Chapter Text
The court thinks it a fine jape when the Princess Daena Targaryen delivers a daughter nine moons after her good sister Aemma Arryn does.
Years later, the whole of Westeros will call it pretty poetry, the natural course of fate: wherever her cousin Rhaenyra goes, the lady Alysanne Hightower is sure to soon follow. But on the day of the latter's birth, the court titters that the child is no more than a byproduct of her parents' thwarted thrust at revenge.
It is, after all, an open secret that there is no love lost between the Princess Daena and her husband Otto Hightower. The announcement of their betrothal left the Realm reeling with surprise. Had the princess not called Ser Otto a leech in worm's clothing, a cunt made loose by a seven-sided crystal? (In public, no less.) Had Ser Otto not called the princess Lady Flea Bottom, Maegor come again as a whore? (In private, of course.) Yet there they were in the sept of the Red Keep, showing teeth, swapping cloaks, tumbling into bed for all to see. An unruly princess and a second son. What alliance is this and for what, no one knows. But we can guess, so let us guess.
Picture a brother and sister of House Targaryen. Seven and three. Twin images of one another. Before them is the still and cold corpse of their mother, the Princess Alyssa. She is also sister of their father, the Prince Baelon. Behind them stand their grandfather and grandmother, the siblings King Jaehaerys and Queen Alysanne. A century ago, the Conqueror and his sister-wives founded their ruling dynasty. Brother to sister, sister to brother, dragon to dragon, an egg safe in the nest. In the wake of their mother's death, the Prince Viserys is never seen without his little sister Daena. She drapes herself around him, follows him to the practice yard, learns from him to ride.
"There's no question who she'll wed," the court says. Yes, yes, here is Baelon and Alyssa's love reborn. Surely their father and grandmother are pleased.
Just as her late mother once did, the Princess Daena learns swords from Jonquil Darke, sworn lady knight to Queen Alysanne. Though forbidden from tourneys, the princess' skill is undeniable. So is the strength of her personality. She is teeming with charm, prone to adventure, quick in temper. If ever she smells of the city or drink, well, she has the Kingsguard so charmed that it is no matter. If ever she trips a septa or mocks a seamstress' stitching until the poor thing bursts into tears, well, who's to say? The Targaryens are above us ordinary folk; perhaps parts of their womanhood are above ours as well. For a while, all is according to book.
Then, the queen beckons her son Dragonstone forward with a frown. Bids him to keep a closer eye on the girl.
"Daena?" the Prince Baelon says in surprise. "She is spirited, hale. What's there to worry about?"
"She reminds me of your sister," the queen says.
O Saera, wayward child of our crown, abased and forever ruined! Yes, Daena is fierce with steel, sure in the dragon saddle. But we have no need of a warrior queen, a Visenya. These are different times. Peaceful ones. A gentler woman is needed. Look what came from Visenya's womb. Look at the last princess we let follow her whims. Ruling not a Great House, but a brothel across the sea. Perhaps we can tame this one before it is too late. So let us wed cousin to cousin instead: Aemma Arryn, age eleven, granddaughter in the Vale, child of our dearly departed Daella, will do.
What of brother to sister, sister to brother? Exceptions must sometimes be made for the good of the Realm and you, Daena, are an exception.
Now here comes the second son of House Hightower. Wealthy, learned, but still a second son. He must make his own way in the world while advancing his family's name, and where better to do so than at court? Already he has ensnared the king's ear, weaseled his way into Prince Viserys' graces. But everyone knows that royal favor can be fleeting. He needs an anchor. He needs a wife.
It is no secret that after the Princess Daena's poor showing at her brother's wedding—the servants are still finding shards of thrown glass—her father and grandmother are eager to see her betrothed. They offer to send her on a tour of the the realm to find a reasonable suitor of her choice. Emphasis on reasonable. When she threatens to shave her head and screams that she will not leave King's Landing until her rightful brother husband is returned to her, they parade lord after lord before her at court instead. She has her pick of the Great Houses, her pick of the wealthy, her pick of the handsome, but none satisfy her eye. Soon the minor houses are summoned, but they too are exhausted after two years. Finally, exasperated and eager to humble his wife, the king himself orders his granddaughter to choose a suitor within the month.
Ser Otto Hightower's name is not proffered. Nor does anyone expect the princess to consider him, infamous as their mutual scorn is. The household puzzles over it later, servants whispering that they can report no clandestine meetings between the two, no delivered messages. And yet, the guards find Ser Otto in Princess Daena's bed anyway. Only the princess' words stays their hands.
"I've made my choice," she says to her blushing father and wide-eyed grandmother.
Very well. Second son though he may be, Otto Hightower is more like than any other man to keep our Daena in line. He's had no lapse in manners before today. Better the devil we know than the devil we don't.
So we have a bride and a groom. A fine autumnal wedding. But already the court is turning its eyes to another husband and wife. The Prince Viserys and Lady Aemma have now been wed for three years and all they have to show for it is a trail of bloody gowns, one cold cradle. Fifty-two days the young prince lived, and we counted every one. Then his breath had come too fast. Then it had come not at all.
We sweltered at the burning of the royal body, lowered our eyes at the pale countenance of its mother. Poor girl, four and ten, already battling a shriveled womb. Ser Otto comforted the bereft father and we wondered at the absence of the would-be aunt.
Rumors in the kitchens go: the Princess Daena thinks her good sister unfit for her brother. The Princess Daena thinks her womb would not reject her brother's seed.
Well. Everyone remembers the late Princess Daella, mother of Aemma, wedded and bedded and buried at eighteen. Say there is a curse, a sickness in the blood of the dragon…? But no, to think so much is to blaspheme against the very foundation of our peace.
The air warms, then sweats. Our lords and ladies slip on silks from Essos. We bring cups of ice milk to their gilded pavilions and listen from the shadows. There are always floors to be scrubbed, bedding to be changed, "Yes, m'lord"s to be exclaimed. Lower your head if you hear the queen threaten to leave the king again, but remember every word so you can repeat it to us again. Sharpen the princes' steel, sharpen the princess'—what? Her bed is cold and empty? Rodrik saw her slip into the Street of Silk last night? Poor Hightower, poor Hightower, does he know?—trim the horse hooves. At last the mornings dawn clear and cool, at last King's Landing grows mild, the leaves on the street pale.
At last the Lady Aemma delivers a living babe.
A girl, yes, but sure proof that the womb works. We count fifty-two days. We count fifty-three. Fifty-four, fifty-five, fifty-six, fifty-seven-eight-nine…Soon, we need not count at all. The child is colic and every scream gives us joy. The king and queen reconcile, Prince Baelon gifts the babe a rattle, the father and mother breathe a sigh of relief. The whole household is at ease, save perhaps one. Or two.
"Daughter," says the new grandfather, "come and greet your niece. Pay the future of our House the respect she is due."
"I would, Father, if it weren't for present circumstances."
"Present circumstances!"
On the hundredth day of the new princess' life, Daena announces she is with child and due in half a year. Everyone does the math.
"By the gods, Hightower has managed to crawl into her bed at last."
"How do you think they did it? I don't think I've ever seen them in the same room. S'pose he spent into a bucket she bathed in?"
"He's more like to admit her, than she him. I wager he bent for her."
"I'll be surprised if the child isn't a bastard," Lord Tymond Lannister says. He is banished back to Lannisport the next day, hide kept safe only by his wealth and name. But he is far from alone in his thoughts. Otto is so chaste he is closer to eunuch than man, and a princess does not earn the title of Lady Flea Bottom without reason.
If the princess finds pregnancy a discomfort, not even the maids know. To the ladies at court, she exhibits the brightest of spirits, the jauntiest of walks. She flaunts her belly the way she swings a sword. To the horror of maesters, she takes to her dragon well into her seventh month. The message is clear: where Aemma falters, I do not.
All that is easy is forgotten in the torrent of blood the day the child comes.
When Daena wakes from her delirium, she wakes to find the babe named after the Good Queen Alysanne. It's close enough to Alicent, a good name from the Hightowers' home in the Reach, and everyone knows Otto is all too eager to remind the whole of the Realm that he, a second son, has joined his name to the Targaryens'. Daena threatens to throw herself from the parapets—forever will she hold a grudge against her grandmother for marrying Viserys to that meek bitch from the Vale—but the ravens have already been sent. So Alysanne it is.
The child’s auburn curls, of course, spur whispers throughout the keep. Wasn't her mother seen with Boremund Baratheon and the new captain of the City Watch? Didn't a former squire of Otto's once, deep in his cups, call his master a sodomite?
The princess Daena proposes her own theory to her assigned ladies-in-waiting.
"The hair, of course, is from our Stark blood." She smiles at the faces around her. They all sweep their eyes to the floor. There is no Stark blood in House Targaryen, not in public records, at least. There were once whispers of Queen Alysanne growing a touch too close to Alaric Stark, but to insinuate as much is to shout treason. "Her face is all mine—and my brother's. Don't you think so? Why, the very manner in which she waves her fists is the same he uses to wave at the smallfolk."
Yet despite the Princess Daena's best efforts, no one suggests the Prince Viserys as a candidate for father of the child.
Very soon, anyway, when she begins to look something more of a person, the child's resemblance to her mother’s husband is undeniable. Three moons into her life, Otto Hightower is holding her—a rare occasion, thus far, but he's found that the presence of a child can be an effective disarmament—when one courtier makes an insipid remark just as another bends to entertain the babe with a gesture. In that moment, the sidelong look on the pair is identical, and no one can deny Alysanne Hightower’s parentage any longer.
“I carried her for a year on nigh, yet all anyone ever speaks of is how she mirrors her father,” Daena bemoans. Where Targaryen cheekbones sit high, the child’s sit low, and where Targaryen eyes flash purple, Alysanne’s pool brown. If Daena Targaryen ever deigns to look in on her daughter in the crib, she will see little to nothing of herself. A nursemaid, attempting to cajole the Rogue Princess into visiting the nursery, says the child will soon exhibit her mother’s same fire. But all anyone who sees the child can see is already a timidity present in neither the father nor mother.
Some call it sweetness. Both Otto and Daena know it to be weakness. Whose blood is it that curdles in her veins, whose?
Our royal cradles remain in want of sons. While we wait for them, another contest begins between our princess and queen-to-be. Whether the Lady Aemma is aware of it remains to be seen, but her good sister most certainly is. At a tourney for the King's fiftieth year of reign and the Princess Rhaenyra’s first nameday, the court fawns over how Aemma takes to motherhood like a duck takes to water. Swaddling Rhaenyra, feeding her, tickling her, cooing and singing to her. The child Alysanne, however, is nowhere to be found, save for a moment when the nursemaids present her to the crowds, after which they offer the child to her mother and are castigated in front of all.
"I have never once seen the Princess Daena hold her daughter, much less any babe," many a lord, lady, and servant mutter throughout the eve. Very unnatural, that one. Yes, she is a Targaryen, yes, she is an exception, but surely even exceptions must have their limits. Or else what has this good country come to.
The next day, Daena takes to the Dragon Pit, parading her daughter for all to see. The child Alysanne is unusually quiet in most hours, but she wails when the dragon Caraxes licks her, wails when they ascend, wails when they once again land after half an hour. Nevertheless, Daena is rather pleased.
"Can the Arryn bitch do the same?" she crows. "Can her daughter take to the skies as mine can?"
No, Aemma doesn't take to the skies. But that might be for the better, after all. She is pregnant once more, laboring to bring our Realm's Delight a brother. And Daena, you are now a mother of six moons, where are you?
Hark! News from the Stepstones. The dragon Caraxes has been seen. Queen Alysanne calls her granddaughter Daena to remind her of a mother's duty, but what hold do you have over me now, you jealous, conniving, rotting bitch? You can't even fly anymore. Look at you, on the threshold of death. Thirteen children, nine of them dead, and only two left to love you. Who are you to tell me how to mother? I'll hone my girl so well that when they hear her name, they won't ever think of you.
So a shadow continues to fly over the Narrow Sea, so our queen's letters to Saera go unanswered, so her son Vaegon keeps from his parents, so Baelon tries to visit but has duties to juggle at court, so her daughter Gael falls pregnant to "a traveling singer," so Gael gives birth to a stillborn, so Gael is gone, so Alysanne the Elder retreats to Dragonstone, so Aemma bleeds out another half-formed prince, so the nursemaids care for the Princess Rhaenyra and her cousin Alysanne the Younger together.
And then, our queen is gone.
And then, our heir and Hand too.
Good night, Good Queen. Good night, Spring Prince.
Call Vaegon from the Citadel, call the lords from their seats. Forget about daughters; it is sons who make war and war we must keep from our sons. Granddaughter Rhaenys, ha! It is her son Laenor we want. No, no, he is seven. Look at Viserys, now that's a father. That's a man.
Who we will choose as our rudder? Who will we trust as our man's man?
Daena makes no trouble for once.
It's official, then: Otto Hightower is Hand. Viserys is the king who lies in wait.
Childhood for the Lady Alysanne must be happy, no? Let's ask her in three decades, when all that remains is shrouded in a haze. She spends her days in the royal nursery, first with the maids, then with the septas. For the first four years of her life, before her uncle is made heir, Alysanne's closest companion is her cousin Rhaenyra. On occasion, their older cousin Rhaena visits too; she is indulgent, even if unsure of how to play with babes. When she is as well as she can be, the Lady Aemma joins them in play. Sometimes her belly is too round to allow her movement, but the children welcome her anyway. She does the best voices for the best stories. She teaches Alysanne to sing.
One day too soon the sweet, dulcet tones of Aemma's voice will fade from her daughter's and niece's memories. But Alysanne will, for the rest of her life, remember the lullaby. Seven gods. We don't sing of the Stranger.
"Why can't we sing of Valyrian gods!" four year old Rhaenyra protests.
Aemma colors, explains with patience that she doesn't know any Valyrian tunes.
"But we're Valyrian."
"Yes, but my mommy couldn't teach me of Valyria. My Arryn lord father could only teach me of the Vale and the Seven instead."
"Why didn't she teach you?"
"She had to go before she could. It was her time."
"Go where?" Rhaenyra says, voice approaching the volume of upset. "A mommy shouldn't leave her girl."
"No, a mommy never leaves her girl unless she has no choice. Mine didn't, but I know she loved me very, very much. I know it from my father, I know it from my siblings, who knew her as a friend."
Seeing the tears springing to her daughter's eyes, Aemma swoops down to hug her as best she can with her belly. "Oh sweetling, don't cry—I'll never leave you."
"I know. I won't let you," Rhaenyra sobs, wetting the front of her mother's dress. "Mommy, I'll be your mommy. I'll teach you Valyrian and I won't leave, even when I have no choice."
All throughout this exchange, the child Alysanne has been silent. Some at court wonder if she's touched in the head; she never makes a peep unless it is a song. All of her cries were spent in her first year of life. Her eyes may always look on the verge of tears, but a single drop you'll never see her shed. It's unnatural, it is. Three years old. Has she said a single word?
She says a word now.
Aemma doesn't hear it at first, so preoccupied she is with her own child. But then there are pudgy fingers tugging at her hem.
"Mommy."
It's not Rhaenyra's voice, boisterous and already commanding. It's hesitant, unsure, testing as if it has never been heard by itself or others before. Aemma turns.
"Mommy," Alysanne says. "Mommy." She raises her arms in a request to be held.
Aemma melts, obliges. But she says, "Sweetling, you already have a mommy. I am not yours."
What Aemma thinks in that moment, we can only guess. But we suspect it is an apology.
