Chapter 83: Chapter 42: Of Murder and Marriage (Laena, Cymella)

2nd Moon, 8051

Castle of Dragonstone

 

The gray waves of the Narrow Sea crashed against the base of Dragonstones thick black walls, a wind gusting in from the Gullet, gulls squawking as they flew around the Dragonmont.

Laena ran the brush through her daughter Vaellas hair as her daughter examined her pregnant belly.

‘’Stop your fidgeting.’’ Laena commanded gently, Vaella was a child that could never sit still, and was always moving about, something the Maesters said was a common ailment in some children.

Her daughter ignored her and put a hand on Laenas pregnant belly ‘’Do you t..think it's a boy or a g.girl…..the fisherw..women near the docks a f.few m.months ago said that you can t..tell depending on the w..weather…..they said if there's a s.storm then it might be a boy…and the clouds are all g.gray tod..day.’’

‘’There's no truth in that….those are just superstitions.’’ Syaella, Vaellas twin sister scoffed, removing her eyes from the myrish glass that she gazed into for hours, fixed at the Dragonmont and the nearby islands, looking for sea birds and plants which she meticulously sketched afterwards.

‘’Your sister is right…..there's no way to know for sure…anyone who says otherwise is just spewing peasant superstition nonsense….I would advise you to pay no heed to what these ‘’fisherwomen’’ have to say.’’ Laena said before pausing, thinking of  the days ongoing events that would likely affect their opinions towards her family ‘’On second thought you are no longer to associate with them at all.’’

‘’Mother…if it is a boy…who will be your heir…Lianna or him?’’ Syaella asked, she was a very bright child and frequently asked Laena questions of a political nature.

‘’As im sure you understand, if I were to name him my heir…it would call into question my own position…your sister will be Queen one day, even if it is a boy.’’ Laena explained.

Before her daughter could reply to that, the door to the balcony opened, and Laena turned to see her husband Jaekar approaching them, his face taut and weary.

She placed a hand on Vaellas shoulder and placed the brush down ‘’You two go back to your chambers…your father and I must speak.’’

The twins complied and left, whispering to each other, Laena watched them leave with a smile, though turning to her husband she saw he was in no such mood.

‘’Well…..is it done?’’ She asked.

Jaekar stared at her coldly ‘’Yes…..’’

‘’And the crew…..’’ Laena responded, ignoring his gaze and looking out to sea.

‘’They were all put to the sword….that is what you wanted was it not….it was you that gave the order’’ Jaekar responded with the same steely yet quiet tone he used whenever he was upset.

‘’It is not what I wanted…it was what needed to be done…..what of the bodies?’’ Laena asked, ignoring his tone.

‘’I had thought to give them to the silent sister…’’ Jaekar began but Laena rounded on him in a fury.

‘’Tell me, when was it that you lost your wits you damned fool…the silent sisters….if they should come into contact with the bodies they themselves will catch the plague….’’ Laena said hotly.

‘’I..’’ Her husband began but Laena cut him off.

‘’Have they been sent already.’’ She demanded.

‘’No….’’ Her husband responded simply.

‘’Good….for their own sakes…if they had already been sent I would have been forced to kill them as well….and what a story my brother would be able to spin that into.’’ Laena said, calming herself before continuing.

‘’You will take Oathwing on the morrow and burn their ship….along with the bodies, the men you sent to slay them will be sent away to an island somewhere…..I wont have them remaining here.’’ Laena finished.

Her husband was silent at that, joining her at the railing overlooking the sea.

‘’It could have been done another way Laena….it was a step too far.’’ He said quietly.

She turned to face him ‘’No step taken in defense of our children is too far…..’’

He was silent at that.

She sighed ‘’Perhaps you are right, perhaps there was another way…but our daughters are all that matter in this world, and I will take action and certainty rather than leaving it to chance every time….the cost of fisherfolk and silent sisters be damned.’’

They both stared out to sea, the waves coming slowly and steadily against the black stone base of the castle.

There had been plague in King's Landing….a sickness that assailed the town, her Lord Father had barred the gates of the Red Keep, a hard decision for him, but she knew his reasons for doing so….he had been unwise enough to leave them open during a previous outbreak and his foolishness had cost him his firstborn son Aelyx, Laenas eldest sibling whom she had never met.

Laena would not make the same mistake her father had…she knew well that on an island, any outbreak of this pox could prove extremely deadly on such an isolated community. She had closed the port of Dragonstone and decreed that any showing signs of sickness were to be slain before they could spread the pox, though for a while it had not come to that.

She had successfully kept the pox off of her island for a few weeks….until a ship had wrecked off of Dragonstones coast.

The ship had been filled with refugees, fleeing the plague in Kings Landing and hoping to find safe refuge on Dragonstone…but they had fled too late. By the time they had been discovered, it was clear that there were many sick amongst them. To make matters worse, a few of them had wandered into Derlyn to buy provisions, and a few of the townspeople had also taken sick.

When at last this plague boat had been discovered, Laena ordered all the refugees as well as the townspeople who had been in contact with them, afflicted or not to be confined into the boat to wait out the plague.

She could not simply send them back on a war galley as the royal fleets crews had all been ordered to isolate in their homes, and the peasants alone would have no notion of how to sail it, Jaekar, the brave fool had offered to sail them back himself, but Laena would not risk her husband, and was content to have them wait out the plague.

The afflicted were growing restless however, and had a few had even stormed past her guards and made for the town before they were forced back, things were reaching a boiling point.

Laena had then made the fateful decision. She would not risk the plague spreading, as Dragonstone was an island, it relied heavily on food, fresh water, and supplies from the village of Derlyn and other small settlements, she would not risk the plague spreading….many islanders made deliveries to the castle frequently, and even some servants quartered in other settlements, if the island broke out in pox, it would only be a matter of time before it reached the castle….and her daughters.

So she had ordered Jaekar to assemble a force of men-at-arms to march the wrecked fishing sloop and kill the afflicted, after which they, being sailors would make for a nearby island….thus stopping the growing spread of pox on the island.

She could of course have overseen the task herself, but Laena was never one to take action when it could be left to subordinates. Jaekar was not well suited to the task as well, but he would one day be her King Consort, and she felt the need to test him…his loyalty to his ideals or to his wife…and he had done his duty as she knew he would…though not without reluctance.

She knew it had been a hard order to give however, so she took his hand, he tensed initially as if to pull back, but relaxed when she placed it on her belly.

They stood there in silence for a moment, before Laena gently removed his hand and moved to the other end of the balcony.

‘’This must be the last one Jaekar.’’ She said, watching the waves steady motion.

‘’What do you mean?’’ He asked with surprise, walking closer.

‘’I am my fathers heir….but to ascend the Iron Throne I must live to see my ascension.’’ She said with a pause before continuing.

‘’I have faced the birthing bed five times…and in a few months I will do so again….as a man I would not expect you to understand such things…but it is not easy Jaekar….and each time I lay down in that bed to face a battle there is always the risk I shall never rise from that bed….I am to be Queen one day, I have delivered five healthy children with relatively little complications…but sooner or later….no, boy or girl this will be the last….it must be.’’

He nodded and together they watched the sun set upon the narrow sea.

 

3rd Moon, 8051

Castle of Storms End

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The halls of Storms End were loud with the sound of shouting as they so often seemed to be, the servants quickly retreated from the hall, they knew better than to stay when the Lord and Lady of the castle were in one of their moods.

‘’You are not taking my son…that is final….the boy is a Baratheon, and his place is in Storms End.’’ Raymont Baratheon said hotly, with ill veiled venom, glaring daggers at Cymella Targaryen, his wife.

Cymella glared back at her husband. He was not a handsome man, though tall and sharing the powerful physique typical of Baratheons, he had a large nose, eyes spaced too far from each other, thin pinched and pale lips, a long neck and a hairy face prone to outbreaks of acne, hardly the husband she would have picked for herself, both in appearance and temperament.

‘’One would hardly know he is Baratheon by looking at him, he looks Targaryen…thank the gods…it appears he will take little after you in appearance…a blessing I think.’’ Cymella responded cruelly, enjoying how the barb seemed to dig at her lord husband.

A brief look of pain flashed through his eyes, replaced by one of rage ‘’Are you saying…..’’

Cymella cut him off  ‘’I am saying your son takes after you little in appearance….which is not surprising….the blood of the dragon is the only blood that matters in his veins, the blood of your bastard ancestor is weak.’’

She left him with that, her husband standing in a cold rage before he called her name, causing her to turn.

‘’Cymella….you will not defy me in this.’’ He said coldly, she did not respond and continued out of the hall.

There's was not a happy marriage, and it was her sister she could blame her circumstances on. Raymonts father Boros had been cousin to her own father King Vaemond. Her fathers cousin had grown truculent in the years following the rebellion, and Laena had suggested that in order to prevent the lord of Storm's End from gaining any ideas, that young Raymont be fostered in Kings Landing as the King's own ward, and Boros could scarcely refuse such an ‘’honor’’ from his own cousin and liege.

Luckily enough, Raymonts father Boros had been slain in a duel before he could cause any trouble, and young Raymont had become the new Lord of Storm's End, to which Laena proposed her father betrothe young Cymella to the new Lord of the Stormlands, a proposal that her father had accepted, and a marriage which brought nothing but bitter unhappiness for Cymella.

She could not say exactly when the rivalry between the two of them had started except that it had began well before their marriage while they were both being raised in the Red Keep.

Raymont had never been an attractive boy, and was made mock of by some of the castle squires for his large nose and long neck, but he had been popular and had realized he could stop the mockery of himself by deflecting the laughs of the children of the castle onto others, and Cymella had been an easy target to deflect the cruel jokes onto.

Cymella had always been a robust woman, even as a child, taller than many of the boys in the castle and having a rather stocky, bordering on slightly overweight build.

Thus she was a frequent victim of Raymonts jokes, and one one occasion, Raymont had been heard to say that the Red Keep would never lack for a blacksmith as long as Princess Cymella resided there, while another time a page from a book depicting one of the lumbering apes from the jungles of Sothoryos was left on her bed, its head colored over with silver hair. Her dislike of him had been forged in their childhood, and it had only grown in marriage.

Both Raymont and Cymella were individuals of considerable tempers, and the young couple quarreled frequently on all manner of trivial matters. Raymont would occasionally attempt to apologize by buying her a fine dress or piece of jewelry of which she was fond of, the one decent thing her father had instilled in him was a sense of charity, but the peace between them never lasted, with a cruel comment from Cymella or a blunt jape from Raymont always turning the halls of Storms End into a veritable battlefield of shouting matches.

Cymella had finally had enough, and intended to return to her father and mother in the capitol with their young son Boros where she would be happier, but it seemed that her toad of a husband meant to deny her even that.

That sop has no say over my actions She thought angrily as she stormed to her chambers, brusquely ordering her handmaidens to pack her clothes into chests, and to ready young Boros for travel, while she sent word to the five Dragon Cloaks her father had sent to Storm's End with her as a personal guard to ready their horses and a carriage.

That night under the cover of darkness, the small party of five mounted dragon cloaks, a carriage and a few handmaidens departed Storms End through a postern gate, with Cymella cleverly concocting an excuse to the captain of the gate that she was leaving on Raymonts orders.

They didn't make it far, it was only a few hours before she heard shouts of alarm from her guards outside the carriage and the thundering of hooves, causing little Boros to begin to cry.

Opening a wooden slide window, Cymella saw nearly twenty riders dressed in yellow and black surcoats of house Baratheon, welding torches and with swords drawn. Her guards did not resist, they had been sent to defend her, but not from her own lord husband, and furthermore, Cymella had told them little about the reasons for their departure, and certainly not that it was in defiance of her own lord husband.

The captain of her guard, Melyn, rode towards Raymont, posing a question as to why his men had swords drawn when her husband sent a mailed fist into the man's bald head, knocking him from his horse with a groan.

Little Boros began to cry louder at this point, and she saw her husband's gaze turn towards their carriage. She handed her son to one of the handmaidens and prepared herself for her husband's wrath.

Raymont stormed towards the carriage door, prying it open roughly.

‘’Raymon.’’ Cymella began but her husband grabbed her painfully by the wrist and dragged her out of the carriage into the road, forests on both sides and lit by the light of the moon and his horsemans torches.

‘’I told you you were not to defy me in this…I warned you, and what do you do, you slink out of my castle in the middle of the night like a thief, lying to the gate captain…YOU WOULD STEAL MY SON FROM ME.’’ He said, voice thick with venom before it rose to a shout, carrying through the woods of the Stormlands, silencing the owls and birds of the night.

‘’One cannot steal something that belongs to them.’’ Cymella said haughtily.

Raymont grabbed her wrist harder, pulling her close.

‘’I have suffered your insults and disrespect for long enough….I have been patient and lenient as a husband…but this…this borders on treason….princess or not…Targaryen or not….you will be strongly chastised my lady….as Lord Paramount of the Stormlands and a lord of the realm I bear the right to wield a rod against you….your defiance has come to an end.’’ He said, voice thick with bile.

She slapped him, hard across the face.

‘’You wouldn't dar…’’ She began but Raymont shouted, a cry of pure rage and struck her in the nose with a ferocious backhand, breaking it and causing her to stumble to the ground with a cry of pain, blood running from her ruined nose.

She drew her knife from her belt and stumbled to her feet.

He laughed ‘’And what are you going to do with tha…’’

She slashed him under his eye downwards to his cheek, the knife cutting through his skin like a scythe through wheat.

Her Lord Husband howled in pain and stumbled backwards, drawing his longsword in rage.

Cymella sneered at him, blood still dripping from her nose ‘’Do it….Do it and I swear that my father and sisters dragons will reduce Storms End to a smoking ruin…..and that you will die SCREAMING.’’

For the first time she saw hints of doubt run through his eyes, he sheathed his longsword with a grunt.

‘’Take the Lady Cymella to a tower cell in Storms End…..and keep here there.’’ He demanded before storming to his horse, holding a hand to his bleeding face and riding ahead.

Word of the incident traveled fast to the King's Court in Kings Landing. King Vaemond was torn, one one hand he knew that his daughter had always been an unruly girl, and it was the right of lords to chastise their wives that they felt disobeyed them, but it was clear that he had far surpassed any rights as a husband with her savage assault of her, though it was not lost on him that she too raised a blade to him. On the other hand,  King Vaemond was a man that cared deeply for his family and his daughter, and it was unacceptable circumstances that his own child was being confined to a tower cell.

Laena herself flew from Dragonstone on Vhagar and requested permission to fly to Storms End and drag the blackguard from his hall, burning him out if necessary, stating that ‘’any man that laid hands upon the blood of the dragon could expect a visit from one in turn.’’

Vaemond had refused this however, he knew well the cost of civil war and had no wish to turn an already unfortunate situation into something worse that could cause much bloodshed. He had also raised the boy Raymont as his own squire for several years, and while he knew that he had failed to turn the boy into a good and honorable man, he hoped that relationship would at least make the Lord of the Stormlands see reason.

In the end, Vaemond settled on the middle path. Instructing the Grand Maester to write up a royal decree and sent it to Storm's End….Princess Cymella was to be released immediately…with Vaemond ordering the vague line that he would ‘’Do whatever steps necessary to ensure the freedom and safety of his daughter’’ if this request was refused.

Raymont Baratheon was no fool and knew he could not defy the crown in this matter and released Princess Cymella, who returned to Kings Landing, though she was sent back alone, her young son Boros would remain in Storms End.

Cymella was furious with her fathers rather timid and indecisive action, and demanded that he send another decree that her own son Boros was to be sent to the capitol as well. Vaemond refused this as gently as he could; however, he had no legal claim to demand his grandson, the heir to Storm's End be given up.

Princess Cymella was disgusted with what she saw as cowardice on the part of her father, and rather than remain at court in Kings Landing chose to relocate to Dragonstone with her sister Laena and her family.

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