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istumpysk · 2 years

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Operation Stumpy Re-Read

AFFC: The Princess in the Tower (Arianne II) [Chapter 40]

Hers was a gentle prison.

Arianne took solace from that. Why would her father go to such great pains to provide for her comfort in captivity if he had marked her for a traitor's death? He cannot mean to kill me, she told herself a hundred times. He does not have it in him to be so cruel. I am his blood and seed, his heir, his only daughter.

You know things are broken when you believe your father is capable of killing you.

+.+.+

If need be, she would throw herself beneath the wheels of his chair, admit her fault, and beg him for his pardon. And she would weep. When he saw tears rolling down her face, he would forgive her.

Snort.

"Tears," she said scornfully to Sansa as the woman was led from the hall. "The woman's weapon, my lady mother used to call them. - Sansa VI, ACOK

+.+.+

Ser Manfrey took her arm and marched her up the steps, up and up until her breath grew short. The Spear Tower stood a hundred and a half feet high, and her cell was nearly at the top. Arianne eyed every door they passed, wondering if one of the Sand Snakes might be locked within.

A princess in a tower!

+.+.+

There were Myrish carpets on the floor, red wine to drink, books to read. In one corner stood an ornate cyvasse table with pieces carved of ivory and onyx, though she had no one to play with even if she had been so inclined. She had a featherbed to sleep in, and a privy with a marble seat, sweetened by a basketful of herbs.

Arianne, I believe Doran Martell wants his heir to study the game.

+.+.+

"Someone told," Hotah had said. The memory still made her angry. Arianne clung to that, feeding the flame within her heart. Anger was better than tears, better than grief, better than guilt. Someone told, someone she had trusted. Arys Oakheart had died because of that, slain by the traitor's whisper as much as by the captain's axe. The blood that had streamed down Myrcella's face, that was the betrayer's work as well. Someone told, someone she had loved. That was the cruelest cut of all.

But who would want to hurt Myrcella?

He said we had the Imp to thank, for sending us Princess Myrcella. She is so pretty, don't you think? I wish that I had curls like hers. She was made to be a queen, just like her mother." Dimples bloomed in Tyene's cheeks. - The Captain of the Guards, AFFC

Could it be the creepy girl?

+.+.+

She paced around her tower, twice and thrice and three times thrice. She sat beside the cyvasse table and idly moved an elephant.

Moving the Golden Company's elephants, are you?

All eyes on the game pieces in this chapter.

+.+.+

Someone told, she thought. Someone told. Garin, Drey, and Spotted Sylva were friends of her girlhood, as dear to her as her cousin Tyene.

Sure, awkwardly throw Tyene's name in there.

+.+.+

She could not believe they would inform on her . . . but that left only Darkstar, and if he was the betrayer, why had he turned his sword on poor Myrcella? He wanted to kill her instead of crowning her, he said as much at Shandystone. He said that was how I'd get the war I wanted. But it made no sense for Dayne to be the traitor. If Ser Gerold had been the worm in the apple, why would he have turned his sword upon Myrcella?

Good point, we need the (wo)man behind the curtain.

+.+.+

Someone told. Could it have been Ser Arys? Had the white knight's guilt won out over his lust? Had he loved Myrcella more than her and betrayed his new princess to atone for his betrayal of the old? Was he so ashamed of what he'd done that he threw his life away at the Greenblood rather than live to face dishonor?

That's a bingo!

+.+.+

During the daylight hours she would try to read, but the books that they had given her were deadly dull: ponderous old histories and geographies, annotated maps, a dry-as-dust study of the laws of Dorne, The Seven-Pointed Star and Lives of the High Septons, a huge tome about dragons that somehow made them about as interesting as newts. Arianne would have given much and more for a copy of Ten Thousand Ships or The Loves of Queen Nymeria, anything to occupy her thoughts and let her escape her tower for an hour or two, but such amusements were denied her.

Arianne, I believe Doran Martell wants his heir to read the books.

Blah, I'm always troubled when a character I like is choosing not to read history. That's never good.

To be fair, I'd prefer original ship girl over the boring newts as well.

+.+.+

No visitors were permitted her beyond the servants; Bors with his stubbly jaw, tall Timoth dripping dignity, the sisters Morra and Mellei, pretty little Cedra, old Belandra who had been her mother's bedmaid. They brought her meals, changed her bed, and emptied the chamber pot beneath her privy, but none would speak with her.

[...]

Yet none of them had a word for her, nor would they deign to tell her what was happening in the world outside her sandstone cage. "Has Darkstar been captured?" she asked Bors one day. "Are they still hunting for him?" The man only turned his back on her and walked away. "Have you gone deaf?" Arianne snapped at him. "Come back here and answer me. I command it." Her only reply was the sound of a door closing.

So she wept, pleading through her door for them to tell her what was happening, calling for her father, for Septa Mordane, for the king, for her gallant prince. If the men guarding her heard her pleas, they gave no answer.

[...]

They were fed—hard cheese and fresh-baked bread and milk to break their fast, roast chicken and greens at midday, and a late supper of beef and barley stew—but the servants who brought the meals would not answer Sansa's questions. - Sansa IV, AGOT

+.+.+

Is this my father's notion of torment? Not hot irons or the rack, but simple silence? That was so very like Doran Martell that Arianne had to laugh. He thinks he is being subtle when he is only being feeble. She resolved to enjoy the quiet, to use the time to heal and fortify herself for what must come.

Let's see how you're doing in a few weeks.

+.+.+

Instead, she made herself think about the Sand Snakes, Tyene especially. Arianne loved all her bastard cousins, from prickly, hot-tempered Obara to little Loreza, the youngest, only six years old. Tyene had always been the one she loved the most, though; the sweet sister that she never had. The princess had never been close to her brothers; Quentyn was off at Yronwood, and Trystane was too young. No, it had always been her and Tyene, with Garin and Drey and Spotted Sylva.

+.+.+

Nym would sometimes join them in their sport, and Sarella was forever pushing in where she didn't belong, but for the most part they had been a company of five.

Like the Citadel?

+.+.+

They splashed in the pools and fountains of the Water Gardens, and rode into battle perched on one another's naked backs. She and Tyene had learned to read together, learned to ride together, learned to dance together. When they were ten Arianne had stolen a flagon of wine, and the two of them had gotten drunk together. They shared meals and beds and jewelry. They would have shared their first man as well, but Drey got too excited and spurted all over Tyene's fingers the moment she drew him from his breeches. Her hands are dangerous. The memory made her smile.

They sure are.

Can you imagine losing your virginity in a three-way? That's confidence.

+.+.+

Prince Oberyn had armed each of his daughters so they need never be defenseless, but Arianne Martell had no weapon but her guile. And so she smiled and charmed, and asked nothing in return of Cedra, neither word nor nod.

Guile! Arianne's got more than two weapons.

+.+.+

"Please," Cedra finally whispered, after Arianne had painted a vivid picture of Garin throwing himself from the window of his cell, to taste freedom one last time before he died. "You have to help him. Please don't let him die."

"I can do little and less so long as I am locked up here," she whispered back. "My father will not see me. You are the only one who can save Garin. Do you love him?"

"Yes," Cedra whispered, blushing. "But how can I help?"

"You can smuggle out a letter for me," said the princess. "Will do you that? Will you take the risk . . . for Garin?"

Cedra's eyes got big. She nodded.

I have a raven, Arianne thought, triumphantly, but who to send her to?

You precious, I love how much you underestimate your own father.

+.+.+

Half of the Ullers are half-mad, the saying went, and the other half are worse. Ellaria Sand was Lord Harmen's natural daughter. She and her little ones had been locked away with the rest of the Sand Snakes. That would have made Lord Harmen wroth, and the Ullers were dangerous when wroth. Too dangerous, perhaps. The princess did not want to put any more lives in danger.

Laying some foundation on House Uller.

"Lords and ladies, let us all now drink to Tommen, the First of His Name, King of the Andals, the Rhoynar, and the First Men, and Lord of the Seven Kingdoms."

[...]

The white knight did drink, as was only courteous. His companions likewise. So did the Princess Arianne, Lady Jordayne, the Lord of Godsgrace, the Knight of Lemonwood, the Lady of Ghost Hill … even Ellaria Sand, Prince Oberyn's beloved paramour, who had been with him in King's Landing when he died. Hotah paid more note to those who did not drink: Ser Daemon Sand, Lord Tremond Gargalen, the Fowler twins, Dagos Manwoody, the Ullers of the Hellholt, the Wyls of the Boneway. If there is trouble, it could start with one of them. - The Watcher, ADWD

+.+.+

Lord Fowler might be a safer choice. The Old Hawk, he was called. He had never gotten on with Anders Yronwood; there was bad blood between their Houses going back a thousand years, from when the Fowlers had chosen Martell over Yronwood during Nymeria's War. The Fowler twins were famous friends of Lady Nym as well, but how much weight would that carry with the Old Hawk?

More non-drinkers.

+.+.+

"Give the man who brings this to you a hundred silver stags," she began. That should ensure that the message was delivered. She wrote where she was, and pleaded for rescue. "Whoever shall deliver me from this cell, he shall not be forgotten when I wed." That should bring the heroes running.

Look at all these weapons you have.

+.+.+

Cedra hid the message in her bodice. "I'll find someone before the sun goes down, princess."

"Good," she said. "Tell me how it went on the morrow."

The girl did not return upon the morrow, however. Nor on the day that followed.

Lol, Arianne's got to work on not getting other people in trouble.

+.+.+

The freedom that Prince Oberyn allowed his bastard daughters had never been shared by Prince Doran's lawful heir. Arianne must wed; she had accepted that. Drey had wanted her, she knew; so had his brother Deziel, the Knight of Lemonwood. Daemon Sand had gone so far as to ask for her hand. Daemon was bastard-born, however, and Prince Doran did not mean for her to wed a Dornishman.

You never know, he might be a Targaryen.

Her father did not mean for her to wed a Dornishman. We'll see what happens when Doran and Aegon have left the story.

+.+.+

Arianne had accepted that as well. One year King Robert's brother came to visit and she did her best to seduce him, but she was half a girl and Lord Renly seemed more bemused than inflamed by her overtures. Later, when Hoster Tully asked her to come to Riverrun and meet his heir, she lit candles to the Maid in thanks, but Prince Doran had declined the invitation. The princess might even have considered Willas Tyrell, crippled leg and all, but her father refused to send her to Highgarden to meet him. She tried to go despite him, with Tyene's help . . . but Prince Oberyn caught them at Vaith and brought them back.

One of them is still available?

+.+.+

Grandison had seemed a pleasant fellow, less querulous than Estermont and more robust than Rosby. She would never marry him, however. Not even if Hotah stands behind me with his axe.

Vows made at axe point are not valid.

+.+.+

Days came and went, one after the other, so many that Arianne lost count of how long she had been imprisoned. She found herself spending more and more time abed, until she reached the point where she did not rise at all except to use her privy. The meals the servants brought grew cold, untouched. Arianne slept and woke and slept again, and still felt too weary to rise.

Remove all the context and this is a retelling of Sansa's time in Maegor's Holdfast.

The only thing that's missing is Arianne opening the window and thinking about it.

+.+.+

I am frightened, she realized, for the first time in my life, I am frightened of my father. That made her laugh until the wine came out her nose. When it was time to dress, she chose a simple gown of ivory linen, with vines and purple grapes embroidered around the sleeves and bodice. She wore no jewels. I must be chaste and humble and contrite. I must throw myself at his feet and beg forgiveness, or I may never hear another human voice again.

Snort.

She found a cedar chest full of her clothes at the foot of her bed, so she stripped out of the travel-stained garb she had slept in and donned the most revealing garments she could find, wisps of silk that covered everything and hid nothing. Prince Doran might treat her like a child, but she refused to dress like one. She knew such garb would discomfit her father when he came to chastise her for making off with Myrcella. She counted on it. If I must crawl and weep, let him be uncomfortable as well.

+.+.+

Instead he delivered her to the prince's solar, where they found Doran Martell seated behind a cyvasse table, his gouty legs supported by a cushioned footstool. He was toying with an onyx elephant, turning it in his reddened, swollen hands.

More elephant contemplation.

+.+.+

"A strange and subtle folk, the Volantenes," he muttered, as he put the elephant aside.

The elephants are on the move!

They claim the Golden Company is making for Volantis. - Cersei IV, AFFC

+.+.+

"I told them to place a cyvasse table in your chambers," her father said when the two of them were alone.

"Who was I supposed to play with?" Why is he talking about a game? Has the gout robbed him of his wits?

"Yourself. Sometimes it is best to study a game before you attempt to play it. How well do you know the game, Arianne?"

"Well enough to play."

"But not to win. My brother loved the fight for its own sake, but I only play such games as I can win. Cyvasse is not for me."

I love Doran, but if my father constantly spoke to me in code, I'd do drugs and have unprotected sex.

+.+.+

She seated herself across the cyvasse table from her father.

Guys, you're on the same team.

+.+.+

She touched one of the cyvasse pieces, the heavy horse. "Have you caught Ser Gerold?"

He's on a horse in the mountains.

+.+.+

Hotah made no reply, except to grunt. Arianne could feel his anger. Darkstar had escaped him, the most dangerous of all her little group of plotters. He had outraced all his pursuers and vanished into the deep desert, with blood upon his blade.

He shook his head. "Would that we had. You were a fool to make him part of this. Darkstar is the most dangerous man in Dorne. You and he have done us all great harm.

Not that I want to see something bad happen to the characters I like, but George better deliver with this Darkstar character. Too much talk. So far the guy couldn't even manage to kill a little girl.

+.+.+

Arianne was almost afraid to ask. "Myrcella. Is she . . . ?"

". . . dead? No, though Darkstar did his best. All eyes were on your white knight so no one seems quite certain just what happened, but it would appear that her horse shied away from his at the last instant, else he would have taken off the top of the girl's skull. As it is, the slash opened her cheek down to the bone and sliced off her right ear. Maester Caleotte was able to save her life, but no poultice nor potion will ever restore her face. She was my ward, Arianne. Betrothed to your own brother and under my protection. You have dishonored all of us."

+.+.+

"I never meant her harm," Arianne insisted. "If Hotah had not interfered . . ."

". . . you would have crowned Myrcella queen, to raise a rebellion against her brother. Instead of an ear, she would have lost her life."

I mean, yeah.

+.+.+

"If? The word is when. Dorne is the least populous of the Seven Kingdoms. It pleased the Young Dragon to make all our armies larger when he wrote that book of his, so as to make his conquest that much more glorious, and it has pleased us to water the seed he planted and let our foes think us more powerful than we are, but a princess ought to know the truth. Valor is a poor substitute for numbers. Dorne cannot hope to win a war against the Iron Throne, not alone. And yet that may well be what you have given us. Are you proud?" The prince did not allow her time to answer. "What am I to do with you, Arianne?"

Honest assessment, but the author will punish him for wanting those dragons.

+.+.+

"Now you have. I want to know who informed on me."

"I would as well, in your place."

"Will you tell me?"

"I can think of no reason why I should."

"You think I cannot discover the truth on my own?"

"You are welcome to try. Until such time you must mistrust them all . . . and a little mistrust is a good thing in a princess."

Trust no one, I once told Eddard Stark, but he would not listen. - Sansa I, AFFC

+.+.+

"As it happens, I agree. Aside from Darkstar, your fellow plotters were no more than foolish children. Still, this was no harmless game of cyvasse. You and your friends were playing at treason. I might have had their heads off."

"You might have, but you didn't. Dayne, Dalt, Santagar . . . no, you would never dare make enemies of such Houses."

"I dare more than you dream . . . but leave that for the nonce. Ser Andrey has been sent to Norvos to serve your lady mother for three years. Garin will spend his next two years in Tyrosh. From his kin amongst the orphans, I took coin and hostages. Lady Sylva received no punishment from me, but she was of an age to marry. Her father has shipped her to Greenstone to wed Lord Estermont.

Many have theorized that because Sylva Santagar received no punishment, and married above her station, she was the one who told Doran. He's a corpse, how is that a reward?

I'm more inclined to believe Doran is putting his pieces where he wants them. Unfortunately, I couldn't tell you what the plan is.

+.+.+

As for Arys Oakheart, he chose his own fate and met it bravely. A knight of the Kingsguard . . . what did you do to him?"

"I fucked him, Father. You did command me to entertain our noble visitors, as I recall."

+.+.+

It was her turn to flush. Her seduction of Ser Arys had required half a year. Though he claimed to have known other women before taking the white, she would never have known that from the way he acted. His caresses had been clumsy, his kisses nervous, and the first time they were abed together he spent his seed on her thigh as she was guiding him inside her with her hand.

Arys had known other women before taking the white. She would never have known by how nervous he was.

I try not to make everything about jonsa, but taking the white is rarely used in these books. You tell me what that reminds you of.

+.+.+

"No," Arianne said. "Say that he died defending his little princess. Tell Ser Balon that Darkstar tried to kill her and Ser Arys stepped between them and saved her life." That was how the white knights of the Kingsguard were supposed to die, giving up their own lives for those that they had sworn to protect. "Ser Balon may be suspicious, as you were when the Lannisters killed your sister and her children, but he will have no proof . . ."

". . . until he speaks with Myrcella. Or must that brave child suffer a tragic accident as well? If so, it will mean war. No lie will save Dorne from the queen's wroth if her daughter should perish whilst in my care."

He needs me, Arianne realized. That's why he sent for me.

One lie leads to another and so on. They don't have a choice, but you can see this is not going to end well.

+.+.+

She gave him no chance to reply. "I know it is my duty to provide an heir for Dorne, I have never been forgetful of that. I would have wed, and gladly, but the matches that you brought to me were insults. With every one you spit on me. If you ever felt any love for me at all, why offer me to Walder Frey?"

That's so regressive. Don't marry, and have no children instead.

+.+.+

"The pact was sealed in secret. I meant to tell you when you were old enough . . . when you came of age, I thought, but . . ."

"I am three-and-twenty, for seven years a woman grown."

"I know. If I kept you ignorant too long, it was only to protect you. Arianne, your nature . . . to you, a secret was only a choice tale to whisper to Garin and Tyene in your bed of a night. Garin gossips as only the orphans can, and Tyene keeps nothing from Obara and the Lady Nym. And if they knew . . . Obara is too fond of wine, and Nym is too close to the Fowler twins. And who might the Fowler twins confide in? I could not take the risk."

Me thinks Doran Martell just told us how he found out.

Garin -> Tyene -> you decide.

It's possible Tyene told him directly, but I can't deny . . . Obara caught my attention. I kind of love the idea of crafty Doran harnessing the power of wine.

+.+.+

"It makes no matter. He is dead."

That left her more baffled than ever. "The old ones are so frail. Was it a broken hip, a chill, the gout?"

"It was a pot of molten gold. We princes make our careful plans and the gods smash them all awry."

You should be thanking the gods for that one.

+.+.+

Her father plucked up a cyvasse piece. "I must know how you learned that Quentyn was abroad. Your brother went with Cletus Yronwood, Maester Kedry, and three of Lord Yronwood's best young knights on a long and perilous voyage, with an uncertain welcome at its end. He has gone to bring us back our heart's desire."

She narrowed her eyes. "What is our heart's desire?"

"Vengeance." His voice was soft, as if he were afraid that someone might be listening. "Justice." Prince Doran pressed the onyx dragon into her palm with his swollen, gouty fingers, and whispered, "Fire and blood."

Can you use another word? You have to use another word, or it will go to shit. I don't make the rules.

Doran giving her a black dragon is used to support fAegon theories by the way. I don't mean to irritate people, I'm only sharing.

Final thoughts:

Sometimes Arianne is written like she's 18 years old.

Another princess in a tower has the next POV (who would have guessed?), and it's the largest chapter in the entire series. I require more than a day.

-> return to menu <-

#operation stumpy re-read #affc #the princess in the tower #arianne ii

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jonahmagnus · 1 year

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In world where there are two types of tower-dwellers, a Princess is locked in a tower.

There are two types of tower-people: A Princess, put there to remain pure until marriage or until rescued, and a Wizard, put there by choice to study and learn in isolation. Princesses are defined by their beautiful long hair, and Wizards are defined by their beards and impressive 'stache.

There is a Princess, and she lives in a tower. She was put there recently by her mother and father, to keep her pure and untouched until they can secure the marriage to another kingdom and a prince shes doesn't love. She has long, almost brown sandy-blonde hair, pale green eyes and a slim, tender build. She is not the fairest in the land, but she is tall and pretty. If compared to a rose, she would be the humble yet graceful willow tree, slender and long. She has wanted to be a wizard since a young age, but there is no way for a princess to become a wizard. Princesses are delicate girls to be protected and sold off until their either dead or Queens or have found True Love, unsuited to the life of experimentation and study of a wizard. That is what her mother tells her, in a quiet scolding that is far more forceful and cruel then it has any right to be. And the princess, terrified, believes her.

She used to run the castle halls, stick in hand, robe fashioned out of a delicate silk bedsheet, shouting fake spells at birds while her servants chased her. But as she grew older, her restraints became tighter, and more and more often, she was confined in her room to embroider in solitude with barely the comfort of a window or a maid. The life she is forced into makes her hang her head low, makes her hands be paper-soft, and demands her hair be long and beautiful and perfect like all other princesses. The world she longed to be a part of was a world of study and experimentation, and as the kingdoms princess and tool, she could not even dare to hint at her desires into adulthood. She could become a witch, she knew, flee the castle barefoot and sink into the loving embrace of the swamp. But witches don’t live in towers, and they make potions instead of spells, and they don’t grow the flowing whimsical beards that wizards do.

But that does not mean she has to be bored in her tower. Fascinated by magic as she always has been, she arranges with a long string of bribes for books on spells and forbidden potions to be smuggled along with her meals. She studies them while the clock ticks down for either a prince to arrive or her marriage to be finalized. Either one will doom her, and she wants to enjoy herself as much as possible until her marriage. She pours over the books long into the night by candlelight, and all day, she rests her pale, tired eyes. She experiments, and she reads, and she studies non-stop, barely stopping for meals and littering her books with an assortment of food stains. She cuts off her hair to use in bubbling gold potions, her skin becomes scarred with a rainbow of the consequences of failed experiments, and her dresses turn into makeshift cheesecloths and fire-fuel. She washes late into the night after she is done with her work for the day in the darkness, not glancing into the mirror that has become cracked and dusty. When her eyesight starts to fail from strain and working in darkness, she fashions for herself bottle-round glasses, blown by herself in the depths of her tower. Engrossed as she is in her studies, she does not notice the tower warp, and the meals stop rotting, and how she started out in one circular room but now has a loft and a second floor and the fact that the tower seems much much taller then it was originally.

What she DOES notice though, is when brushing crumbs from her face she feels facial hair on her upper lip.

She rushes to the bathroom and thrusts a candle into the holder as she looks at herself. In the dusty mirror, she sees the beginnings of a bushy mustache sit on her upper lip, much further along in growth then be logically possible without her noticing. It’s a pale blonde, like her hair, and she notices faintly that there are streaks of grey in it, a very familiar shade of classic wizard grey. She brings a trembling hand to her upper lip.

Much, much later, a prince rides up to the tower. It is tall, and warped, and very clearly belonging to a wizard, despite the royal family claiming their daughter lives here.

He shouts up, a bit nervous because of the thorny vines wrapping the beautiful stonework.

“Hey! Does a Princess live here?”

A young man with large bottle glasses and a rather impressive mustache leans out of the tower, his short, sandy-blonde hair spilling lightly in the wind. He starts to say something, then glances back into his house. A smile breaks out on his face as he seems to realize something.

“No!” He shouts back, after a moments hesitation. “But a wizard does!”

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