t intend to insult. I am sure you never tried to make him feel that way, but sometimes we can’t help how people feel.”
“He ravaged the place he was raised, my home,” Robb said. “What will me understanding why he did it help?”
“Because the war has only just begun and you cannot fight all of them all at once, you will become too divided.” She took a deep breath, thinking about the map of Westeros her tutor had tried to instill in her. It did not matter much whether she could remember all the mottos, all the sigils, as much as it did for her brothers, but Myrcella liked geography all the same.
She liked trailing her finger over the old map and thinking about what it would be like to be free to go to all these places. What would it be like to cross the Narrow Sea and feel that sun freely across her face? What did the world look like from on top of that great Northern Wall? Instead, she stayed in the big castle and knew so very little about the world outside of it.
“I don’t understand battle like you, quite obviously,” she said. “I do know though to win a war you need men, and if you send men off to reclaim Winterfell and fight the Greyjoys, you lose all the men on both sides of the altercation.”
“Do you want me to leave my home captured by traitors?” he asked, raising a brow.
“I would have you offer him an opportunity to make up for his betrayal,” Myrcella said. “Think of it. If all he wants is to prove himself to his men, to you, to every person who has ever called him scum, then you simply need to offer him an alternative to. Appeal to him. If he does this task for you he will be forgiven, and he will earn himself the glory he so sorely desires. Ask him to go get Sansa.”
Robb’s brows rose, and she could tell this strange and highly unorthodox plot had surprised him as much as it had her. Did he think her crazy? She was starting to think she might be.
“I know it is quite extreme, but look at the possibilities. It would get him out of Winterfell, and even if it is impossible for him to actually get Sansa at least he will not be causing you trouble. If he somehow manages to break into King’s Landing and steal her away, it will do nothing but free her and give him that glory he seeks.”
She let out a long breath, finally feeling as if she was given a chance to get it all out. What really had she been thinking, though? It was not her place to give counsel to the King of the North , and certainly not something as wild as this. Where had it come from? Maybe she was still nothing more than a child thinking on knights and songs, because the idea of a traitorous rogue going to steal a princess away from the capitol sounded something like a story her septa might have shared with her after a glass or two of wine.
It was for Sansa, really. The two of them had never been that close while in King’s Landing, but now, after being stolen away by her brother and having her mother brush out her hair every night, Myrcella felt a fondness for Sansa she found it hard to describe. Robb and Catelyn thought of Sansa, but they had a million other tasks at hand. They were fighting a war, so if Myrcella could keep her close in her thoughts, maybe then she could hope someone else was doing the same for her.
“That is… entirely unlikely,” Robb said. “You do know that?”
She nodded. “I know.” Myrcella worked her bottom lip between her teeth before realizing it might diminish her power. The last thing she wanted was to seem weak after spilling a crazy scheme. “Your sister waits, Your Grace. She waits in that castle while my mother belittles her and Joffrey does worse. She waits for you to come save her.”
“You told me she was okay,” he said slowly.
“I said she was alive .”
The two shared a look so charged Myrcella nearly felt uncomfortable to be part of it. There was something intimate about it she didn’t quite know how to describe. In reality, she had spent so little time with men besides for dances while at court. She had certainly never revealed herself openly like she did now, her wild thoughts and all.
This man was supposed to be her enemy, though she had never thought of him quite like that. He had stolen her while she was on the road. He was in open rebellion against her family, and yet she found it so difficult to see him that way. When she looked at him, all she really saw was a man fighting for his family. She wondered if anyone back in the capitol fought for her like that.
“What is the worst that can happen from proposing it?” she asked. “He already devastated Winterfell. If he says no then you move forward with sending men up there like you already had intentions of doing. If not, maybe you get your sister back. Maybe you don’t lose more of your family.”
“My mother once told me I’m too honest to be good at playing games,” he said. “Perhaps that must be why I struggle to see yours. You are a prisoner here.”
She felt the corner of her mouth quirk up. “I thought we were using the word guest.”
He smiled back—small and tired and barely there—but a smile all the same. “Guest. Yes, you are.”
“You played the game when you stole me,” she said.
His eyes were still so intense, and Myrcella felt warm.
“I am sorry about that,” he said. “When I did it I failed to think about the young woman I would be taking and the life I was taking her from. I have to admit it was done as nothing more than a war tactic. A princess for a princess.”
“There are worse places I could be,” she said. “Though, Dorne would prove much warmer.”
He laughed quietly, and she could see the moment the world caught back up to him. His body fell underneath the weight again, and she felt the familiar pull to comfort him. He was too honest to play games, and maybe she was too full of heart to do it. She failed to see the enemy in front of her, blinded by his humanity. What a pair they made.
“I have to speak to my counsel and decide our next move. I can trust you will find your way back to your tent?”
“I have managed it for weeks now,” she said with a small nod. She was about to move when she paused, and she turned her gaze back on him one last time. “If I may be so bold, do you think you might tell me what you decide?”
She could see the indecision on his face, and also… maybe amusement? “Perhaps,” he answered, and he brought a hand up to scratch at his jaw. “Princess Myrcella… I’d prefer if you kept being so bold with me. I rather like it.”
She curtsied then, feeling a strange blush play at her features, and left him to his decisions.
For a day, Myrcella heard nothing. She stayed in her tent, knowing nothing of the world beyond it. Then, Catelyn found her the next night. Myrcella was used to the routine by now. She sat in her chair, hair already out of whatever braid it had been wrangled into for the day, and waited. Most nights, Catelyn did not speak of much, and Myrcella was left trying to decipher what she was playing at.
Could it merely be a mother’s kindness? Was she missing her girls? Myrcella thought of the conversation from yesterday, and she realized she had still yet to tell anyone here Arya was missing. Robb had not questioned it when she mentioned Theon rescuing Sansa, only Sansa, but had he thought it over? Why there was an intentional loss of words?
“I heard you spoke with my son,” she said three brushes in. Her eyes were downcast, as they often were when she brushed out the hair. Sometimes, Myrcella thought she had to keep her eyes on the blonde so as to not get lost in the movements. How cruel would it be to feel the rhythm of the brushes and look down to remember it was not your own daughter beneath your hand. “He failed to mention exactly where this plot came from to the men on his counsel, but him and I did speak on it.”
“I fear it might have been far-fetched,” she said.
“It was creative, to be sure,” she replied. “Men often lack that skill.”
Myrcella felt her stomach tighten as she thought about Lady Catelyn thinking over her daughters, her sons who were still under Theon’s cruel hostage takeover in their own home. She hated every second of this. She hated that she was a puzzle piece, too, not merely a person. Never had she asked to be part of this war, this rebellion, these games.
This all was because her father might not be her father, the man in the cage might own the title. Her uncle, who she loved and admired. It made her stomach tighten further to think of all the lies she had been fed and how she still failed to know the extent of them. Her life was not her own.
She closed her eyes and felt the brushes Catelyn did above her. If she used that creativity Catelyn had just commended, she might be able to pretend she was back in the castle. Tommen could burst in any minute to ask if she would play with Ser Pounce and him, and they would go on a a great adventure.
“Lady Catelyn, I have to tell you something,” Myrcella said as she opened her eyes. Her throat felt dry. Was this a mistake? It felt like she was walking on eggshells, or as if she was that delicate doll the ladies often compared her to. She was seconds from cracking into glass if she stepped incorrectly.
The brushing stopped, and Myrcella turned to see Catelyn step in front of her. She was better at hiding her exhaustion than Robb, but Myrcella had a feeling that was part of being a woman in this world. They were always putting on a tough exterior, trying to look beautiful just so they still had some worth by the men who surrounded them.
This moment might be exactly why Catelyn had come in all those nights ago and started brushing her hair. Cersei would have called her simple for thinking she could trust the enemy, but Myrcella didn’t see her as her foe. She saw her as a good woman, a good mother. Maybe she really was too kind-hearted for the world she had fallen into.
“What is it?” she asked.
“Arya isn’t in King’s Landing,” she said, and as she released the words she felt some weight fall off of her. There was something else, though, seeping into her that made it feel as if there was no going back from this moment. There was no physical duress here, nothing pushing her over the edge. Maybe she really was a traitor to her family.
Catelyn’s face contorted, and Myrcella tried to read all the emotions that flickered across her features. There was anger and sadness and confusion. There was worry. “Where is she?” she asked. Her voice was tight enough Myrcella thought it could cut.
“Since your husband was executed she’s been missing. I’m not privy to how they’ve been searching for her, but I know she isn’t in King’s Landing.”
“That changes a lot,” Catelyn said. Her eyes were diverted, and Myrcella could see the way she was processing all of the information.
“I thought you should know, so if Theon goes he knows properly what he is doing. I was tired of keeping this truth from you who did not deserve it,” she said. Yesterday she had felt as if she was walking on a long rope, seconds from falling to either side as she spoke with Robb about the possibility of Theon. Now, she felt like the rope had gotten thinner and longer and the walk might never end.
“Why do you want to save her so badly?” Catelyn asked.
It was the first time they had addressed that big, unavoidable thing that sat in the room with them always. They never addressed that Myrcella was stolen, and they never touched that Sansa was captive. Catelyn and her avoided those subjects like dancing around a great ballroom, trying to only step on the good squares.
“Do you not feel as if you’re betraying your kin?” she continued. It wasn’t an accusation, though it may have been said with some anger.
“The ladies in the castle whisper,” Myrcella said, trying to gain her voice. Her whole life she had tried to gain her voice, learn how to wield it so people listened. The whole time, people always telling her she didn’t need one because her face was pretty and her hands skillful at the tasks meant for her. “They like to gossip, and many times they think I can’t hear them. Possibly, they simply don’t care that I can. The new king is a bastard, they say as if he isn’t my brother, horrible or not. Cersei Lannister is a snake, they hiss. Sansa Stark is a broken bird, I heard one say. I heard the king ordered a man to beat her face because the North usurper won a battle.”
Catelyn’s jaw was tight, and Myrcella watched her eyes grow more open. As horrible as these words may be, she could sense that the mother was soaking them in. This was the truth without any pretense. This was the closest she had gotten to what was happening in that castle how many miles away.
She was just a woman searching for the truth, Myrcella thought. And finally I’ve given it to her.
“Truth be told,” she continued, “I don’t feel much fear here even if I am surrounded by men that hate my family and are closer to battle than I have ever dreamed of being. Before your son stole me away, I was being sent to another man I did not know or decide on. It made little difference to me, though now I am faced with the burden of knowing the enemies.”
“What have you decided?” Catelyn asked.
Myrcella could feel herself choking up, but she pushed her shoulders back and did not let her chin dip. She could cry later, thinking about all the ways her life has shifted and the ways she has helped it do so.
“They do not look much like enemies at all,” she said finally. “They look like a mother still seeming to care for a girl who is from a family who destroyed her own. They look like a brother with an impossible choice.”
“You are beautiful and young,” Catelyn said.
Myrcella nodded. “You can call me what you really try to say: naive. I am, perhaps. I believe there is good in the world, and it should be rewarded. Your daughter did nothing to deserve what she was given, and she had had to suffer under the hands of my horrendous brother. Joffrey is not a good man, and he is certainly not a good king. Your son is.”
“He is playing at it.”
“True,” Myrcella said, “but he is playing at it for the people and for his family. There are worse ways to play it. I don’t want to betray my family, but I also no longer want to sit amongst the side and watch as if it is a tourney where men compete for fun. I have done it for a long time, and all it did was get me kidnapped by a traitor.”
“You were a child,” Catelyn said, and Myrcella tried to read the true meaning behind those words. You shouldn’t have had to worry about participating, maybe. Or perhaps what have we done to you all. Parents handing grudges and wars to their children who hand it onto theirs, the wheel circling over and over again. There was no escape from the conflict. “I have to go speak with my son, this is important.” She paused, sighing, and looked as if she was going to reach out for her until her arm stayed stuck to her side. “Thank you.”
Myrcella nodded, and Catelyn was out of the tent before she could have spoken any words back. Not that she had any idea what she would possibly say, anyways. She turned to look at herself in her small hand mirror, noticing her long blonde hair still half-brushed out. After a beat, she exited out of her tent to the darkness around her and made her way through the tents until she found Jaime’s cage.
“I can’t let you in,” the guard said, but he was familiar with her.
“Please, sir. Robb said I could, you can close the door behind me as you always do.”
He looked unsure, but she sent him docile eyes that weren’t difficult to put on. She felt so vulnerable after all the news. After a beat, he let her in and closed the door behind her.
“It is rather late, sweetling,” Jaime said.
The tenderness in his words as he sat there dirty and malnourished brought tears to her eyes. Thank the gods it was dark enough he couldn’t see them, though he did seem rather concerned as she drew closer. Without wasting a second, she sat down beside him in the dirt and muck.
“Your dress…” he said, eyes trailing the fabric. Always so concerned about her clothes as if they mattered to her.
“Just fabric and seams and a woman’s wasted time,” she spat, watching the men walk around the cage and through the tents. What did they fight for, really?
All this time she had watched Robb and Catelyn deciding how tired they looked, and here she was exhausted. Her bones felt heavy within her. She rested her head on his shoulder as if they were not in an enemy camp, and she wasn’t probably sitting in his own shit. The thought made her laugh, but it died horribly in her throat.
“I may have betrayed our family,” she whispered. She could feel the weight of his head on top of her own. He couldn’t even reach out to hug her, but he did try to give her that comfort.
“Did you do it with good intentions?” he asked.
What did good intentions ever matter to him? He may have been a knight, but his moral code was flexible. His family before the good of the realm, and she supposed that was honorable too in a different way. Her uncle loved her, but he was selfish, too.
“I did,” she said, though she doubted it. Was she any better than all those men who made plans to get what they wanted? She wanted Sansa to be free so she did not have to hurt anymore, so maybe she was as bad as them all trying to get her way. All she felt like doing was crying, but what was possibly the point in front of a man who could not hold her. It would just make him feel more helpless, and she needed him to stay strong until she could get him out and home. “Are you my father?”
He tensed below her cheek. Despite her attempts not to cry a few had leaked out, and she felt the salty tears mix with the dirt of his rags. When she stepped back into the firelight to make her way back to her tent, she would look something ridiculous. But what did she care? The delicate doll wouldn’t crack from a few people calling her dirty. They had been saying it about her blood for years.
“Yes,” he said, voice half giving out underneath the weight of the admission.
“I think a part of me has always known,” she began, thinking about all those times her eyes strayed to the darkness of Robert Baratheon and seeing nothing of herself within him. “I have always been quite thankful for your love.”
“You don’t hate me?” he asked. “You aren’t disgusted by the thought of it?”
Myrcella crawled to her knees so she could see her father’s face as he spoke. It would be the first time she had seen it fully, knowing it to be what it was. His eyes seemed scared to meet hers.
“You love my mother?” she asked. He nodded. “I never thought I was bred from love. I suppose it is quite a rare and beautiful thing to know I have been.”
He closed his eyes, and she could tell he was seconds away from crying, too. Out of all the ways he had thought about telling her someday the truth of their relationship, this was probably so far from any of his imaginings. It was honest, though, and Myrcella was tired of deception.
“You are too good for this world,” he said. “Truly a ray of sunshine.”
“I’ve been told that before.” All as insults. Sweet. Naive. Docile. They shouldn’t be cruel words, and yet they were so often passed around with sneers.
“Don’t forget,” he whispered, dipping forward, “the sun can burn.”
“Be safe, father,” she said, reaching out and dropping a kiss on his cheek. “Please refrain from doing anything stupid while I try to figure a way out of here for you.”
He nodded. “I can promise that.”
Back in her tent, Myrcella brought the hand mirror up to spot bits of her reflection. It was truly trying to put together a puzzle, because she could only see small glimpses of herself. Her dirty ankle. A tear-stained cheek. The mud covered her, and there was something entirely freeing about it.
A maid came in, ducking her head upon seeing her. “Princess, King Robb has sent me. You are to have a bath.” She looked up from her tilted head, flashing her the smallest of smiles. “It does seem to have come at the right time.”
“It has,” she said, thinking about how beautiful it would be to scrub her skin raw. “Has he said why I’ve awarded myself one now? How he can spare the luxury?”
“He told me to tell you he’s done more than consider your words.”
Myrcella brought the hand mirror up toward her face, looking at the tired lines and the dirt streaked. Maybe, she was more of the lady lion than she had thought.