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He remembers her thus: a force not to be reckoned with. A proud woman, not unlike her husband. An angry woman, beneath the veneer.
Baelor finds her once, sprawled on her belly in the gardens. Dyanna is not alone, but she is the first thing he sees: a body in Dayne purple, a woman’s shape, and a spill of blonde hair. Later he will think on it. Her hair is golden, not silver. Her eyes blue, not violet. She is not her husband’s mirror image but neither is she his inverse. The inverse would be Baelor himself, he thinks, but he does not say so. He does not think the comment would be appreciated, not by Maekar who loves his wife or Dyanna who hates Baelor even as she pretends she does not.
Baelor knows it, Dyanna knows it, Maekar… does not seem aware of it. The three of them can pretend at the quotidian quite well, even if it is clear that only Baelor and Dyanna are acting. They speak carefully to one another and smile at Maekar in turns. And Maekar seems happy, in truth, to have his eldest brother visit at Summerhall, where his small but growing family has only just settled.
It should have been a happier visit, Baelor knows. He should have visited sooner, Baelor thinks. If he had visited earlier, then he might have already been at Dragonstone when the bad news came: a babe lost before the quickening, Maekar’s third child gone before it could ever even arrive. Instead, Baelor arrived just after, not so soon so as to impose but soon enough that the wound seemed raw, still, when he looked into his brother and good-sister’s face alike.
Maekar tries not to show it, of course. He is a strong man, Baelor’s brother. Baelor has always known it. He thinks that he knows Maekar better than himself sometimes, and why shouldn’t he? That is what brothers are for, to know each other, to love each other as the septons say. Maekar is everything Baelor is not and Baelor is glad for it.
Baelor thinks on it, sometimes. On how Maekar is not especially adept at the courtly expectations that a prince might need to master but fourth son as he is, it has never been necessary for him to be expert at anything. It is Baelor who learned the court, standing at his father’s shoulder, the prince the realm will need and know and cherish. Baelor learned it young, and he internalized it well. He will be all that he must because there is no alternate: the seven kingdoms will be his to rule one day, and rule well he will.
But Maekar could be anything he wanted, and what he wanted was thus: he turned to the blade, became a knight, fought at Baelor’s side. It is more than Baelor might have asked for, he thinks, for neither Aerys nor Rhaegel are like Maekar, for no one is like Maekar. A fierce warrior, his brother. The court did not need him the way it needed Baelor, though perhaps it is true that Baelor needs his brother in such a way, instead. Baelor, polished, Maekar, in the rough. Maekar untouched by courtly desires. Maekar who as a boy would bid Baelor take him fishing. Maekar, who is a man now, though he still leads Baelor to the creek.
Maekar, who married for love.
Dyanna is in the gardens, Baelor sees. She is as all the Daynes are: lovely, of course. Maekar, coarse as he is, is like any man. He saw fair Dyanna when she was seven-and-ten and fell in love as all young men do. Their father said If you wish to marry you must only ask and at nearly six-and-ten Maekar did, Daeron the Younger born before Maekar was seven-and-ten and then Aerion born a year and some months later.
But the latest babe, the one conceived after Maekar became the anvil, has escaped them all, it seems. It lingers here in Summerhall, not a ghost but a shadow. Baelor sees it in how Maekar holds his living sons, how he reaches for Dyanna without thinking, how his gaze upon Baelor is greedy and reverent in turns. Taking from a man is a dangerous thing. Baelor knows it intimately.
Today, he watches for a long moment how his good-sister rests with Maekar’s sons. She is in purple, as she often is, and her hair is unbound. Jena covers her hair outside of their chambers, but Dyanna is Dornish, no matter that she is Stony. She wears her hair long and loose, favoring her kaftans over gowns, and does not hide away from the sun no matter how it spreads freckles across her face.
He does not remember her so at King’s Landing, where her father must have bade her dress as noblewomen do in the capitol, but then he was not paying much attention to her. If he had been, he might not have been as surprised as he was to realize that Maekar had fallen in love with her. Here, at Summerhall, married and with sons to show for it, she seems more herself. That this version of her does not fit well with Baelor is beside the point.
It does not trouble him, because it should not. It matters little that his youngest brother’s bride is as formal as she is, that she eschews familiarity where it exists, warm, between her husband and his brother. She is not rude, he knows. Simply cold. But she is not cold with Maekar, he has seen it, the way her eyes and head and body follow his brother like he is the sun. And he is the sun, Baelor thinks, he has always been the sun. That Dyanna knows this truth is a good thing. He has told himself this often during this visit and before.
The tender expression that his brother inspires in his wife is a good thing. A familiar thing. Baelor has known such an expression for as long as Maekar has lived, and he knows it well on his own face, too.
It is similar to the one on Dyanna’s face today, after all. Her eyes are closed where she lays in the garden. She is smiling. Daeron and Aerion are covering her face and shoulders with grass and leaves and flower blossoms. He can hear the low murmur of their voices: Dyanna is a treasure they must guard from dragons, Aerion is saying, for they are knights who are tasked with protecting her.
Dyanna’s laugh is a wondrous thing, Maekar has always said. That is what made him fall in love with her, her laugh and her eyes and her troublemaking ways, sneaking around the castle with Maekar without a chaperone. Baelor came upon them once, the image a memory burned: Maekar’s hands at Dyanna’s waist, her hands curled into his silver hair. He does not revisit it if he can help it.
Dyanna laughs with her children, now. Baelor watches. Jena is a serious woman, level-headed. She trusts the nursemaids and the septas and Baelor’s good sense. She has given him one son and perhaps soon they will try for another. Valarr will grow to be the heir that Baelor has become and all will be well, even if there is something that settles, burning, in Baelor’s chest as he watches his good-sister sit up and grab at the children Maekar has given her, their delighted shrieks an echo across the gardens as she rises up to chase them.
It is Aerion who finds him first, when the young boy tries to escape his mother by running from the garden. Baelor catches him when he runs into his legs, and he picks him up, unthinking. Aerion is a small child, much like Valarr, and he fits in his arms as Baelor’s own son does.
Are you escaping your mother? Baelor asks, and Aerion laughs, delighted. When he looks away from his nephew he sees how his presence has changed Dyanna’s very expression. Gone is that smile that Maekar loves so much, something more careful in its place.
Prince Baelor, says Dyanna. Forgive me, he means not to bother you.
Tis no bother at all, Baelor says. I am but the boy’s uncle. We are kin here.
Of course, she says. Her eyes linger on her son. The kaftan she wears is purple with pink and silver threading, shimmery as she moves. Her hair falls in golden curls—Aerion has their shape, Daeron their color. She makes a gesture like she might take Aerion back, but Baelor merely adjusts the boy in his arms instead.
He does not see him often, he tells himself, not since the Rebellion had just ended, and they had returned to the Keep. Another memory preserved despite himself: Dyanna throwing herself into her husband’s arms with little care for the stink of travel and war, their mouths a desperate kiss after so long separated. May no one ever doubt her love for Maekar, Baelor thinks. It is a good thing. It is.
Baelor says, How do you fare, good-sister?
I am well, she says. She does not ask after him. Baelor does not take it as an insult.
He tilts his head instead. Behind her, Daeron lingers. He is not exactly hiding behind his mother’s skirts but it is something very near. Baelor says to him, Are you having fun with your mother?
Yes, uncle, Daeron says. His eyes are not blue like Dyanna’s nor are they violet like Maekar’s. They are lilac, like House Dayne’s colors. His entire face is his mother’s. Baelor feels a kinship towards him: he, too, wears a Dornish woman’s face.
Dyanna smiles thinly. Is there anything I can assist you with, my lord? I do not wish you to keep you when you have come to see Maekar. He is in the training yard, should you seek him.
I have come to see my nephews, Baelor says. He smiles. He is more practiced than she at it, he thinks. And to see you, of course. You are sure you are well?
Yes.
If you need to rest, he says, I can entertain the boys. I know you are still recovering.
That makes a strange expression wash over her face. He has not seen it before, not on her nor anyone else. He is not, as a general rule, close to Dyanna. But he knows her as one not trifled with; Maekar would not have married any other kind of woman, in truth.
I appreciate your concern, brother, she says. Too familiar, he thinks, but still—But trust that the mysteries of childbearing are well-known to me. It has been far more than a fortnight. A woman will always endure.
I mean only to lighten your load, he says. In his arms, Aerion is content: his fingers close over the pin over Baelor’s heart. He says something, to himself or to Daeron or perhaps even Baelor, but he does not hear it, eyes on Dyanna instead.
Of course, she says. I am sure a prince knows much about giving birth to a dead child.
It strikes Baelor silent. When Dyanna reaches for her son, he hands him to her without a word. Dyanna settles him at her hip and does not look at Baelor for a long time. He looks at her instead, this woman who his brother loves and who holds little love for her husband’s most beloved brother.
She says, My husband loves you dearly. She looks at him, finally. Eyes the color of the sky, her mouth set into a serious line, and she looks, Baelor realizes, like a good fit for his brother. She has always been, no matter his surprise at it. But he loves his sons more. He loves me more. You must know that, my lord.
I came here only to visit, Baelor says. It feels like a lie on his tongue. Forgive me for any offense.
There is nothing to forgive, Dyanna says. Trust that I would know.