Chapter Text
Sansa
She grit her teeth, and felt every bit her age. Sitting at the Great Hall of Highgarden, the Queen Regnant readied herself for the confrontation, remembering the similar scenes from her past. There'd been the first time she sat in judgment, presiding over Littlefinger's trial. He'd meant something to her then, far more than he'd deserved, and somehow she had felt the need to hold back her own emotions from the lords who bore witness. There'd been countless trials since...the Glovers, Dragon Queen and her followers, Sweetrobin...her own uncle. She'd never felt anything close to fondness for Edmure Tully, but he was family, he was her mother's beloved little brother...yet he'd raised his flag in rebellion against her. Sentencing him to a lifetime of imprisonment at Raventree Hall under the charge of Tytos Blackwood had not troubled her much, because it was a far more lenient punishment than he deserved, than what she'd given others guilty of the same crime, but disinheriting his children from Riverrun did weigh more upon her conscience, though she comforted herself they nevertheless lived good lives as charges of the Blackwoods, raised in the same castle as their gently imprisoned father.
But this one hurt, because it was her son, her firstborn, her heir, and how much it would hurt him, if he could ever find out. Which is why there was little audience with her in the chambers. To one side sat Queen Margaery, her former Hand, still a warm glow about her mischievous eyes even as she grew closer to sixty years of age. But there was little mischief about what they were about to preside over. Her own Hand was not present, nor any members of her Small Council. Though Petyr Arryn sat at the next table, the young Lord Paramount of the Vale nearly her own son's age, as well as his closest friend and confidante. And Corys Manderly, old Wyman's grandson and the new Lord Commander since Brienne's retirement, entered the chambers shortly, escorting in the Princess Elenia Tyrell, the future Queen of Westeros once she died and Rickon succeeded her.
"Your Grace," she knelt politely before her Queen. "Mother."
Does the girl not know? Or is she an exceptionally good actor?
But the Princess Elenia's face revealed her sudden panic when Ser Podrick Payne and Ser Ilyn Piper escorted another one of their fellow whitecloaks into the chambers, and her eyes shot wide when she recognized Ser Mikken Hogg of Sow's Horn.
The Pig Knight. Of course it's him.
"They're lies," she hissed near violently. "Whatever you've heard about us, they're damned lies."
"Daughter," Margaery scolded, her voice, stripped of pretense and humor, as stern and serious as Sansa had ever heard her, "you will not disrespect your Queen by speaking out of turn."
"Ser Podrick," the Queen Regnant commanded, "repeat the words Ser Mikken said to you at the tavern."
"All of them?" Though he was neither the cleverest or strongest of men, Sansa had offered him the Lord Commander position out of deference to his long years of loyalty and steadfast service, but the man was cognizant enough of his own limits to recommend the Northman instead. She nodded, and he continued, coughing nervously beforehand. "'I'll tell yer,'" Podrick began, mimicking Mikken's coarser accent, spoken while presumably inebriated, "'ain't no cunny like royal cunny. An' th' princess the best in the land, with both queens bein' shriveled an' dry...'"
"Enough!" Her husband Beryn's angry exclaims echoed through the Great Hall, where they had all proclaimed her a Queen over a lifetime ago. Seated on her other flank opposite Margaery, Beryn never lost his temper. Except when it came to his family, and here he was, listening to a Knight of the Kingsguard call his wife shriveled, while discussing in sordid detail his affair with his own son's beloved wife. Though he was apologetic soon after, realizing his ire was directed at the wrong member of the Kingsguard. "Sorry Ser Podrick, I should not have raised my voice against you."
"It's no matter, Your Grace," Podrick replied. Her husband was only a Prince, after all, no king. But if the wives of Kings past could be referred to by the title, then Sansa figured the husband of the Queen Regnant ought receive the same favor.
"Did Ser Mikken specify to you which Princess he referred to," she asked, her voice maintaining its evenness even as her own heart trembled with righteous rage.
Podrick nodded, though less than eager. "I asked him, 'Princess?' He said 'aye, the rose bitch Elenia. An' one day the realm calls her their Queen, but she squeals 'me lord' only while ridin' me.'"
"He lies," the accused Princess in question yelled angrily. Rickon's wife turned to her own mother, rather than the mother of her husband, the Crown Prince. "What man is above lies and boasts, even a Kingsguard?" Now she turned back to Sansa, a twinkle in her eye, as if she still believed her own ability to talk herself out of this one. "Ser Mikken's had an eye for me over the years, I cannot deny. Perhaps, in his drunken state, he gave to word his deepest and most shameful desires."
The girl was cleverer than most, Sansa had to admit, though her mind was but a pale shadow of her mother's. Yet, Elenia Tyrell was known across the realm not for her intellect, but her beauty, having inherited all her mother's curves and soft features, along with her father's height and slightly darker complexion. While their betrothal had been arranged before either one of them were born, she did not fault Rickon for falling into his duty so eagerly, her son having been besotted by Margaery's daughter the day he first set eyes upon her when they were both children.
Ignoring the Princess, she turned to Ilyn Piper. "What of you, Ser Ilyn? You drank at the same tavern as Ser Podrick and Ser Mikken. Did you hear the same words as Ser Podrick?"
"I did, Your Grace. Every word Ser Podrick said, I recall the same."
He'd been rather young to be appointed Kingsguard, though several years older than Jaime Lannister the day the future Kingslayer uttered his vows. His father had been amongst the lords who crowned her at Highgarden, and remained true to the crown even when his liege lord, her traitorous uncle, raised his banners most briefly in rebellion. Ilyn was Clement Piper's youngest and, by lucky happenstance, his ablest with both sword and lance, having won the tourney at Winterfell aged only eight and ten. He cut a dashing figure, hair brown tinged with yellow, bright blue eyes still imbued with the shine of youth...and Sansa imagined all who gazed upon the young man, clad gallantly in his armor, would have admired him the same way they could have admired a young Jaime Lannister, whilst he served still the old Mad King.
Watching the young man fidget, she leaned forward suspiciously. "You have more to say, Ser Ilyn?"
It did not escape her notice that it was to the Princess he looked nervously to at first, before returning his attention to his Queen.
"I'll remind you, Ser Ilyn," Queen Margaery said beside her, "that whichever royal personage you are pledged to, including my daughter, your vows to Queen Sansa of the Seven Kingdoms and Across the Narrow Sea supercedes all else."
Another furtive glance at the young princess. "There is more, Your Grace."
"Tell me," she ordered.
"Three mornings ago," he began, while the Princess Elenia's face grew as pale as a northern woman's countenance, "I rose early, and went to gather Ser Mikken for the hunt...I saw the Princess Elenia leaving his chambers, wearing only her red nightgown..."
"You wretch, you cunt," Elenia screamed vilely at the man immediately.
"Forgive me, Your Grace," he continued, even as she continued screaming hysterically at him, even as Podrick had to subdue her and hold her arms together, "it could have been nothing, she could have just sought him out for conversation..."
"Conversation," Sansa asked skeptically.
"...except...she swore me to secrecy."
"You're an oathbreaker now," Elenia swore at him, "cursed be your fucking name."
"Than you for your honesty, Ser Ilyn," Sansa said calmly, even as her heart raged, before turning to the other man standing trial before her, whose defiance minutes earlier had turned to fear, now that both his brothers of the Kingsguard had turned against him. Ser Mikken of House Hogg dropped onto his knees.
"Yer Grace...I...I can't...all I've wanted was to serve my Queen, the realm, make my father proud." He was not much older than Ilyn Piper, though through his light brown beard, which colored grey at certain angles, he looked far more aged. It had been said he'd taken much to drink since his arrival in Eddardton, and Sansa should have thought to have looked more at his behavior with concern, if not for the fact that men were men, white cloaks or not, they drank, they frequented taverns and brothels...and Mikken Hogg was well regarded as one of the best swordsmen in the realm, the shining pride of his small House at the northern tip of the Crownlands.
"She came to me, I tried to resist the Princess, I tried to say no, she's a married woman, to the Crown Prince...," he continued, eyes welling up. "But she kept coming to my quarters, every night, when no one else could hear, she kept at it...a man can only be pushed so far..."
"Why did you not tell Lord Commander Manderly?" Margaery asked the man, unmoved by his pleading.
"I...I did not want to make trouble, Yer Grace...I...she's the Princess...I knew how serious the crime was..."
"So you decided to commit it yourself?" Sansa watched Elenia even as she questioned Mikken. Her son's wife stared a blank spot in the wall, eyes still seething, her silence itself an admission of the truth in Mikken's words, that it was she who had seduced him, and not the other way around.
"I..." The man broke down all over again. "My father...I've shamed my family...my mother would..."
Sansa looked over at Margaery, then at Beryn, the three of them exchanging a knowing look together. The trial was over, for all intents and purposes. All that remained was for the Queen Regnant to render her judgment.
"Ser Mikken of House Hogg," she began, leaning forward, not allowing the young man's obvious sorrow and regret to affect her resolve, "I sentence you to die."
His shoulders slumped, but she thought she saw relief in his light green eyes, no longer having to keep from the world this most dangerous secret.
"You'll take poison, the maesters will find a suitable one, the least painful as they can find. It will be announced that you suffered a sudden fever, and died within a day of the affliction. Your family will not be told the truth, and your name, and theirs, will not be muddied."
"Your Grace," Mikken breathed, finally pronouncing her title without slurring it, "I thank you for your mercy."
"Don't thank me," Sansa said coldly, "the mercy isn't for you." She looked around the room, at the few who gathered for this most secret of trials. "Word of this does not leave the room, no one can ever know of this. Especially the Crown Prince Rickon."
It'll break his heart, to know the woman he loves with all his soul, the mother of his child, cares so little for his love, for their son.
Corys Manderly answered her first. "We are sworn to secrecy then, Your Grace."
"Till our dying day," Podrick continued.
She turned to the young princess, rage dampened but still stewing in her eyes, rage at what, Sansa wondered. Whether it'd be at her, or Rickon, or her own mother, or the world, she knew not, and it didn't matter.
"You're bound the same oath, Princess. Say the words."
"I swear it," the girl said, sulking. "My husband will never know."
"And nothing of the sort will happen again. If word reaches me that you so as even wink at another man, you'll take poison also, and of a far more painful variety, this I assure you, Princess."
It killed her inside, to have to spare the proud, spoiled girl she had to call her own daughter, for appearances' sake. Except executing her son's beloved wife would break his heart even more than her infidelity. And because she needed Margaery's support, more than ever, with tensions in the Free Cities rising, with the Dornish bitch acting up and giving her headaches once again. Executing Margaery's daughter, the sister of the future King of the Reach, would not do anything to help secure her son's reign either, fast approaching as that day was, now that she was past her fiftieth name-day.
"The realm hails Her Grace's mercy," Margaery proclaimed next to her, following her lead. Narrowing her eyes, the Queen of Thorns looked meanly at her daughter, equal parts anger and disappointment in her eyes. "And if you stray from Prince Rickon again, daughter of mine, damn the maesters and their poisons...I'll gut you with my own knife."
Elenia
She sought her mother out in her chambers. Before, when the Queen of the Reach was younger, her daughter had to take care to knock, lest she discover her mother in the throes of pleasure with yet another lover. She remembered a time when her mother was proclaimed by many the most beautiful woman in the land, rivaled only by the Wolf Queen herself. Pretty words to flatter two queens then, and both were assuredly shriveled old cunts now, all the beauty in the realm passed down solely to herself, so she would think.
"That was good theater, mother," she sneered. "The part about gutting me yourself...brilliant." The young princess clapped her hands in mocking applause.
"I mean it," her Queen mother replied, and the serious look in her eyes indicated there was no artifice to her words this time. "You disgrace me, daughter. In front of the Queen, no less."
"Fuck the Queen," Elenia spat, and in a moment her mother fell upon her.
Gods, she's still quick.
Her head bashed against the wall, as she felt the bony fingers of the Queen of Thorns wrapped around her neck.
"Watch your words, girl," Margaery I of House Tyrell hissed at her. "Queen Sansa spared you this time, on my account. You live because of her...and because of me. Your lover Mikken dies a painless death, his honor unbesmirched before the rest of the realm, because of us."
In her mind, she smirked. She still doesn't know. Good.
"Yes," Elenia gasped, her breath short as her mother clenched her fingers tighter across her neck, "you and the Wolf Bitch have run all seven kingdoms quite well, haven't you? In between bleedings, I suppose. While you both still had them."
Her mother had never laid hands upon her before. But then, she'd never angered her mother so much before. She smiled.
"But you and Queen Sansa won't live forever. The future of the Seven Kingdoms belongs to me. And Prince Rickon."
She felt her mother's grip loosen. "Not if you keep fucking every Kingsguard within half a league of you."
"I fucked one Kingsguard, mother. That's what, six dozen less than you?"
She half expected her mother to murder her on the spot. Rather than kill her only daughter, however, the Queen of the Reach withdrew, and Elenia could tell that her words had cut deep.
"The Queen takes what is due her. Isn't that what you've always said? You speak of shame, of honor besmirched...what of my father's honor? If Prince Rickon cries because he finds out I've been unfaithful, how many times has my lord father cried because of his whore wife?"
Margaery spun back around at her, but again, she held herself back. "Queen Sansa has rewarded amply your father. Not the least of which on my account, because of my behavior."
"Queen Sansa shows my Lord father favor because he is a great man, and a great lord! Because my honorable father supported her from the very beginning, against the Dragon Queen. Because he's rallied his banners and raised his sword for her countless times, because he ruled most ably the three cities of the East while he served in Braavos. Lord Arthur Hightower sits today as Queen Sansa's Hand because of his own merits...not because his whore wife took her title to her head and fucked every strapping lad who passed her by in all Seven Kingdoms...or is it nine, Yer Grace, if we count the Crownlands and the Iron Islands...or actually, you've made the eighteen, haven't you, with one additionally for each and every one of the Free Cities..."
A harsh slap across her cheek. And it hurt. But she'd never show her hurt to her Queen mother. And she'd never admit that she did regret hurting sweet Rickon. She cared something for the man, even her mother knew that. Perhaps she even loved the Prince, depending on how one defined the word. But why did that bind her to him forever, and no one else? She would be a Queen, once he took his throne. Why couldn't she do as her own Queen mother did, just because she was a Queen to a King, rather than a Queen Regnant of one kingdom?
"Your father and I have made peace with our...marriage a long time ago. I respect him, because he's a loyal and honorable man. And he respects me, well...," her mother actually laughed, "because I'm me, I suppose."
Looking at the old Queen of the Reach contemptuously, she crossed her arms. "Because there's no one like you, is there, mother?"
"No," her mother replied, glaring right back at her, her voice proud and regal and cold. "There's no one like me. Or Queen Sansa. The things we suffered...you couldn't begin to imagine, in your sweet song of a life. I've married thrice before, each its own test, and I remained true to each one of the three, while each lasted. If I've...indulged myself at times...it's because I deserve it, because it is my due, to get some enjoyment out of life before I grew so old."
"And I haven't suffered? Walking into my mother fucking my own best friend Henryn...I'm surprised you saved Prince Rickon for me, without getting a taste of him first...I ought to be glad he's rather plain looking..."
"Enough," Margaery ordered, and at first Elenia thought she was going to hit her again, and this time, she wondered if she would hit back. But the Queen slumped her shoulders instead, and wandered away from her. "I'm sorry I hurt you, Elenia. I'm sorry I've hurt your father. I can't take back the things I've done, but I'm sorry it's cut you so deeply...that it's made you such a wretched, ungrateful woman. Who'll take all that's been given to her, and spit upon it."
I don't care about being Queen, mother. You've never cared to see that. I just want to be a free woman, like you were. And I want Ilyn. Ser Mikken she never cared about, though Elenia felt sorry he had to die, because of her. But all she wanted was to make Ilyn Piper see her, not as the Prince's wife, but as a woman, a woman he could take for himself any time he wanted to, his vows or hers be damned.
The Queen's eyes met hers, and Elenia knew that their brief time as mother and daughter, however much spite and hate lay accumulated between them, was over, and when she spoke now, it was as her Queen, her voice speaking additionally for the Queen who reigned above her.
"I meant what I said, daughter. My own sins don't excuse yours. You can scoff at me, but Queen Sansa holds more power than any man or woman has seen in any of our histories. Cross her, cross her family, and there's not a hut you can hide in, on any continent."
Despite the ever present contempt, Elenia could not help a feel a shiver down her spine at her mother's words. Queen Sansa may be a useless old woman, but she knew the truth of it, how her brother was a greenseer who somehow knew anything and everything past, present, and future, that the Queen's sister was a ghost who could appear and disappear at will and be anywhere in body where her brother was in mind. That the King in the North's prowess with a sword rivaled any in the Kingsguard, including Ser Ilyn's, that his son Grenn could wield a sword near as well as his father, and an axe even better than King Jon. That whatever punishments the Queen Regnant could devise for her, her husband's younger brothers and sisters would do far worse were they to ever discover that she'd hurt their beloved eldest brother.
Her mother was right, she hated to admit. Seeing her chastened, the Queen of the Reach pressed further. "You gave birth to the heir to the Iron Throne less than six moons ago. Act like a good mother, for once."
"I'm not a mother, mother. I've never been motherly, I'll never be motherly."
"I don't care, find your Prince the best Handmaidens in the world then, to do what you cannot. Your son is the future, he is everything we've worked so hard and suffered so much for and died for, from my own grandmother Olenna, to Queen Sansa and all her family...it all hinges upon Prince Jon...and I'll not see you waste everything all our families have toiled for."
A smile appeared on the young princess's face. "Fine."
"Fine?" Her own mother squinted her eyes, not expecting her sudden surrender.
"Fine," she repeated. "I'll play the good daughter, the good wife, the good princess and Queen. I'll be what you want me to be, I'll be the woman Prince Rickon thinks I am." She turned to leave the room, but then looked back at her mother, because the final word was hers. As it was always meant to be. "But know that you won't live forever. Neither will Queen Sansa, or Arya Stark, or Bran of Winterfell."
And when they all pass on, I'll finally be my own woman. And we both know that there's nothing you can do to stop that.
Sansa
"She's a danger. I should have seen it." She stopped herself. Why was she lying? "I did see it. But Rickon loved her so...and Margaery and I had agreed upon the marriage so long ago...and I thought, if they both wanted it..."
She felt a comforting hand upon her back, and stopped, because it was pointless to keep rambling.
"You're far wiser and cleverer than me or anyone on either side of the Sea, love. But you can't predict everything, you can't win every battle, you can't solve every puzzle."
The Queen Regnant smiled at her husband, allowing herself to enjoy the comfort of his broad arms encircling her, one of the few people in the world who could make her feel small...whom she allowed to make her feel small, when she wanted to. If she was an old woman, while her husband was no longer a young man, he was still a man, in the prime of his life, and the Queen was not ignorant of the whispers that he was wasted, coddling an old woman around the Seven Kingdoms...except Sansa knew there was nothing else he'd rather do.
"But I have won every battle I've fought, dear." She scoffed. It did all seem so easy now, those mornings before battle when the outcome, when the fate of her own life, and all she cared about, hinged upon how a few thousand violent swords clashed randomly against each other. "If only the damned girl were as easy as a battlefield."
"Your Grace is wise to keep this from Rickon. This would break him, I'm sure of it."
A stout young man, Petyr Arryn was nowhere as tall or dashing as his father; even Sansa had to admit that, occasional traitor or not, the late Robin Arryn had grown into quite the strapping man. She'd sent the traitor's son to be raised by her brother Jon in Winterfell. He'd come to befriend Rickon whenever she took her family north, and now it was apparent that the man would become her son's Hand, once she died and he took the Throne. And that made her regret sending him north, because as good of a man Jon was, he was not one for the games around the Throne, and her son would have been better served had she taken Petyr as her own ward. It was not too late now, for him to learn from her, while her mind was still sharp enough to teach.
The Queen gripped her husband's hand, clasping tightly her waist as they strode slowly through the beautiful gardens that never failed to impress her upon each visit. "With any luck, Beryn will outlive me. And he'll split open anyone who hurts Rickon, man or woman. But neither one of us will live forever. And after we're gone, Petyr, you'll be the one who'll need to protect Rickon."
The young man smiled. "I'll have plenty of help from his sisters and brothers."
Wisely, he counted young Asha Greyjoy as one of their own. And she nearly counted Petyr as one of her children, raised by Jon as he was, because of how much her son loved him as a great friend. Perhaps this was Sweetrobin's most lasting legacy, to name as his son and heir the man who had betrayed her father, who had betrayed her in turn. But while Petyr Arryn was not as clever as her once mentor, he was not unclever, and what he lacked in mind he made up for in decency in loyalty, traits she did not doubt she could thank her brother Jon for.
"Robb may have my name," Beryn said beside her, "but the wolf runs strongest in his blood."
She'd named their third child a Dayne, so he could inherit Casterly Rock after his father, just as her second child was a Tully, and already several years settled as the Lady Paramount of the Riverlands. If the girl hurts Rickon, she'll find herself surrounded by wolves, in blood, if not in name.
Squeezing her husband's hand again, she forced herself to confront the truth. "I think we've done well, haven't we? Raising all our children, Asha included...they've all turned out good, and decent...and devoted to our family. But if only Rickon were more...like Robb."
"Then he wouldn't have Robb watching over his throne."
"It'll be a heavy burden, Your Grace," Petyr spoke, running his hands carefully over a bed of roses, taking care to avoid cutting his fingers upon a thorn. "It'll last me my whole life, I imagine. But I'm proud to be one of the few who gets the chance to bear it, to try and preserve your legacy. If I'm successful, perhaps I can restore a touch of the honor my house once had...the honor my father threw carelessly away."
"Jon is still well?" She spoke not of her first grandchild, but of her beloved brother, more than half a continent away, whose face appeared readily in her mind any time heard mention of the word honor.
Petyr nodded. "I had planned to ride north the next moon to see him. Considering what's happened...it might be better if I remain in Eddardton a bit longer, keep an eye on things."
The Queen let out an exasperated sigh. "I'm sorry my son's...troubles must trouble you so, Lord Arryn."
The young man let out a pudgy smile. "I like to think we're all family...King Jon...Prince Rickon...and I'm just the smallest and least worthy piece of all of you. But by the Gods, I swear I'd do right by our combined families."
"I'm sure you will," the Queen decided. Seeing that she preferred his audience over, Petyr Arryn bowed, and stepped back into the corridors of the castle. So it was just her and Beryn now, wandering amongst the roses of Highgarden, once the castle of her dreams, home of the handsome young lord of her dreams...except she dared say her own husband had proven to be more handsome than the late Loras Tyrell, a man whose cruel fate at the hands Cersei Lannister she couldn't help but still mourn, briefly as she had known him.
"After a day like this," her husband mused gently, though she could tell his heart still raged, same as she, at the sheer nerve of the spoiled Princess, their daughter by law, "I think we ought to ride due south, and take a boat straight to the Arbor."
"Just us," the Queen Regnant agreed. "No Small Councils, or lords, or Queens or Princesses."
Yet looking out upon the fertile plains of the Reach, she saw hills in the distance. Hills which had been once familiar to her, hills in which she and Beryn and all the southern lords alike fled to, in search of refuge from the last Dragon. And it was in these very hills and plains, on either side of the castle, in which she had won the last of the wars, ended forever the Targaryen dynasty, and secured a claim upon the Iron Throne she had never wanted...which she nevertheless would give her own life for, so that her son and her blood may claim it forever.
You're clever, Petyr Arryn. I hope that's enough. But I fear it won't be.
I wish you were as clever as Littlefinger.