Chapter 73 - 74: The Wedding
The wedding had been planned for Iron Fist Keep.
That had been the intention from the beginning — a quiet ceremony in Henry's own hall, something modest and personal, the kind of wedding that suited a man who had spent most of his adult life building something from nothing and had no particular interest in spectacle for its own sake. Margaery had agreed, or had said she agreed, with the serene certainty of a woman who had already identified a better option and was waiting for the right moment to introduce it.
The right moment had been the High Septon's invitation, which arrived three days after the tournament ended and was worded with the particular gracious firmness of a religious institution that is not accustomed to being declined. The Great Sept of Baelor, the High Septon had written, would be honored to host the union of the Lord of the Bay of Crabs and the Lady Margaery of House Tyrell. The light of the Seven would bless their union. The rainbow crystal would cast its colors upon them before the assembled faithful.
Henry had looked at the letter and then at Margaery.
Margaery had looked back at him with an expression of complete innocence.
"You wrote to him," Henry said.
"I may have mentioned the wedding in passing," Margaery said.
The Great Sept of Baelor stood at the crown of Visenya's Hill, its seven towers rising above the city in a way that made it visible from nearly every point in King's Landing. King Baelor the Blessed had commissioned it during the Targaryen dynasty, and it had stood ever since as the seat of the Faith and the center of the Seven's worship in Westeros — replacing the ancient Starry Sept of Oldtown, which had held the title for thousands of years before the Targaryens decided the capital needed something grander.
The nobles who had not yet departed after the tournament filled the Sept's lower hall in their finest — the colors of a dozen houses, gemstones catching the light from the high windows, the collective rustle of silks and velvets and the particular restrained excitement of an audience that knows they are witnessing something worth witnessing.
Willis and Wendell Manderly had arrived two days prior, sent by Lord Wyman as Henry's family — because they were his family, the closest thing to it, and Wyman was not well enough to travel but had been unwilling to leave Henry without a Manderly present on the most important day of his life. They had presented their gift before the ceremony rather than at the feast, the way family gives gifts rather than guests — a groom's cloak of white wool, heavy and finely made, embroidered with a fork-tailed Red Lion in scarlet thread, its teeth and claws picked out in gold.
Henry had held it for a moment before putting it on, not saying anything. Willis had found something to look at on the other side of the room.
Robert had not come. He had sent Joffrey with Myrcella and Tommen instead, and a private note that Henry read once and did not keep. Eddard was absent as well — the Hand's duties apparently requiring him elsewhere, though his daughters were present, Sansa with Joffrey and Arya sitting beside a young man in a wheeled chair with whom she appeared to be having an animated and entirely unladylike conversation about something involving hawks.
The Tyrells came in force — Mace and Lady Alerie, Garlan and his wife Leonette, the Tyrell bannermen and cousins in their various greens and golds. Loras was absent, which was conspicuous and unremarked upon.
Lady Olenna sat in the front row and looked at everything with the focused attention of a woman who finds most things inadequate and intends to be proved right.
Henry wore a tunic of deep red velvet with a pattern worked into the fabric — dark crimson against crimson, subtle enough to be elegant, the kind of thing Margaery had selected with the certainty of someone who knows what she's doing and sees no reason to explain it. Over it, the white Manderly cloak, the Red Lion bright against the wool.
Margaery wore green — the Tyrell green, deep and rich, gold thread roses climbing the hem and the sleeves and the bodice in patterns dense enough that the gown seemed to grow rather than having been sewn. Her hair was down, brown and soft, falling over her shoulders and down her back in the way that the Great Houses of the Reach considered appropriate for a bride presenting herself before the Seven.
She came up the aisle on her father's arm — Mace walking with the careful solemnity of a man who is determined to do this correctly and has been practicing — and when she reached Henry and took his hand, she looked up at him with the expression she wore when she was genuinely happy rather than performing happiness, which he had learned to tell apart.
"You look extraordinary," he said, quietly enough that only she could hear.
"Was I not extraordinary before?" she said, with the small smile.
"Before, you were extraordinary in general. Today you're extraordinary in a way that belongs specifically to me."
The High Septon stood between the gilded statues of the Father and the Mother — a heavyset man with the practiced gravity of someone who has presided over thousands of ceremonies and has learned to bring genuine weight to each one regardless. He spoke the words of the ceremony in the formal cadence of the Faith, his voice carrying to the back of the Sept without apparent effort.
The prayers. The vows. The words that had been said in this form for thousands of years, in septs from the Dornish Marches to the Wall, the words that made two people into one household before the Seven and the realm.
Mace stepped forward and removed the Tyrell rose-patterned cloak from Margaery's shoulders — the cloak of her father's house, the last thing she wore as solely her father's daughter.
Henry unclasped the Manderly cloak from his own shoulders and settled it over hers. The Red Lion embroidered by Wyman's seamstresses fell across her back, and Margaery lifted her chin slightly as it settled, her eyes on Henry's face.
"With this kiss, I pledge my love," Margaery said, "and take you for my lord and husband."
"With this kiss, I pledge my love," Henry said, "and take you for my lady and wife."
They leaned forward together.
The Sept was quiet for the space of a breath, and then the applause began — the restrained, genuine applause of an assembled nobility that has witnessed something it considers well-done.
From the front row, a sound that was not restrained in any way.
Mace Tyrell was weeping openly. Not the dignified moistening of eyes that the occasion permitted — actually weeping, his broad shoulders shaking, his face the color of a man who has abandoned any pretense of composure and is fully committed to his feelings.
The small silver-haired woman beside him reached over without looking up and pinched him firmly on the arm.
Mace stopped weeping.
"Not on my granddaughter's wedding day, Mace," Lady Olenna said, to her lap, her voice carrying clearly in the returning quiet of the Sept. "Have some dignity."
"Mother." Mace wiped his face with his sleeve. "I'm moved by the occasion. This is entirely appropriate."
"You look like a man who's been told his horse died," Olenna said.
The High Septon raised the crystal above the couple — the great faceted crystal that caught the Sept's light and broke it apart, throwing bands of color across every surface, the rainbow light of the Seven's blessing — and his voice rang out through the vaulted space.
"In the sight of gods and men, I proclaim Henry of House Reyne and Margaery of House Tyrell to be husband and wife. One flesh, one heart, one soul, now and forever. Let all men know and respect this holy union, and let those who would seek to tear them asunder answer to the gods themselves."
The Sept came to its feet.
The feast was at Iron Fist Keep.
The procession from Visenya's Hill to the Bay of Crabs was not short, and by the time the guests arrived the hall had been transformed — or had been transformed as much as a hall that had been sitting empty since the Gote family's extinction could be transformed on short notice. There were torches, and banners, and a great deal of food, and musicians in three corners of the hall playing simultaneously in an arrangement that had seemed better planned in theory.
Lady Olenna swept through the entrance, assessed the hall in approximately four seconds, and turned to Henry.
"It's very bare," she said. "Did you spend everything on the white cloaks?"
"The keep has been empty for fifteen years, my lady," Henry said. "We've had it for four months."
"Empty is not an excuse, it's a starting point." She looked at the walls, the high ceiling, the unfilled spaces where tapestries would eventually hang. "Fortunately you've married Margaery. She'll sort it out."
"I'm counting on it."
Olenna looked at him with the bright, direct gaze that had been disconcerting lords twice Henry's age for seventy years. "Regardless of everything else, Little Lion, I want to thank you. You married my Margaery and in doing so you may have saved this house from the consequences of its own stupidity."
Henry looked at her. "I married Margaery because she is remarkable, and because I am fortunate. I don't take credit for saving anyone."
"Then you're modest as well as competent, which is rarer than it should be." Olenna reached into her sleeve, produced two gold dragons with the ease of a woman who keeps gold in her clothing as a matter of course, and threw them at the dwarf performing in the center of the hall. "Out. I don't want to watch that."
The dwarf collected his coins and departed with professional good humor.
"My son," Olenna continued, watching Mace work his way through the crowd toward the food with the focused intent of a large man who has identified his primary objective, "was persuaded by Renly Baratheon to put Margaery forward as Robert's next queen. His Grace, as you know, is not inclined toward remarriage, and the plan had all the subtlety of a battering ram — which is saying something, given what you did at Pyke." She turned back to Henry. "My foolish son nearly handed my granddaughter to a man who would have made her miserable in ways she doesn't yet have the vocabulary for, all in service of a scheme that was never going to work. You arrived at the right moment and made a better offer, and here we are."
Henry chose his words with care. "Lord Mace loves his daughter. He was trying to secure her future."
"Lord Mace cannot keep a secret and has no more political instinct than that pillar over there," Olenna said, gesturing at the nearest load-bearing column. "He means well. I love him. He is comprehensively unsuited for the Small Council and I say this as someone who has watched him for fifty years." She plucked two more gold dragons from somewhere about her person and sent them toward the musician who had begun playing something mournful. "Something cheerful! The Bear and the Maiden Fair — do you know it? Start again."
Henry said, "Lord Mace is generous toward—"
"You." Olenna turned to look at Jon Snow, who had been standing at Henry's shoulder in his capacity as squire and had apparently decided that complete stillness was the correct response to Lady Olenna. "You're Lord Stark's bastard. Why are you standing there like you're waiting to be dismissed? I'm talking to my grandson-in-law. Do you think I'm going to bite him?"
Jon's jaw tightened. He took two careful steps backward.
"Better." Olenna turned back to Henry. "When Joffrey takes the throne — and we both know it's when, not if — he'll call you back to the council. Robert isn't bright enough to keep you away permanently, and Joffrey has better sense than his father when someone has taken the trouble to teach him some." She patted Henry's hand with the brisk efficiency of someone dispensing practical advice. "When that happens, remember that my son on the Small Council is a liability rather than an asset. Help him find his way back to Highgarden, where he belongs and where I can see him occasionally before I die."
"My lady—"
"Grandmother."
"Grandmother." Henry tried again. "Lord Mace has a council seat by the King's appointment. I can't simply—"
"You can advise. You can suggest. You can arrange circumstances in which his departure seems like his own idea, which is the cleanest method." Olenna looked at him with the focused patience of a woman who has been maneuvering people for seventy years and has developed opinions about efficiency. "The Small Council will have Eddard Stark, who is right about everything and impossible to work with because of it, and whatever combination of Lannister allies and opportunists Cersei has installed. You need people around you who are capable, not people who occupy space." She glanced across the hall at Willas, who was deep in conversation with Arya, who was gesturing with her eating knife at something. "Willas is the best of my grandchildren, taken all together. His leg slows his body. It does nothing to his mind. If you need counsel you can trust, start there."
Henry followed her gaze. Willas Tyrell sat in his wheeled chair with the ease of a man who had long since made his peace with it, his expression animated, his hands moving as he talked — a man fully present in the conversation he was in. Arya was leaning forward with the focused intensity she brought to things that actually interested her. Whatever Willas was telling her, it was working.
"He's good with her," Henry said.
"He's good with everyone." Olenna watched them for a moment, and something moved through her expression that was less guarded than her usual manner. "He was going to be something remarkable before that tournament. He still is, just differently shaped." She straightened. "Margaery has your future in good hands. Willas has your counsel in good hands if you're wise enough to use him. My job here is largely done."
"Grandmother." Margaery appeared at Olenna's other side, slipping her arm through the old woman's, her bridal cloak still across her shoulders. "You've had my husband for half an hour. It's time for the dancing."
"I'm teaching him which members of our family are useful and which are decorative," Olenna said. "It's practical information."
"He's figured most of it out already." Margaery looked up at Henry. "She hasn't said anything I haven't already told you, has she?"
"She said it more directly," Henry said.
Olenna made a sound that was approximately satisfaction. "I like him," she announced, to Margaery. "Don't let him give the keep to some steward and spend all his time on the Blackwater. A man should be in his own hall."
"I'll see to it," Margaery said, with the confident ease of someone who has already thought about this.
She took Henry's hand and led him toward the floor, leaving Lady Olenna to locate Mace and begin her assessment of whatever he'd managed to do wrong in the last twenty minutes.
The musicians found their way to something worth dancing to. The hall, bare walls and all, filled with the noise of a proper feast — and in the center of it, under the Manderly cloak with the Red Lion at her back, Margaery Tyrell became Margaery Reyne, and seemed entirely satisfied with the arrangement.
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