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Your bleed does not start when it is supposed to. It is four moons late now.
You know the most common reason that ladies may miss their bleeds, you are not as innocent a maiden as one may believe, but you refuse to take it at face value. Most of the time, when you and your husband had… sex, he did not spill inside you. He would grunt, and with the composure that only a man in his middle years could possess, would turn and spill onto the sheets or your stomach. And if you know anything about pregnancy, you know that two things are required to make a baby: a man’s seed and a fertile womb.
So you turn to other possibilites.
One of your ladies-in-waiting once told you that stress can make a lady miss her bleeds, but she had ended up with a bastard child of a visiting lord in her womb so you did not know how compelling her testimony was in all actuality.
You could ask a maester, though you think you would rather die than do that. You could consult your mother, but letters moved so slowly that the issue could be completely solved by the time her response returns to you in the Red Keep. The only other confidant you have is Prince Maekar. But something inside you shrivels up and dies at the notion of coming to your husband about such a frivolous thing.
So you stay quiet.
You go about your normal routines like nothing is wrong. Because nothing is wrong, you remind yourself sternly. The human body is a mystery even to the most studious maesters, who were you to try and make this one symptom seem bigger than it is?
None of your principal duties as the lady wife to Prince Maekar could be put off infinitively while you tried to abate some of your stress–still your only explanation to your issue–but you could take measures to relieve it.
That morning you take a stroll around the gardens. At the height of summer, everything is in bloom. Orange and pink hibiscus, red lilies, and sweet snapdragon. You watch as butterflies flit among the flowers, pausing only shortly to take sips with their curled proboscises, and as small songbirds watch you sheltered in the tall shrubbery.
You come across a bubbling marble fountain at the end of your path and take a seat at one of the benches surrounding it.
As you sit there, taking in the vivid display of flowers and wildlife, you notice two birds as they land on the edge of the fountain. One has bright, fluorescent coloring, while the other is drab and tawny, specked with dots. The tawny one turns to the bright one beside it and opens its beak wide, loud chirps escaping from their mouth.
You recognize the begging bird to be a juvenile. The colorful one is likely a parent. The colorful one does not give into its offspring’s incessant begging. It does the opposite—it turns and delivers a sharp peck to its backside. The young bird clumsily takes to the air away from the other. The colorful one bends to take a sip of the fountain, its responsibilities to its young now avoided for the time being.
You do not realize how tightly you are holding onto the fabric of your gown until the other bird leaves too and you can at once release the sigh kept pent in your chest.
You realize then, that despite your best attempts, stress is unavoidable. Like those hounds that are taken on royal hunts, it has your scent and can seek you out from wherever you are. Your mind drifts as you feel anxiety take root.
Your husband, Prince Maekar, was no stranger to being a father. He’d had six of them with his previous wife. Only one of them remained in the castle, the rest strung across Westeros in varying attempts at removing themselves from the Red Keep they had been raised in. Maekar did not speak often about his children, only in passing. Most of what you knew about them came from other sources.
You know your husband is done with children. You can see it in his eyes every time he catches wind of Aerion’s exploits in the Free Cities or his youngest’s adventures with the hedge knight. The stress of preoccupation with his children is slowly eating him alive.
The very last thing you need is to provide him another bundle of worry.
Your thoughts are so encompassing and worrisome that you do not hear the knights coming up behind you until one stands right beside you.
You look up at the kingsguard only as he blocks the sun, casting a shadow over your vision and disrupting your thoughts.
“Mi’lady,” he says, “I hope I am not disturbing you.”
“You are fine,” you reply. “What is the matter?”
“Your lord husband requests your presence in his solar,” the kingsguard replies.
You frown as you stand. It is not often your husband sends for you during the day. Ever since his brother passed during the tourney at Ashford, many responsibilities had been put onto him. Worrying about his wife’s whereabouts were not high on his to-do’s.
You follow the kingsguard out of the garden and through the castle to where your husband’s solar is. The castle is alive with noise and activity, and many people pass you, bowing their heads in your direction as a show of respect. Despite having been married to Maekar for several moons already, your position and authority still have not fully sunk in. It makes you nervous to realize how many eyes looked to you for security.
The kingsguard leads you to your husband’s solar, but does not go inside. You nervously pull at the skin of your fingers, looking back and forth between them and the door blocking the entrance to his quarters, before you take a deep breath and push it open.
Your husband’s desk sits in the far southernmost corner of the room, a beautiful mahogany that melds well with the black and red curtains and gilded armoire. A stack of parchment covers the entirety of Maekar’s desk, so densely you cannot fully make out the wood beneath it. Your husband’s in the midst of those papers, his near-white eyebrows furrowed in tense contemplation at whatever it is he reads.
The heavy door behind you shuts with a resonating noise that makes your husband’s eyes finally leave what he was looking at to focus on you.
You are always quite struck at the beauty of your husband’s eyes. The violet tinged irises narrow in on your shrunken form by the door, a cartwheel of nerves erupting in your stomach. You step forward, deeper into the room, and your husband’s eyes drag from your feet to your face in one fell swoop.
“I did not see you breaking your fast this morrow,” your husband’s voice is deep–the tenor reverberates through your skull and ricochets off your spine.
You feel a burning prick as a piece of skin near your nail pulls away.
“I was not hungry,” you reply softly. The truth was more nuanced than that. Most of everything recently made you sick to look at, much less to eat. Another thing you attributed to stress.
“Hm.” your husband says in lieu of a proper reply.
You think you might be getting off scotch-free, until his ringed hand flexes and he pushes himself to stand. He strides over in front of his desk, pushing his legs back until he leans halfway on top of his papers. The light coming in from behind him puts a silver ring around his form, whilst bathing the rest of him in dense shadow.
“And the morrow before that?” he says..
You had not realized he’d noticed that. Last you’d heard, he was busy that morrow, breaking his fast away from company. You swallow thickly and nod, but find that your voice has all but left you in the moment.
“Is the food not to your liking?” he asks. His voice sounds sincere, but his face has not moved from its impassive stoicism since you arrived.
“It is just fine.”
“Then why have you not shown?”
“I did not know I had to attend every meal.”
“You don’t.”
“Then why is there a problem?” you say, eyebrows furrowed. “Is this truly why you called after me, to ask about my eating habits?”
The flash of anger that you feel at the conversation with your husband is shocking. So shocking that it immediately flies away with the rest of your statement. Seven Hells, you truly were losing it.
“Fuck me,” Maekor curses, shaking his head. He does not even look mad at your statement, just concerned. “I didn’t mean to start an argument.”
You heave a sigh at the sincerity inflected in your husband’s voice. You feel a rush of shame at your anger, at the strong emotion that now seemed entirely unprovoked. “I apologise,” you tell him, “I have just been… stressed lately.”
“I can tell,” your husband says, eyes glancing over your form. He steps closer, reaching out to take your hand within his. He strokes your knuckles with a thumb calloused from decades of brandishing a sword.
“I suppose some of it must be from me,” he continues, his hand dragging softly over the cuts around your fingernails, “I have not been as present lately.”
You duck your head. Your husband steps closer and tilts your chin up with a single finger. His hand trails up to your cheek, cupping it within his palm. His rings feel cold against your warm skin.
“I have missed you,” you say, pushing your bottom lip out for extra effect, “terribly.”
A piece of his white hair comes apart from the others, falling into his line of sight. A small smile curls at his lips, sending butterflies swarming in your belly.
“Now that just won’t do, will it?” his voice is hardly more than a whisper.
He leans forward until your lips are but a breath apart. When you do not push away, he closes the distance to seal them together.
Your head rushes at the exhilaration of having your husband’s affection all to yourself again. His hand slides from your cheek to cup your neck and a flurry of goose flesh prickles from underneath it. His other hand comes around to hold your waist, keeping your body pressed tightly to his. Maekar’s beard is slightly scratchy against your skin, but you do not mind it.
You drag your hand from up his arms to his hair, dragging through the straight white tendrils with little resistance. You let out a soft moan when he deepens the kiss by pulling you impossibly close to his body. He is practically laid across his desk at this point, you leaned on top of him.
As the kiss progresses, you begin to feel the familiar light-headedness you sometimes felt when kissing your husband for an extended period of time. It often feels akin to the light-headedness felt when doing something particularly frightening or new—a thrill of danger. This time, it feels like you are going to be sick.
You pull away with a quick gasp, clutching at your forehead. You stumble to the side and your husband is quick to break from his trance to clutch your elbow in an attempt to stabilize you. You realize with a clarity that you might lose consciousness, your faintness is so bad.
“Are you okay, my love?” Maekar’s voice sounds like it is underwater. “Do I need to…”
“Seven hells,” you mutter as your vision begins to clear at last.
Your stomach feels as tumultuous as when you accidentally ate too many lemon cakes before dinner as a child.
Maekar grabs you around the waist and guides you to his chair. The instant rush of relief you feel at being off your feet is tremendous.
You are still panting when your husband’s voice finally breaks through the fog.
“—Get the maester,” he’s telling someone outside. “What?! For my wife, you fucking fool!”
“Maekar,” you call out. Your husband rushes back from where he was by the door, his eyes wide.
“I’m fine,” you tell him, “I just got light-headed. Probably because I haven’t eaten much today.”
“Because you haven’t…” Maekar trails off incredulously. “I’m sorry, when is the last time you have eaten?”
Your throat bobs as you try to remember. “I had… a bit of bread and roasted duck at dinner yesterday.” Roasted duck that you could only take two bites of before it tried to expel itself from your body.
Your husband is pinching his nose bridge between his fingers, taking deep breaths through his mouth. “By the Gods,” he mumbles, “you are going to be the death of me.”
The solar’s doors burst open at that exact moment. The old, grey haired maester stands there. Two of his apprentices follow after him, their eyes as wide as saucers. The poor old maester looks as if he’d run (or speed-walked, knowing his age) all the way here.
“What is the matter?” the man says as he comes to your side. “The guard said something about the princess falling ill?”
“I’ll save you some time,” Maekar says, “my wife has not eaten a proper meal in days. Could someone please get her a hearty plate of chicken, greens, and a slice of lemon cake.”
The maesters stare like they have seen a ghost.
The head maester steps forward, a furrow forming between his brows. “You want us… to fetch a plate from the kitchens… for your wife?”
“Are you exceedingly simple?” Maekar says, his voice verging on a growl. You grab his hand and his face softens. You cock a brow toward the maesters and your husband lets out a sigh. “Could you… grab a handmaiden on your way out then. Stress the importance of it being delivered timely.”
The maesters nod and begin to leave.
“A berry tart, instead, please,” you call out before they can breach the door. Lemon cake, despite being one of your favorites, is not something you felt like eating at the moment.
The doors shut behind them with a dull click. Maekar drags a hand down his face, pacing back to his desk. Silence settles in the room like a choking fog.
You realize in that moment you have been the cause of the one thing you sought to avoid in your husband. The stress.
“I apologise,” you tell him, your voice hardly louder than a whisper. “I did not realize… I did not intend for this to happen.”
His eyes are not angry when they look upon yours. Just worried. “It is not your fault, my love,” he says. “I just need you to take care of yourself. Lately, it has been difficult enough taking care of myself and the castle and the affairs with my sons.”
He does not say it, but you think you know what he truly means. Do not burden me like everyone else in my life. Do not become another chore for me to handle.
You swallow thickly and avert your eyes to your lap. Gods, you need your bleed to come swiftly.
– – –
By the time evening comes and still without a bleed to show for it, you are thoroughly exhausted. Between the stress of the morrow to the chores of the day, you just need to relax.
Once you make it to your quarters, you have the maidens draw you a warm bath. You swiftly undress with their help and sink blissfully beneath the surface. You close your eyes and recline back in the tub as the warm water holds you close like the embrace of a lover.
“How has your day been, princess?” one of your handmaidens asks. She holds a small sponge which she drags over your exposed skin.
“Horrible,” you reply. You crack open one of your eyes and a small smile pulls at your lips. “I just jest. It has been just as stressful as the days prior.”
“I’m sorry to hear that, mi’lady,” the handmaiden replies. “Perhaps… perhaps you may find more time to rest during the day. I have heard stress is not good for developing babes.”
Your entire body freezes. Suddenly, everything around you just feels wrong. The scrubbing on your back, the lukewarm water at your sides. You clench your fists and your eyes snap open.
“Why…” you start to say, then clear your throat, “do you think I look to be expecting?”
The handmaiden, a young girl no older than eight and ten, looks just as horrified as you did. Her sponge freezes from where it sits on your skin.
“I-I-I beg for forgiveness, mi’lady,” she stutters out, “it’s just, I had heard…”
“And what have you heard, girl?” you say, voice sharp. You are not angry at the girl, not truly, but you think it might be easier to get truthful answers from her if she is a little scared.
“Some of the serving girls noticed you have not been eating,” she forces out, “and a few others have cleaned your chamber pot of vomit… the girls have not noticed blood on your sheets this moon… oh, I’m so desperately sorry, mi’lady, please forgive me for my… impudent mouth.”
Your eyes drop from her face to the water in front of you. To have it all laid out like that paints a horrifying picture. To find out that even the servants knew what you refused to admit. It begs the question, who else suspected?
The water ripples as you sit forward. “I am not with child,” you tell her sternly, though your voice comes off weak and unimpressive even to your own ears. “I am just stressed.”
“Of course, mi’lady, just stressed,” the handmaiden agrees enthusiastically.
Your lips tug downward as the girl goes back to scrubbing your back. Underneath the water, you pull at the skin of your nails.
You hear the doors to your chambers open from behind you. The attached room for your bath goes quiet as you turn your head to take in the footfalls. You recognize them immediately.
You look over at the confused handmaiden.
“You are excused.” you tell her.
The girl does not need any encouragement other than that, especially after nearly saying enough to have herself removed from her station. She scurries away and shortly thereafter you hear the sound of heavier footfalls coming up behind you.
You do not have to turn your head to know it is your husband.
“Should I be concerned with that girl’s expression that I passed?”
“It depends,” you say with a grin curling at your lips. “Do you think she looked sufficiently traumatized?”
Your husband lets out a short laugh as he draws closer to where you sit lounged back in the bath.
“And what…” he starts to say as he bends the knee to lean over the edge of your bath, “did that little mouse do to offend you?”
“She…” you swallow thickly, recalling the accusations from moments before, “she just did not realize her place.”
Maekar sighs. “And I suppose that is as specific a response as I will receive.”
“You are right about that.”
“Did you eat?” your husband picks up the sponge from where the girl had left it floating in the water and he begins to gently scrub your back. Unlike when the girl was doing it, the touches come across more like a caress rather than a task that needed to be completed.
“Yes of course, my love,” you reply. “I will not be making that same mistake again.”
“I just want you to be healthy,” Maekar’s statement underlies a particular level of vulnerability that you are not used to hearing from him. You turn your head to look at your husband, eyes flickering between each of his.
“I know,” you say. You lift your hand from the water to lay upon his at the edge of the bath. “And I thank you for your concern.”
“If you want the truth,” you continue, “I have felt a bit nauseous lately. It is due to the stress.” You are quick to add that last part so your husband does not draw any conclusions of his own.
Maekar pauses in his movements. “Nausea without any apparent cause seems like it should be seen by a maester.”
“It is not without cause,” your voice is thin as you say this, bordering on the anger you felt earlier, “it is because I am stressed.”
“I still think you should see him.”
“This is why,” you say, a flare of frustration propelling your words, “I did not want to tell you. I do not need a maester.”
He lets out a sigh and stands, turning his back to you. He has one hand on his hip and the other drags through his hair. Your fingers twitch with the impulse to lessen his worries, but you restrain yourself.
He turns his head only slightly in your direction. “I have heard from some of my informants that Daeron has become inexplicably tied to the bottle and the Street of Silk. I received word from Aerion, finally, although it was a bit like reading the ravings of a mad man. And no one has seen Aegon or his fool knight in weeks. My other three want nothing to do with me or the Red Keep, therefore I can only seek to imagine their difficulties.” he pauses. “So I apologise if I worry too much. I only wish to know that at least one of the people I swear protection over is safe.”
Your eyes fall to the water that has long gone cold around you. Guilt crawls up your throat like a vine up a tree.
You push yourself to stand and the water falls down your skin in rivulets. The burst of cold air that assaults your skin should be criminal. You wrap your arms around your chest as you shuffle to find something to dry off with.
While you are distracted, you do not notice your husband’s eyes on your form. When you finally look up, you are surprised to see him staring. This stare in particular, you fear, may haunt you.
His mouth is slightly ajar. His skin is a deadly pallor. And his violet eyes are locked onto… your stomach.
You look down at yourself self-consciousnessly. What? What is it he is so taken by?
You lift your hand to smooth over the skin of your abdomen and you feel it at once. Your once-plush belly is now hard, and the curve of it feels slightly different from how it used to under your hand. Your movements freeze, pulse thundering in your ears.
You grab the night gown you had been looking for in one quick movement and pull it around your body as if to hide away and never be seen again.
You can hear your husband’s footsteps close behind you as you stride away into your chambers. Night has fallen quickly and the only light is from two scarce candles on your bedside tables.
The tears come before you can fully stop them. Sharp, panicky breaths from parted lips.
Your husband grabs your shoulder, gently, and you allow him to pull you into his chest. His head comes to rest upon the top of yours like it belongs there, one hand rubbing your back.
You are not sure how long you stand there crying. You think that if you stop it will all be over. That your lovely life with Maekar will be shattered into pieces that cannot be rebuilt.
Eventually, the tears abate. Maekar continues to stroke your back patiently, gently. You do not deserve such a husband, you think, for all the trouble you have caused him.
“I’m sorry,” you blubber into his chest.
“What for?” his chest rumbles as he speaks. “As I stand, I see no wrongdoing.”
Your eyes feel severely depleted of any and all moisture as you draw them up to look at him. You think you must look a mess, but your husband simply pulls you closer and plants a kiss to your cheek and says “there’s my love” with a sickeningly sweet tone that makes your chest flutter.
“I… have caused you too much worry,” you finally decide to say. “You have so many responsibilities, between the castle, picking up your brother’s duties, taking care of your children strewn all across the Seven Kingdoms. I do not seek to add to that.”
“Last I checked,” Maekar says, a small smile pulling at his lips, “it takes two to make a babe. And two to bear the weight of all that entails.”
“So you think it is so,” you say, your voice sober and raw, “you think I am with child?”
Your husband’s eyes look all over your face, as if he’s trying to fully decipher your preoccupation.
“Don’t you?” he says, “if you are not, then it is quite the contradictory set of symptoms.”
You swallow thickly.
Maekar leads you two to the velvet chaise in your bedroom. You sit, but stay close to your husband, one hand wrapped around his arm for stability.
“My previous Lady Wife. Lady Dyanna,” your husband begins to say, “she loved cinnamon bread. She could eat it day and night, with any type of meal or no meal at all. I knew when she was with child each time because she would suddenly refuse to eat it at all. And then every word I’d say to her, I was never fully sure what emotion I could be expecting or the severity of it.”
“That does sound like me at the moment,” you say with a short laugh.
“Dyanna did not like being pregnant, but she loved her children fiercely. So much so, she always forgot how much she hated being pregnant after she had the previous one.”
“And what of you?” your voice comes out soft then. It does not sound familiar to your ears. When your husband turns to look at you with a question in his gaze, you clarify. “Did you like being a father?”
Maekar frowns for a moment as he considers the question.
“I did not hate it in the moment,” he says, “but I have many regrets now.”
You grab his hand and squeeze it gently. Your husband looks at you with dewy eyes he quickly blinks clear. The silence hangs heavy as his words settle like a blanket over you. The vulnerability in his expression sparks a twin feeling in your chest.
“I worry I will not be a good mother,” you whisper into the stale air, “that I will not do it right.”
Your husband lets out a short laugh. “There is no right. There is only what we can do with the skills given to us.”
Maekar strokes the back of your hand with his thumb. “I understand if you feel you are not ready,” he tells you softly. “But… in my opinion, it is worth a try.”
Images flash through your brain of long nights without a lick of sleep. Of kisses planted on chubby, grinning cheeks. Of a child wrestling with rules and expectations and responsibilities. Of laughter that soaks into tears that soaks into anger.
As you think of that future, you look between his two eyes, those doe-shaped violet-blue orbs, and you are shocked at the relief that rushes through your veins at his statement.
“I want to be a good father,” Maekar says, “if not for the others, than for this one.”
Your eyebrows furrow. “You are not a bad father, Maekar,” you tell him, “just bad circumstances.” And you truly believe it as you say it.
Maekar nods, although it seems his mind has drifted elsewhere.
He is snapped back to the present when you speak again. “I do want to have this babe,” you tell him, “I want to have it with you.”
Your husband leans forward to capture your lips within his own. You draw your hand up to cup his cheek, tracing the scars on his cheeks with a gentle thumb.
When you pull away for air, Maekar makes a point of staring directly in your eyes.
“I love you,” he tells you. He reaches forward to splay a hand on the thin fabric covering your stomach.
You smile, still stroking his cheek. “And I you.”