Chapter Text
There was a strange stillness over her. As though she were merely an observer to the day, rather than the bride.
Jocelyn had been roused before dawn, bathed and dressed. Since waking, the day had been measured by the touch of strangers’ hands upon her body. They had stripped away her shift, washed her skin with pungent oils until tuberose and jasmine clung to her, then dried her and led her to the window, drawing layer upon layer of silk and wool over her head. As though she were one of the carved dolls her eldest brother had once whittled for her.
More unfamiliar hands scratched at her scalp, tugging her hair into an elaborate arrangement unlike any she had ever worn. She submitted to each touch without protest, scarcely feeling it.
At last she was guided into a closed carriage, where, for a little while, the curtains and close air cocooned her from the world beyond. Then the journey ended and before she had quite gathered herself, the door was opened and she was helped down.
She blinked against the brightness as she found herself standing at the foot of the steps that would lead her into her future.
The Great Sept of Baelor shimmered in the morning light, the brilliant white marble and crystal magnificent under the southern sun, yet even its splendour could not disguise what awaited her within. She would be delivered into the keeping of more strangers, to stand before a man she knew only by name. A man she had never spoken to. A man she had never even seen.
At last the great doors were thrown open, and she was ushered forwards. Waiting for her at the threshold stood her father. Jocelyn scarcely looked at him. She accepted the arm he offered as though it belonged to any other escort.
He was a stranger to her now. Yet it was not so great a sorrow as it might once have been. Since the deaths of her mother and siblings, Lord Manderly had retreated into himself. He had told her only that she was to marry, then left the rest to his household. Her voyage to King’s Landing, the packing away of her life, even the choosing of what she would carry south had all fallen to the old castellan. She found herself wishing, however briefly, that it had been him waiting at the doors instead. No. That would have made this day too real. Better that she drifted through it, untethered from it all.
She walked towards the altar set between the Father and the Mother, the shock of white hair upon the prince’s head serving as a strange point upon which to rest her gaze. Better that than the faces turned towards her, or the murmurs that drifted through the gathered congregation.
The cloak of House Manderly rested upon her shoulders, its proud green merman worked in fine silk thread. Already she felt she could shrug it from her back.
There was little left for her there now.
She knew she was not likely ever to return to White Harbour. Never again would she slip out of New Castle with her brother to spend a handful of pennies at the mummers’ hall. Never again would she accept a foolish dare to step inside the Lazy Eel and stare, wide-eyed, at the women rumoured to be the oldest whores in the Seven Kingdoms. Never again would she steal away to the Wolf’s Den to sit beneath the heart tree with her mother, whose First Men blood had always drawn her there.
None of it would ever belong to her again. She was in a land of strangers — yet there was one small comfort, the sea was still with her.
At last she reached the altar, and her father slipped away. Now, standing before the prince, she found she could not look at him. Instead, her gaze wandered beyond his shoulder until it settled upon the face of the Stranger, carved in pale stone upon the far side of the sept.
The septon’s voice ebbed and flowed around her and she scarcely heard his prayers. When prompted, she spoke the vows, the words falling from her lips said with little thought.
Then came the final touch of strangers’ hands. Her father’s cloak was lifted gently from her shoulders, the weight of the green merman disappearing with it. In its place settled the black and crimson dragon of House Targaryen.
A mouth, firm and unsmiling, brushed briefly against hers. It was over almost before she realised it had begun. The prince drew back, took her hand, and turned them both to face the congregation. His palm was rough beneath her finger, calloused, not the hand she had imagined upon a prince. Then again, princes were seldom exiled to Lys to keep company with sellswords. She had heard the stories. Aerion the Monstrous — a man given to cruelty, a man whose name carried whispers of ill deed, a man not given to honour. Yet the Seven had heard her vows. Whatever he had been before this moment, he was now her husband.
The feast passed with scarcely any notice. She lifted food to her mouth and wine to her lips, yet afterwards could not have said what she had eaten, nor what she had drunk.
Beside her sat her husband, the prince. He seemed to require little of her, his attention claimed instead by the endless procession of well-wishers who came to offer congratulations and flatteries. For that, Jocelyn was quietly grateful. She had neither the strength nor the inclination for polite conversation.
Instead she sipped from her cup, her gaze fixed upon the musicians. The bow of a fiddler drifted back and forth across the strings in a slow, hypnotic rhythm, and she found herself watching its soporific movements far longer than the music itself.
She had the presence of mind, however, to remember what was expected of her. When she was not eating, she wore a small, composed smile. Her hands remained folded neatly within her lap, so she looked every inch the modest bride.
She felt it before she understood it.
The mood within the hall shifted. A great swell of energy rolled through the room, laughter growing louder, rougher, fuelled by too much wine. The music lost its shape, the fiddles scraping together into something wild and discordant.
Then, for the first time that day, she truly felt her own body. Her heart, so long still within her chest, lurched into a frantic rhythm. Her skin turned damp and clammy. Her breath caught.
She knew what was coming. Laughter burst beside her ear. Sour wine clung to the breath of strangers. Hands, more hands than she could count — they reached for her.
She was hauled from her chair.
Hands closed upon her shoulders, her waist, her arms. Others caught at her hair and brushed against her face. More hands than in the crowded market at White Harbour. More than when she had fought for a glimpse of the mummers. More than when her riding master had corrected her seat. Too many. Her skin crawled and her breath caught fast in her throat.
Then her feet left the floor. She was borne aloft upon a tide of hands, carried over the heads of laughing strangers and up a winding stair. Fingers, thick and clumsy with wine, clawed at her gown. They tugged at the laces of her stays, wrestled her slippers from her feet, and spoiled the careful arrangement of her hair with careless tugs and grasping hands. She did not fight them, she could not.
At last she was set down inside a bedchamber. The air was blessedly cool. The room blessedly empty. No strangers. No grasping hands. Only the fading echoes of drunken laughter beyond the door. For one precious moment she managed to draw a steady breath.
Then the door burst open once more, and her husband was thrown unceremoniously into the room after her, scarcely more clothed than she was.
With her eyes lowered to the floor, Jocelyn bit the inside of her cheek, willing the bright sting of pain to anchor her thoughts. Better that than dwell upon what she knew must come next.
The silence weighed heavy between them, so heavy it seemed to press against her, but offered no relief.
Slowly, with fingers that scarcely felt like her own, she slipped from her shoulders the last garment she had been left with—her thin linen shift.
Standing before the prince, she found she could not look at him. Instead, her gaze drifted upwards, tracing the dark wooden rafters overhead as though they held some answer or some secret deliverance. Beneath her, the flagstones leached the warmth from her feet, and she curled her toes against the unforgiving stone.
Strangely, she did not feel his hands upon her, indeed, he did not seem to have moved at all. Slowly, she lowered her chin and looked at him. For the first time that day, she allowed the full weight of her gaze to rest upon the man she had married.
His white-gold hair was cropped short, though that was perhaps the least remarkable thing about him. His eyes were a startling blue, so deep they seemed almost violet, a world away from the greys and browns so familiar in White Harbour. His nose was straight, his jaw strong and well-shaped; the sort of face she imagined young ladies whispered over when they believed themselves unheard. His mouth, too, was full, though now it was drawn into a firm line. She found herself thinking that, if he ever smiled, it might soften the severity of his features, lending warmth to a face that seemed almost too beautiful to belong to an ordinary man.
“You needn’t look so afraid,” he said at last. His voice was quiet, though not quite kind. There was amusement in it, touched with something that might almost have been disdain.
“I am not afraid, my prince,” Jocelyn whispered.
“You look like a deer spent from the hunt, just before the spear is driven through its heart,” the prince replied, his head tilting to one side.
Jocelyn lowered her gaze. A small breath escaped her lips. She was not afraid — not really. She merely wished for it to be over.
“Truly, I am not afraid, my prince,” she repeated.
“And why is that?” he asked. His eyes narrowed slightly, studying her now with something approaching suspicion.
“Because I am empty,” her voice scarcely rose above a whisper. “I have no spirit left within me to speak to happiness nor to comfort. You could cut me to the bone and I would feel nothing.”
Silence settled between them. The words had lived inside her for so long that, once spoken aloud, they left nothing behind. Her grief had hollowed her out. Joy had long since abandoned her, and sorrow had followed after it. She was simply empty.
He shifted where he stood, something unreadable passing briefly across his face. Then, without a word, he turned sharply away and strode towards one of the many trunks that lined the wall. It was plain and darkly oiled, its corners bound in black leather. Throwing back the lid, he reached inside and withdrew a dagger.
Jocelyn swallowed, and something flickered at the back of her mind. Should she run? The prince had a reputation. Was she to have a taste of it now?
Instead, he drew the blade from its sheath and, without so much as a flinch, dragged the edge across the inside of his forearm. Blood welled at once, bright against his pale skin. He crossed to the great canopied bed, threw back the coverlet, and smeared the blood across the linen.
Only then did he speak, “I shall return in the morning, before the maids come to attend us.”
With that, and scarcely another glance in her direction, he left the bedchamber and disappeared into the adjoining solar.
Jocelyn sank slowly to the floor, the cold stone biting into her legs and hips. Drawing her knees to her chest, she wrapped her arms tightly around them and let out a long, shuddering breath. She had been granted a reprieve — a stay of execution.
She did not know why the prince had chosen to leave her. She had thought he would simply take her maidenhead and be done with it. Instead, he had given her the night.
Perhaps he found her wanting. Perhaps the perfumed courtesans of Lys, or the celebrated beauties of Dorne, had left little room in his eye for a plain girl from White Harbour. Perhaps she simply did not please him. It scarcely mattered, the day would come soon enough.
But not tonight, tonight she could remain untouched. Slowly, she climbed onto the great bed and lay upon her back, her hands folded neatly across her stomach. She held herself as still as she could, scarcely daring to breathe, as though even the rise and fall of her chest might disturb the fragile mercy she had been shown.
She thought of the kings entombed in stone beneath Winterfell, lying forever in repose, cold, silent and untouched. She wondered what it would be like to be made of marble. Perhaps then she would finally be free.