Pens and Needles

“Did you hear about Fern?”

“What about her?”

“She brought old Patrek to bed.”

“She did not!”

“She did! Just the other night, I swear it. My sister saw ‘em sneaking off during supper.”

“Sneakin’ off where?!”

“I haven’t a clue, but nowhere secret enough that no one saw them leavin’ together – or heard them bumpin’ bones.”

“Bloody bold of them, to slip off like that during the Lady Ashara’s welcome feast.”

“Bold? More like stupid. Here, Princess – turn your work like this. Yes, that’s right.”

Daena was seated on a stool in front of the kitchen hearth between two maids, trying to wrestle yarn from needle to needle in the way the women did. It was challenging but they made it look easy, whipping up scarves and shawls while making chit-chat and occasionally stirring something in the pot behind them. Daena wanted to get as good as they were. It was slow going. 

“Fern is an idiot,” Sage went on, speaking to Harp over Daena’s head. “Does she think just ‘cause he’s old, he can’t make children no more? That only dust’ll come out?”

The Princess mostly ignored their conversations. The women in the kitchens were always talking. Like her father. Like all adults. And nothing they said was ever interesting. 

“Fern will be fat again by fall, I guarantee it, but at least this one’ll be a right bastard, and not a noble one.”

Behind Daena, the pot held over the fire warmed her back and bubbled and burped, filling the air with the heavy scent of beef stew. She had peeled and cut the carrots for it, and Sage even let her add the spices: a big pinch of dried thyme, smashed garlic, sugar, salt, red peppercorns, and four big sprigs of rosemary they’d picked from the herb garden that morning. The herb garden was always under the care and control of the Lady of the Rock – a tradition, she was told. But Lady Joanna let Daena plant mace and cloves and even dragon peppers that a trader had brought one day from someplace far away. Lady Joanna even allowed the trader to show Daena how to dry parts of the peppers for crushing into spices, so long as she promised not to tell Father about any of it. But the stew on the fire now was for everyone, and so Sage forbade her from adding the secret spice.

“Dragons are for dragons,” she’d said. “No one else here likes it that hot. Save for your brother, perhaps.”

But Desmond didn’t like spicy foods. Daena had brought him stuffed grape leaves once, filled with lamb that she’d seasoned with the dragon pepper, and he told her it tasted like ash. She’d called him a number of things that wouldn’t have left him so confused had he put more effort into his Valyrian lessons.

“Almost midday,” Sage said suddenly, setting down her work. “Harp, you ought to make sure the Princess is attended to.”

“Whaddyu mean? She’s right here.”

“The other Princess – the Lady Hightower. I don’t want her servant back in here complaining again about the food not being just right, or just when. I swear, I’d rather work in the docks than cook for a pregnant woman. ‘Specially one like her. Ser Lenyl can get this Princess back to where she ought to be, once he stops ogling Moriah.”

“I don’t ought to be anywhere,” Daena spoke up, setting down her knitting. “I’m allowed to go wherever I want, whenever I-”

“You’ll be in the way here, little one, we’re about to start serving. Now off you go – and don’t twist those stitches! Left to right, not right to left. Off with you!”

The maid stood and shooed her like a mouse in the direction of Ser Lenyl, nearly taking the stool out from under her the moment Daena made to rise. Daena huffed a big sigh to announce her displeasure but went obediently to the knight, finishing the row she was knitting as she walked. Sage said to never put down your knitting before finishing a row, but never ever let her do so before abruptly ejecting her from the kitchens. Daena would make a law against it when she became Queen. She had already decided on that and a number of others related to making children do sums and embroidery. 

She let Ser Lenyl guide her lazily back towards the Lord’s chambers, not minding the way he stopped to say hello to some of the soldiers or the servant ladies. Daena liked Lenyl. He was never in a hurry, never raised his voice, and never said an unkind word unless it was about Ralf, the cook, who deserved every mean remark made about him. Father didn’t seem to like Ser Lenyl at all – mostly for the bit about never being in a hurry – but he said unkind things about every Dornishman. 

He was waiting for them in the solar, impatiently like he always told her not to be. She could tell he was impatient by the way he set his mouth kind of crooked. People said she did exactly the same.

“In the kitchens again, were we?”

The Septon said that lying was bad, and so Daena did not answer. 

“Come, I’ve need of your wisdom.”

Daena was always helping Father with important things. She came to almost every council meeting, pressed the seal into the wax on letters, and even named the horses. It was a letter he wanted help with this time. Parchment, quill, and ink were laid out on his great big desk. He pulled a stool just beside his own chair and gestured for her to sit.

“We need to write your mother.”

“Why?”

“The Dornish.”

He said it the same way he cursed the clouds sometimes before they went sailing. 

Daena watched as he began to write in perfect, flowy letters like her Septa tried to make her do. Like the women with their knitting, her father made it look easy when she knew it firsthand to be impossibly hard.

“You didn’t finish her name,” she said after a time – ample enough for him to have corrected the mistake on his own. 

“Oh. No, I…” Father seemed to think. “I always write my letters to her like that.”

“It just says ‘D’.”

“Yes.”

“It should say: Her Grace, Queen Danae of House Targ–” 

“No, I know. I just… This is how I write to her. She writes to me the same.”

“The same?”

“Yes. ‘D’. Only, she makes the letter a small one and I make hers– this isn’t important, Daena. Can you read the rest of what I’ve written so far? Can you see?” He angled the parchment so that it better faced her, but Daena had already read what else was written. She was a quick reader, unlike Desmond who took ages and then still got the Septon’s questions wrong.

“What is ‘the Blackmont matter’?” she asked.

“House Blackmont of Dorne is suspected of murdering the head of an important Reach house. Or, a formerly important Reach house, as it stands. Regardless, it is a grave sin and has potentially dire political consequences for relations between the two kingdoms if not handled appropriately and judiciously. It’s the sort of matter the Crown ought to address – your mother and I, together.”

Daena was not afraid of anything: not of spiders, frogs, snakes, and certainly not dragons. But she was wary of speaking about her mother to her father and about her father to her mother, and so she said nothing.

“The Dornish will be coming to the Great Council, along with all of the Reach. It is a good time to administer justice where all can behold it, but it is important that the Crown is united on the matter before we see the Princess Sarella and her people in Harrenhal. I believe they’re already on their way – they’ll pass through the Boneway within two moons, I imagine.”

Daena was quiet for a time, gnawing on a question.

“What does it mean when people bump bones?”

Father put down his quill.

“So you have been in the kitchens.” 

Daena squirmed in her seat, and an uncomfortable moment passed between them before her father nodded at her skirt. 

“Your knitting needles are sticking out of your pockets.”

“I’m making something for my brother.”

“Oh? Which brother?”

“The one in Lady Joanna’s belly.”

“What makes you think there’s a baby in Lady Joanna’s belly?”

Daena said nothing, and Father looked at her curiously.

“Well,” he said, “this is news to me. And I imagine it will be news to Lady Joanna.”

“When will you make dust instead of children?”

“You’re full of questions today. Would you like to go for a sail with your cousin and your aunt this evening?”

When Father met her questions with a question of his own, it meant she wasn’t getting an answer. 

“Lady Hightower?”

“And Loras, yes.”

“And Uncle Gerold?”

“Gods, I hope not.” Father pushed back his chair and bade her to rise. “We’ll leave this for now. If my senses aren’t mistaken, I think the midday meal has arrived.” He inhaled deeply. “Hm, and your brother, too. From the stables, I’d wager. Come. I’ll finish the letter later.”

A man cleared his throat loudly from outside the solar, and Father set his mouth crooked again.

“I’ll finish it now,” he said. “But you run along and eat.”

Daena took one last glance at the letter before obeying. Father was right: Desmond was there, along with Lord Harrold and a few servant people setting up the table in the chamber where they often took their meals in private. That seemed to be less and less often now that more Westerlands people were here. Daena was surprised, but grateful, to see that Desmond was unaccompanied by any of his friends. And the babies weren’t around, either.

“Skoriot Hugo se Loras se Roberti issi?” she asked, switching to Valyrian. 

“They’re washing,” he answered in the Common Tongue. “There’s a play later. A troupe from Pentos.”

“Jemme mazigon kostan?”

“You can’t come with us. It’s for boys only.”

Daena narrowed her eyes, suspecting a lie.

“Now, Prince Desmond,” Harrold said. “Chivalry starts with mothers and sisters. Princess Daena is perfectly welcome to attend, and in fact she ought to, as the performance is in Valyrian and your tutor seems to think you won’t understand a word of it without her.”

Desmond shot her a glare, but was sure to soften his face before Harrold caught it. “Nyke rhakiteta sȳrje.”  

“Rhaki-TEN sȳrjĪ,” Daena corrected. “Obviously you don’t understand perfectly well.”

“Stop bickering,” said Harrold distractedly. “Eat.”

The two took their places at the table, though Harrold himself didn’t move from his spot on the sofa where he sat sifting through something boring. The meal was the soup that had been at Daena’s back not long ago. She watched with great offence as Desmond carefully ate around the carrots she’d cut. After a time, Father emerged with his letter. Daena was further dismayed to see he’d sealed it himself, without her. 

“I was diplomatic,” he said to Harrold, walking over to hand him the parchment. 

“Not too diplomatic, I hope. Her Grace loathes when you get wordy. And she’s hardly the only one.”

Harrold looked more worried as of late. So did Father, for that matter, and he did not banter back to the steward like they usually did. 

“Danae will do what she will do.”

“Lord Lyman seems to have faith. He’s seen a change. He’s seen…” Harrold looked up then, and catching Daena staring, cleared his throat. “The Crown will be united in the Blackmont matter,” he said in an announcing sort of voice. “Harrenhal will be the opportune place to deliver justice, unitedly. And I’m sure the children are looking forward to seeing their mother again.”

Desmond slurped his soup, and did not look up. 

Daena said nothing.