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GOT : Chapter 183
🕑 Added 2025-02-03 13:17:32 +0000 UTC( Margaery POV )
The view outside the window had not changed for some time. The view from her rooms continued to show a gloomy, grey sky and the bustling capital below.
The only difference is that the Tyrell, Baratheon and Lannister banners were gone, all replaced by the three-headed dragon of House Targaryen, constantly taunting her.
The dragons, both literal and figurative, had come less than a week earlier.
The legendary beasts had flown three circles over the city, striking fear and panic amidst the population. Riots had broken out, which had barely been contained by both the gold cloaks and few remaining men in the city.
There was nothing they could do. Making a stand inside the city walls would only result in devastation beyond belief, and delay the inevitable.
A negotiating party had been sent to the armies camping outside the city, in order to handle the surrender of the city in the most peaceful way possible.
To their shock, the negotiating party had come back with a negative answer: the Targaryens would not enter the city unless all the wildfire caches had been disposed of.
Immediately, search parties were sent, uncovering the unimaginable: hundreds of wildfire caches, spread across every strategic point of the city, untouched for about twenty years. Under the walls, the gates, the Sept of Baelor, Flea Bottom and even the Red Keep, not a single place was untouched. Enough to blow up the city three to four times over…
Margaery's stomach had turned, then, imagining that she had spent almost three years with her arse sitting on these hundreds of caches, which time had rendered unstable.
Shock had turned to panic when word had spread. Civilians tried to leave the city as fast as possible, creating more riots and uncertainty. Her father, Ser Kevan and Lord Rowan had to work extremely hard to contain all of the crowd movements, which, combined to the worsening food situation due to the supply routes being cut, inevitably resulted in deaths.
Six gold cloaks had perished while containing a riot in Flea Bottom, three score smallfolk had died in a stampede at the Iron Gate, five Tyrell men had been found assassinated by the river…it had not taken long before the city was in chaos.
Not to mention that the disposing of wildfire caches had not gone smoothly. On the second day, two boats tasked with throwing the substance in the middle of Blackwater Bay had gone up in a flurry of green flames, visible from the walls of the capital.
Another instance had nearly resulted in a catastrophe. While transporting the wildfire caches to the docks, a cart going over an unpaved road broke a wheel, sending several caches flying. Already unstable, the liquid leaked and reached a forge.
The disaster was unimaginable. A whole pan of King's Landing had been completely razed in a matter of moments. Thankfully, all the caches of the area had already been disposed of, averting a complete disaster.
But still, three streets had been reduced to nothing but rubble and ash, and hundreds had been killed.
The situation became so uncontrollable then, that her father almost begged the army outside to lend a hand in controlling the masses, something the dragons were almost too happy to grant.
Worse, because the men there, bearing either Stark, Tully, Arryn, Targaryen, Martell or Baratheon colors, decided to bring food and supplies with them. Tents were set up, along with food distribution areas too.
And, as such, much of the goodwill that the Tyrells had built up with the wildfire, blaming it on the ramblings of the Mad King, had gone.
The smallfolk did not care about this. All they cared was to have a full belly at the end of the day, and that, the Tyrells could not provide.
When King Aegon and Queen Daenerys made their entry into the city, it was not as conquerors, but as liberators. The crowds did not throw stones at them, but flowers, thanking them for having given them their first large meal in weeks.
There was nothing more the Tyrells could offer that the Targaryens didn't have: all they had left to do was to open the gates of the city and wait for their inevitable sentencing.
Margaery herself had sent a lone messenger several days ago, waiting for the answer she dreaded to receive. The answer she got was not reassuring, but it did give her hope.
"My offer still stands, under different conditions, we will talk when in the capital."
Different conditions.
No doubt the Prince of Dorne knew how desperate her situation was.
But what choice did she have? It was the only way she could still stay close to her home, to survive, really…
So, she had stayed with her family, anxiously waiting for the meeting that would decide her fate.
But the Targaryens did not let her even come near Prince Quentyn.
They had immediately packed her, her father, grandmother, and few cousins remaining, into her rooms, awaiting a decision regarding their fate.
Of course, they had been luckier than most. The Kingsguard were thrown into the black cells, along with Lord Kevan and Queen Dowager Cersei. A request from the Northerners it seems.
Prince Tommen was luckier, he was also sent to his own rooms, guarded by the Kingsguard at all times, if she understood correctly.
But now, it meant Margaery was a prisoner. In a gilded cage, to be sure, but still a prisoner. And this meant that she could take the brunt of her grandmother's recriminations, telling her she was a foolish girl for trusting a Dornishman, and that she should have run long ago.
A part of her heart had broken at this. Garlan dead, Loras dead, Willas…the gods only knew where Willas was now…and now, herself, probably about to be killed or sent to be a septa. Truly, she did not know what fate was worse.
There was nothing to do now but wait, and with that wait came the rumors.
Her grandmother surmised they would be killed, something her father agreed with. Their talks came to the paramountcy. To the Targaryens, they were traitors. But who would they give it to? All the houses of the Reach had fought with them.
There were only two real options: Rowan and Florent.
Rowan, because Lord Mathis was here and could make his case. Like her grandmother predicted, Lord Rowan did have a plan which involved disarming or fighting any gold cloaks, red cloaks or green cloaks that opposed a peaceful takeover of the city.
But, on the other hand, he had not contributed at all to the Targaryen war effort, and had served on the Small Council without remorse.
This left the only major house that bore a Reacher sigil in the Targaryen army: the Florents.
Houses Footly and Caswell were also present, but more because their keeps had fallen to the Targaryens than anything else. The Florents, though, had turned against the Tyrells at Storm's End. And while Tarly had disarmed most of them, with the rest lying dead at Storm's End, there were still a few men that had managed to rally around Lady Shireen Baratheon.
But would the Targaryens really grant Highgarden to Lord Alekyne Florent? If he was alive that is, because Lord Baelor made no mention of him in his ravens. Thus, he could have very well perished in the fall of the Hightower or the Sack of Oldtown. With Alester, Axell, Ryam and Imry Florent dead, the title would pass to Erren Florent, imprisoned at Highgarden…would he soon walk out of the cells of the castle as its lord?
That was something that bothered her family to no end, more than their own lives, in fact. Well, her grandmother at least. Her father had the good sense to worry more about what would happen to Willas and herself. To their cousins, if Highgarden were to fall between the Florent's greedy paws.
Couldn't her grandmother see that their ambition to rise to new heights had cost them much already? That their lives were about to be forfeit? Margaery would gladly give Highgarden up if it meant she could see Garlan or Loras again. If it meant she herself could live to see Floris grow up to be a beautiful young lady.
Now…she would not dare to think what could happen to her little girl.
She was safe, at Highgarden, but for how long?
