Chapter Text
Jena Dondarrion dies giving birth to a son. They call him Matarys, and burn him three moons after his birth. Prince Baelor wears nothing but mourning black thereafter. Not a hint of colour, not even on feast days. He keeps his son Valarr close, as though afraid the Stranger will snatch away this son too. Even Bloodraven does not begrudge him such an indulgence, for Bloodraven too knows what it is to love a woman so fiercely that she leaves room for nothing else, and even Bloodraven cannot imagine what he would do if she was taken from him.
And so, Prince Baelor lives his life in black and the years go by one by one. He remains a man who tries consciously to be kind, and slowly the grief begins to dissipate, leaving behind an ache that never wavers. After two years, his father begins to speak in veiled hints. After four, there are always ladies in his mother's solar when he visits her. Six years after Jena's death, King Daeron outright suggests a second wife. Baelor has only one son, a strong boy, a fine boy, a boy to be proud of - but still only one. The Conciliator was a third son, the Dragonbane a fourth and the king's own grandsire a fifth. One can never be too careful so close to the throne.
Baelor smiles warmly at his father as if that can melt the ice that creeps up about his heart at the thought of another woman in his bed, another woman's child in the nursery, another woman in the place that is and always will be Jena's place. "Not yet, Father." He says, level and easy, as if he is considering it but is not yet ready. It is a lie, a sweet, wordless lie that he tells with level eyes and his shoulders loose. He will never be ready.
It is enough to satisfy the king for now. An implied promise of agreement, in the future. At an unspecified point in time where Baelor will finally forget the love of his life and hang up her memory like some old cloak and take another woman into his bed. As if he could ever do that. As if his father would have done that had his mother died bearing Aerys. He swallows down the bitterness. The king has his reasons. In any other situation, Baelor would even agree that the crown is in danger with only one son to his line. But not like this, not when he had loved Jena so dearly and lost her so cruelly and their child with her. He only has Valarr left of her now. He could never bring himself to wed and sire more sons who on a woman who could grow to resent that those sons will not take the throne. He will not do that to his son, to Jena's son.
A year later, Valarr is betrothed to the daughter of one of Tyrosh's archons, cutting off Daemon Blackfyre's widow from pulling Tyrosh into conflict with the Seven Kingdoms again. They are betrothed for scarcely seven moons before they are wed in the great Sept of Baelor. Kiera is young and pretty and has been tutored in the ways of Westeros. She and Valarr fall in easily together once they are married, living side by side and whispering sweet nothings to each other and falling into affection, possibly even love. For Valarr's own sake, Baelor hopes it is no more than affection. Love, he has found, leaves too deep a scar once torn away. He wears black still, seven years after Jena's death. He fears he always will. Jena, his Jena, is dead and that is the founding tenet of his world, the base upon which his existence is built.
His father's pressing for remarriage halts after Valarr's wedding. After all, Valarr and Kiera are young. They have time for many children without the added complications of half-siblings and stepmothers. There is no need for Baelor to remarry when his own son will surely soon become a father. It is a relief, not to be hounded by the king or queen to replace Jena with another woman simply for the sake of the crown, as if Jena had not done her duty and given him a fine son who will be a credit to their dynasty when the time comes. As if Jena, wonderful, impossible Jena, is nothing more than a garment to be exchanged for another once worn out. He rests more easily, knowing he will not be pushed towards remarriage again. Let the younger generation make heirs for the crown, Baelor is content with Jena's memory, with his son and grandchildren to come, with the sons and daughters of his brothers and their children to come.
But Kiera does not quicken. A year passes, then two, and then three, none of them bringing more than bloody sheets and tiny malformed bodies. She begins to turn to tears more than laughter, and Valarr's solemnity deepens. Baelor knows the feeling, knows what it is to watch his child die in a welter of blood as his wife weeps in his arms. He would never have wished such on Valarr, nor on Kiera.
He suggests, once, that they stop trying. Kiera tilts her head up defiantly. "I was brought here to give birth to a king of Westeros." She tells him. "And that is what I will do." Baelor looks at Valarr's helpless face. He knows that expression, that of a man too much in love to deny his wife anything, even when he knows he cannot force the babes to keep. That is beyond the power of any crown, beyond the power of dragonlords - not that they have dragons anymore.
The king begins to hint again. Three years have passed and Kiera has not given Valarr a living child. Valarr is not the kind of man to set a wife aside, Baelor had not raised him that way. If Valarr has no son or daughter then the crown passes to Aerys' line. Aerys, who scarcely seems to realise that he has a wife let alone that he is a prince in a realm which increasingly turns to him to continue the line. Then Rhaegel, after Aerys - poor, mad Rhaegel who would be no fit king. It would be cruel to ask Alys to manage her husband and the realm and her own duties as queen should that come to pass. And as for their children, Baelor loves them dearly but Aelor and Aelora know naught of the world outside of each other, and there is something strange and fey about Daenora.
Only Maekar could handle the crown, but he is the fourth son and any one of Rhaegel's children might keep the line going. And he would hate it. It would grind him down to nothing, and then Daeron would be king or Aerion, or Aegon. Not Aemon, unless the Citadel released him, more's the pity. Baelor loves the children of his brothers, but there is something deeply wrong with Maekar's sons. Granted, Aegon is merely a boy, but Daeron is weak and drunk and Aerion is...cruel. He would rather the throne not devolve on carefree Daella either, or little Rhae who would be crushed by it, or Aemma who is tied to Highgarden and through no fault of her own would come to the throne trailing roses until the court was choked by them.
Yes, Baelor understands his father's urgency. That does not mean he has to like it. Not when his heart is still buried with Jena. He prevaricates. He asks for time. He dreams of Jena weeping at night and dismisses woman after woman. Kiera and Valarr are young, he reminds his parents, they have time. It had taken him and Jena years until Valarr came and look at him now. All will be well.
Then Aemma's husband dies. Matthos Tyrell was young and wild and daring, no doubt attempting to live up to his famed sire's example. All it had gotten him was a broken neck in the night after a drunken ride in the dark, leaving his royal wife a widow. Aemma wastes no time in writing to her father, who comes to Baelor at once.
Father, she writes in the smooth curling hand that her own mother had once used, the parchment crinkled by Maekar's tight grip.
Matthos rode off a cliff on the way back to Highgarden. By all accounts he was drunk, and was coming from a house of ill repute. His mother blames me for not keeping him closer during my confinement, and his father wants me to be wed to Alester in his place.
Let me come home, please. I will take Gwayne to visit Highgarden and learn his duties, I swear it, but I cannot live here any longer. Please Father, I do not wish to marry Alester, he is twice as foolish and reckless as his elder brother and I will go mad if I am forced to wed each of Lord Leo's sons in turn.
I beg you Father, let me return to my family.
Aemma
There is little grief in Aemma's letter, only desperation. Either one would have been unlike the fierce, proud girl that he remembers from only a few years ago. Baelor frowns. "They intend to wed her to her husband's younger brother?"
He looks up in time to see Maekar's scowl. "None of the Tyrell shits were worthy to lick her boots." Ah, there it is. He had never seen Maekar so angry as when their father had insisted that Aemma marry Leo Longthorn's heir. Maekar had intended her for one of her brothers, to keep her close to him for as long as he could. He doubts that Maekar will deny her request to return to their family.
Still, he cannot resist humming thoughtfully, just to see his brother's reaction. "It is irregular to insist on her wedding her husband's brother after she bore him an heir, I grant you, but it is equally irregular to demand her return to the house of her birth."
Maekar leans forwards and plants his fists on Baelor's desk. "The Tyrells don't give a fuck about Aemma." He grits out between teeth clenched so tightly that Baelor wonders none of them have cracked. "All they want is to boast that they were given a dragon. I will not have my daughter being passed from flower to fucking flower to appease their ego."
"She did give Matthos two sons and a daughter." Baelor says mildly, trying to pretend the thought doesn't twinge just the tiniest bit. Aemma had been married two moons after Valarr, and had three children in the time since. What have Valarr and Kiera been given? Nothing but pain and blood. Where is the justice in that? Could his son and gooddaughter not have been allowed a single child? Aemma's latest was born so recently that the raven announcing it's birth had arrived bare hours before the raven announcing her husband's death. Would it not have been kinder of the gods to give that child to Valarr and Kiera? It would have had a loving, living father and the realm would have had an heir.
Maekar's jaw works. "Fuck that." He snaps back. "She can raise her children here, with her family, not being strangled by those fucking roses."
Baelor allows his eye to drift back to the parchment. His niece's hand is elegant, but he can almost smell the desperation. Alester Tyrell is a memorable boy, but in the wrong ways. He reminds Baelor rather of Daeron, if Daeron's predilection for drink made him violent instead of merely ill. The thought of his niece being married to such a boy is unpleasant to say the least - Matthos had been presentable, if foolish, and he had been able to promise Baelor's niece one of the wealthiest territories in the kingdoms. Alester is merely a troublesome drunk, and has neither lands nor titles to bestow upon a wife. Baelor wonders, briefly, if her sons would live to inherit Highgarden or if it would tragically fall to their younger half-brothers.
That decides him. He pulls fresh paper towards him and dips his quill into the ink. "Ride to Highgarden." He tells his younger brother, already writing the formal greetings he knows as well as his own name. "Be polite. I know you are capable of it. Bring Aemma and her children to the Red Keep, not to Summerhall. She will not want her children around Aerion." He glances up, seeing Maekar's mouth open to protest. "Her aversion may be baseless, but it is there nonetheless. She comes to the Red Keep." Personally he doubts that Aemma's dislike of her brother is as baseless as Maekar claims, but that is a battle on which they had all given up long ago.
He finishes writing and signs his name, reaching for the wax with one hand as he puts down the quill with the other. "I have informed Lord Leo that the crown requires the presence of Princess Aemma Targaryen and her children in King's Landing for the foreseeable future, and that he does not have the authority to pass a princess of the blood between his sons. If he protests, you may hint that the crown has a more advantageous match planned for her." He presses his seal into the wax and hands the letter to his brother. "Godspeed, Maekar."
Maekar hardly pauses to take the letter before he has stalked from the room, cloak flaring behind him. Baelor sinks back into his seat, already feeling a headache brewing behind his eyes. This is going to be an absolute mess. The Tyrells have overstepped by attempting to control Aemma's marriage after the death of their heir, but the crown's right to demand her return is equally suspect given that she bore three Tyrell children. Still, what could he have done? He could not have left his niece to a violent drunk like the second Tyrell boy, and he could not have simply let Maekar abduct her either. It is the better of the two evils, he reassures himself. They will send her elder boy to be trained by his grandfather for part of each year, and she will be with her family instead of passed from Tyrell to Tyrell. It is the best possible outcome.
If only he can be certain that the king will see it the same way.