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Grandmother is wise and old,
And sees our fates as they unfold.
She wields her wits on Arbor gold,
To one-line the Seven Kingdoms.
The sun shone upon the gilded wheelhouse wrought with roses, thorns and vines. It creaked along, slowly, its tawdry ornaments gleaming in the mid-morning light. Armored men and armored horses, both enameled with more roses, surrounded the wheelhouse and its accompanying train of valuables for the starved stomachs of the capital. Food was given to passersby as they traveled back to their homes in the aftermath of the Battle of the Blackwater. The most generous provisions were given to septas and septons, silent sisters and begging brothers, useful tools for spreading favorable messages to smallies.
Father, Smith, Warrior, Mother, Maiden, Crone, Stranger. Sunrise summoned consecrated septas and septons onto callused knees. Bless me, your frail and feeble child, with courage and strength for this life ridden with fleshly temptations. There was the simplified prayer with seven short verses, one devoted to each of the Seven. And the sacred version, with forty-nine verses, recited at dawn, noon and dusk by seven hallowed songsters within septries. Lest it not be forgotten, there were invocations, litanies and benedictions for high holy days: Maiden’s Day; Holy Baelor Week; Feast of the Seven Stars; and on and on and on.
Margaery needed to memorize more special prayers like "Hugor Hill's Nameday Hymn". As queen-to-be, she and her humble-made house must be above suspicion with over-pious Seveners swarming the Crownlands from the Riverlands. Grandmother's bees had whispers of burnings and beheadings for those suspected of being Red Geese and Wyrwolves.
The Tyrells were newer nobility, too, the bane of ancient Reacher families who claimed direct male and female descent from Garth Greenhand, God of Fertility and Verility. Hightowers and Florents (with their oversized ears) were wont to tell any and all that the reigning "Tyre-wells" were upjumped cooks and blacksmiths made knights and stewards unrelated to the legendary Ser Alyster Tyrell. Their undisputed history began with the marriage of Royse Tyrwell, Wagonmaster of Highgarden, and Tysene Flowers, Bastardess of Cloverbatch, two hundred years before Aegon conquered; she was daughter to Ser Meryck Gardener, great-great-grandson of King Florian I of the Fortnight, infamous for his worship of old and foreign gods. Although all these noble families were of First Men and Andal blood (with a smidgen of Rhoynish which no one would admit to) and secretly appealed to others than the Seven, Tyrell piety must not rouse doubt when the Most Devout were about like when Blessed Baelor reigned.
Especially not now. “Garth, Gylbar, Yohn, Florys, Marys, Glenys, Yetha,” Margaery whispered the words of many smallfolk from Reachers and Stormers alike who honored their own old gods. “Help me grow strong against the storm of strife and turmoil on the long road ahead.” And their journey would be ending less than two days hence in King’s Landing. “Bless me--”
“Margaery, I heard you confiding in Old Greenhand,” the Queen of Thorns interrupted. “You mustn't whisper to Garth's family if you want to keep your head around Tywin and his 'Andal values'.”
“I know, Grandmother,” Margaery turned her face away from the sharp, piercing gaze of her paternal grandmother, letting The Seven-Pointed Songs of Praise and Worship (by Holy Septa Magaelle the Serene) slip from her lap. “We’re not in the lands of Reachers and Stormers anymore.” She had received several lectures everyday since Littlefinger concluded negotiations: Cersei will like obedience in her son’s wife, not a Reacher nag questioning his every command.
“That'll go thrice for your hot-headed brother.”
“Let him be!" Margaery clenched her teeth. This was one of those (many) moments Grandmother was too blunt for her own good. "He's in mourning.”
“Well, he must needs drape more layers over his moping,” Grandmother shook her head. “The last thing we need is Stannis sending out ravens claiming your brother swallow swords as often as Gylbar swigs wine.”
“Grandmother!”
“Don’t act so shocked, my dear,” Grandmother downplayed the latent scandal with a dismissive gesture. “You know the rumors about Queen Cersei and Ser Jaime; they’re only untouchable so long as Tywin lives.”
“And you’re letting me marry their son.” It might have been different had Grandmother and Mother been at the negotiations from the beginning. "A skinner of small animals!"
“Oh, you know that’s your dear father’s doing. He’ll have you be queen somewhere since he couldn’t have you as Princess of Dorne.”
Dorne is such a desolate place. “Reachers wouldn’t have reacted well to that.” But it would have been better than the cesspool of King's Landing. She had been assured that the Dornish bathed as much, if not more, than Reachers and Stormers. And Prince Oberyn and his paramour, Ellaria, had always smelt delicious like lemons and jasmine on their visit two years ago.
“No, but you could’ve taken a paramour more openly.” Grandmother smiled her scheming smile. “You’d have enjoyed that. Like you enjoyed Prince Oberyn’s little squire.”
“His name is Ser Myrion Grytt and he was not little in any way.”
“Ah, my first was a vintner's apprentice named Agustyn Vyne.” Grandmother sighed with eyes gleaming. “His eyes were the shade of seaweed at sunrise. We frolicked in vineyards of Appleberry Arbor and the cheap scent always makes me remember his clumsiness. Him and those cute little dimples when he--”
“But I thought--”
“How else do you suppose I seduced Old Lord Oaf?” Grandmother chuckled lightly. “Now, knowing Tywin, he’ll have some septas and maesters poking fingers at you--”
“The Lyseni surgeon assured us they wouldn’t be able to tell.” Margaery knew her skin burned brighter although her hands moistened with dread. Joffrey should’ve died, not Renly. She did not desire to be the Queen anymore as she once had told that smug, simpering Littlefinger who made her skin crawl with his smirks. “And I won’t go horseback riding until after the wedding.”
“Joffrey likes hunting so you’ll have to ride side-saddle until then.”
Margaery slouched. “I hate side-saddling.”
“Oh, don’t start moping like your brother and say ‘The sun has set and will never rise again’.”
“He’ll never love again!" Margaery crossed her arms. There were no secrets between brother and sister. And they were not off kept from Grandmother whose mind was a hive of hoarded secrets. "How I wish I was a smallie so I could pray to Garth and Gylbar and Glenys--”
“But you’re not, my dear, and you wouldn't enjoy it,” Grandmother scolded. “But we all could do without the Crone. That’s as terrible as calling her a hag or harridan.” And, now, Grandmother was going to have another holy diatribe. “It makes her sound like a decaying woodswitch telling fortunes.
“With Old Greenhands we acknowledge his mother, Glenys, because everyone has a mother. Even gods. Even if Garth was peeping under every Firstwoman’s skirt, he listened to his mother. ‘Give them the gift of seed’, she told him, ‘and teach them how to till it’. And he did. His grandchildren were wise enough to follow his lead. But Mace--”
Margaery wondered aloud to waylay onerous complaining: “Why did you name him after a weapon?” She was not in the mood for commentary of Old Lord Oaf and his son, Lord Oaf. What would Grandmother name Loras in the future--Ser Oaf of the Flowers?
“Oh, you didn’t know?” Grandmother laughed. “I wanted to name your father Alymer or Cynerick, after one of my grandfathers. But while I was abed waiting for the afterbirth, and doing the accounts, mind you, Luthor raced to the Septon to have his firstborn son named after his childhood mule.”
“His mule!?”
Grandmother continued to chuckle. “Be grateful your father didn’t name you after his first she-hound: Dogsbreath.” That was much like Father who had named his destriers Dippy and Daffy. “He had taken a fancy to naming his children after weapons, too, but your mother nipped that. Ser Pike or Halberd certainly wouldn’t have suited the Knight of Flowers.”
“But Lance or Lancel would have worked as well as Loras.”
“No, they’d be nicknaming him Ser Lance the Lancer.”
“Yes, you’re right about that.”
“Of course I am. And they’d also name him a lance-swallower. As to you, image being Princess Longsword.”
Margaery felt a smile split her face. “Grandmother, are you trying to get a rise out of me again?”
“Good, you’ve got your wits about you again. They will be your sole friend and confidant--”
“Unless you are there, of course.
"That goes without saying.”
“If I use my wits as much as you,” Margaery gaped, “I’ll become a second Queen of Thorns.”
“And, now, my dear,” Grandmother smiled, taking young hands into old, “you’ve grasped the purpose of all these silly lessons I've passed down to you."
“So what now?”
“Time to celebrate the end of your apprenticeship, with the gift of Gylbar and his grapes. So, my dear, do you fancy Nightmareberry Wine from the collection of Mern IX Gardener?"
"Nightmareberries!?"
"I know they haven't been able to grow since Jaehaerys and Alysanne," the Queen of Thorns smiled. "Two casks of this is worth a dragon egg in Pentos, I'm told.”
"I would've kept the dragon egg."
"Old Lord Oaf preferred his wine." Grandmother grinned. "And now I'll tell you all the secrets of how I seduced him."