A Song of Blackjack and Hookers 65 (Margaery XI) (Patreon)

       Margaery

The Iron Throne stood the same as it always had, the only part of the Red Keep her garden spurned. The blood of a dozen Targaryen kings had turned it into a thing of sorcery.

A ghost of a smile caught on her lips as her eyes turned on the thousand roses that crowded it, their vines snaking through brick and mortar. The iron monstrosity remained, but all else she claimed as her own.

Renly’s false green eyes met hers, though they did not linger, staring down at his court. His crown could no longer grace his brow, yet the antlers that had sprouted from his black locks made for a more regal thing than any gold.

It was not oft that her husband deigned to seat his throne. Today was a special occasion on two counts.

Loras stood at the foot of the throne with a face that could be carved from stone, his rainbow cloak resplendent in the sun that peeked from the windows.

She turned away the melancholy. Her brother had not been the same since his blade turned slick with the blood of mad septons.

Two more of that number knelt before the Iron Throne, and three knights. Their conspiracy had been undone the moment the first whisper touched her roses.

It was her they stared at in fear, not Renly. There was no end to the horrors the sparrows accused her of.

The smile she returned was quick to shy them as Renly made to speak. “Is there any the Seven loathe more than those that would spill the most holy of blood?”

It was one of the knights that dared first, a crownlander. “I was fooled, Your Grace. I did not know these villains for what they—”

“Craven,” another hissed. The silver chalices and black roses marked him as a knight of House Costayne. They were one of her grandfather’s foremost bannermen. “You demean yourself before a heretic and a blasphemer, ser.”

“Ser Tremolyn Costayne,” Renly cheerfully followed. “You who would have put your sword through the back of His Holiness would impugn the honor of others?”

The knight’s pale eyes were thick with scorn as the court tittered. “His Holiness sits in the Vale,” he hissed. “Take our heads and be done with it. We will go to the Seven with our hearts free of regrets.”

“Perhaps soon he will sit in Dorne, in the westerlands, even the stormlands. My brother might have found a love for the red god, but I suspect he would not long stand being the only king without a High Septon.”

Renly gave a hapless smile, the shadow of his antlers yawning across the throne room.

“I think it folly myself. We had ever only had one High Septon. One when the Gardeners ruled the Reach and the Durrandons ruled the stormlands. One when the Targaryens ruled the realm.”

Ser Tremolyn gave a terrible scowl. “The High Lickspittle left His Holiness no choice! With every breath he has profaned the Faith!”

It was her voice that followed. “Does your High Sparrow think himself above the Seven’s wisdom, ser? Is it not Their hand that lays heavy on the Most Devout?”

The knight stumbled to stand. “I will not listen to the temptations of a demon from the seven hells and his witch queen!”

Margaery moved forward as they had planned, her cloak of petals trailing her steps. “Peace, ser.”

Ser Tremolyn’s fury turned first to fear as a sweet scent caught on the air.

“Not even in the days of Andalos did the High Septon crown himself in crystal. Now the Faith bleeds for the folly of one man. But he will not find succor… not while there are true knights left to defy him.”

She touched a hand to the knight’s cheek with a fair smile. His eyes had turned to Myrish glass.

“Do you see it now? The sweet peace the Seven would give the Seven Kingdoms? The lies his sparrows twitter in the ears of the faithful?”

The fear had died as quickly as the rage, leaving the knight with a child’s smile. “Yes, Your Grace.”

She bid the others also stand, their eyes and smiles the same. Ser Ryam would lead them from the throne room, his armor purple and a rainbow at his back.

She caught the uncertain eyes of her lord father and lady mother. Margaery did not allow doubt to touch her heart as another stalked into the throne room all in black.

Though the news had surprised her less than most, even she had found it hard to believe the sight before her.

The Greyjoy’s eyes gleamed with mischief as she paused before the Iron Throne, black as the rest of her. Though she breathed deeply of that sweet scent, her smile remained a wicked thing as their eyes met for a breath.

At her back were two men, one fair as a maiden and the other dark, a sealskin cloak thrown over his shoulder. The sweetness struck them stronger, but she did not let it do more.

It would be a poor way to meet a queen.

“My lady Greyjoy,” Renly welcomed affably. “I am glad to see my brother has not kept you. He is fond of brooding at me from his Fury.”

“Lady? Perhaps my crown’s hard to see without a shine of gold.”

It was a queer thing to crown oneself in driftwood, she thought, but then the ironborn had always been a queer folk, more than even the northerners.

Renly had taken the rebuke gracefully. “I am no Aegon the Conqueror to beggar you of a crown and add your steel to my throne. Call yourself Queen of Salt and Rock if it please you, but fealty, loyalty… those I must have.”

The Greyjoy gave a husky chuckle. “Sweeter terms than your brother offered. Yet I would be a queen in more than name, King of Summer.”

She stirred closer to the Iron Throne, prompting Loras to stir. The wicked smile remained.

“I will tell you the same as he and Viserys Targaryen. I am not my father to offer you only the iron price. I offer you the gold, for so long as your hand clasps mine in friendship.”

Whispers touched the court. Friendship. It was a queer thing to hear from any ironborn.

“And your warships?” Renly would ask. “I do not expect the Iron Fleet will turn to merchantry.”

“Not as such. The Basilisk Isles have drawn their ire. And when their task is done…” The ironborn queen gave a languid shrug of her shoulders. “I shall have to see which of your greenlander kings desires them most.”

The words were plain to read. Asha Greyjoy would see them court her for her ships.

Her eyes caught on the sky as she softly stepped from the throne room. The whispers were quick to find her heart, whispers she only half listened to.

She had been promised more than whispers…

“You hear him also,” another soon husked. The Greyjoy had joined her, and soon she was hanging off of her as if they were old friends. The irreverence amused her as much as it confused her. “I wonder how many of us dance on a mummer’s strings now.”

She turned her head to meet those black eyes. The Greyjoy had raised a queer thing in her black claws, only slightly bigger than a grain of sand.

“A gift for your name day, he said.”

Grandmother had mentioned the Greyjoys had taken to Dorne, and the Kingslayer with them.

The ironborn queen placed it in her hands, catching on the petals. It was heavier than such a thing had any right to be.

It did not take her long to see it for what it was. A seed. Her twin hearts quickened at the sorcery she felt playing on it.

Margaery met those black eyes again. “A gift as sweet as the Seven.”

The Greyjoy returned another wicked smile. “I cannot say I know your greenlander gods well, but I did not think them fond of such.”

A placid smile she returned, her honey locks shifting along her cloak of petals. “The Seven-Pointed Star can be read many a way.”

“As you say. I prefer to leave the reading to my beloved nuncle on Harlaw.”

The ironborn queen departed at the words, and her own steps stirred her to the godswood that had become the heart of her garden, Ser Morwyn at her back. Into its soft soil, she placed the seed, her roses singing to it like a mother might sing a lullaby to her child.

Pricking her finger on a thorn as his whispers asked, she watered it with drops of her blood. All that was left was to wait for the rains…

The morn met her with a meeting of the small council. There was much to discuss.

Grandmother already sat at one end, a cat’s smile upon her poutful lips as she eyed their Grand Maester. A whisper of Your Grace had passed his cracked lips as she entered.

Though her roses might have devoured him completely, she thought it a more fitting punishment that he kept his wits as she wagged his tongue. Pycelle was a simple creature at his core.

Their master of ships arrived next, greeting her grandmother awkwardly. He was her nephew, though he hardly seemed like it now.

Their master of laws and master of coin followed. Where Jason Mallister carried the same calm composure, Selwyn Tarth sat with a coldness that could rival any Stark. The Freys were fortunate that Tarth was far away in the stormlands.

Finally, their king graced the room in a raiment green and gold, her brother a breath behind him. He sat with some whimsy, as if theirs was not a court of sorcery.

“I hear we’ve news from the north.”

“Twice over,” Grandmother returned. “Our errant Hand writes to tell us that he travels beyond the Wall after his brother and this King-Beyond-the-Wall, while his Tully wife tells another story.”

Those false green eyes did not show any surprise. “His Holiness mentioned just this morn the fell news he received from the Twins. Old Walder Frey had two of his septons chained together and thrown into the river after naming them heretics.”

Grandmother gave a soft snort for it, twining one of her newly ginger locks around a nail. “The Late Lord Frey is not a man given to religion. Had they not overplayed their hand, we would have heard naught but that the Lady Brienne and Brandon Stark had run afoul of some band of cutthroats. There are deserters aplently across the riverlands.”

“Why go through with such a ruse at all?” their master of ships asked.

“For the same master they run to now. That conniving whoremonger in Gulltown would have found the Stark boy a potent tool to play against our errant Hand.”

Margaery had come to much the same conclusion. Even with the sparrows uprooting every rose in Gulltown for fear of her…

“It would seem we are to be plagued by weasels as much as sparrows.” Renly gave a tiresome sigh for it. “Tarly will not be happy to see five thousand men sent to besiege the Twins. Not when he is close to capturing Deep Den.”

“I will muster a force myself from Tarth,” Lord Selwyn cooly followed. “I have coin enough.”

“What strength Seagard has left will join you,” Mallister was quick to add.

“Peace, my lords. The Freys had only sent a thousand of their strength to the Vale. Their other three thousand will not be easy to root out from the Twins.” A queer smile found his handsome lips. “I will go myself.”

That surprised them. It even surprised her. He had seemed set to take the fight to Stannis.

“My brother hides behind Storm’s End’s walls and the sea. Walder Frey has no such luxury. I will muster the strength of the crownlands and scour the sparrows from Maidenpool. Then I will make an example of House Frey.”

Lord Selwyn’s surprise had turned to satisfaction, and perhaps that was why Renly had done it. The loss of Storm’s End had already hurt his standing in the stormlands. The stormlords would not long follow a king that will not fight for his crown.

Loras seemed similarly eager. King’s Landing had not grown on him.

“It is as good a time as any,” Grandmother soon muttered. “It does not seem Doran will stir himself until the wretched beasts are grown, and the gods only know what Cersei’s up to.”

What skepticism there was had long gone, though they were none closer to an answer. Her garden would not long last against dragonfire.

“The Golden Company is not like to return anytime soon,” she spoke into the quiet after.

Though she still knew not what game the Blackfyres played at in fighting the Dothraki. There had not even been a whisper of Varys since.

“Then it is decided.” Renly had stood with the sun catching on his antlers.

It was only a sennight that he had left at the head of thirteen thousand men, her lord father and three of the Rainbow Guard gone with him. Most of that thirteen thousand was drawn from the crownlands, but not all, some three thousand drawn from the Reach and the stormlands.

The rains had poured for three of those seven days, and on the third the seed she planted had sprouted. She curled around it upon the black soil, watching as the rains graced her thousand petals. No longer did she have a need for gowns.

The whispers were muted by the storm, but they had never truly gone. She heard them in her heart still.

“You need not wait on it yourself.”

Her hearts quickened. It was a whisper in her ear.

Her eyes stirred to spy Solomon seating the soil lazily. Though where her hair and petals were wet with rainwater, not a drop of it had found him.

“It has a heartbeat if you listen close,” she returned just as a softly. “It grows stronger with each day like a babe.”

He did not seem surprised. “She. When Your Grace had given her your blood, it was a daughter you brought into the world.”

Her twin hearts fluttered. A daughter?

“I have seen your dreams, Your Grace. Every one.”

Those words brought a heat to her cheeks she could not master. She felt a foolish girl of three-and-ten again.

His hand took hers across the soil. “Perhaps I should share one of mine to make us even.”

The thought touched her with confusion first, then curiosity. Margaery watched as he laid his head upon the damp soil, his black hair a crown and a halo. His three eyes closed as if in slumber.

She joined him after a breath, their fingers intertwined. When her eyes closed, she found herself far from her garden and King’s Landing, where clouds broke upon a shore.

There were two suns in the sky, and yet it was not day.

There were spires that hinted at a city, and yet it was a ruin.

She had seen it before, and yet she had no memory of it.

She knew its name, and yet she had never heard it.

Her head ached at trying to make sense of it, her hearts beating mad as a hummingbird’s wings. Then she was awake again, feeling the rain on her skin.

“Carcosa,” she heard him whisper, his eyes still closed. There was a cast of something else she had never seen on him. Uncertainty. “I had asked you where the fun would be in skipping to the end of the story when last we spoke. Do you remember?”

She turned on her side. “I do.”

“It would seem the jest was on myself.”

Though she tried, she could not find the meaning in his words. Nor did he say any more.

A pout found her lips before she claimed his, sprawling over him. He felt more a man as she shared more of her strength with him. She would not let him escape so easily this day.

He tasted of saffron the most, but it was only one of a hundred spices that touched the petals of her tongue.

Just as soon she found herself on her back, his three eyes staring down into her own. “Gluttony is a sin, Your Grace. And yet…”

His nimble fingers toyed with her rain-soaked petals, even as his tongue yawned from his mouth to lap at the same.

“I’ve always wondered what it would be like to be a bee.”

The queer words saw him tread lower. After that she found it hard to think.