Chapter 11: A Lazy Morning in the Lord's Bed
The morning light was different. It didn’t cut; it spilled, a soft gold leaking around the edges of the heavy drapes, warming the velvet hangings of the too-wide bed. Naerys woke not to cries, but to a contented, wet cooing. She turned her head on the pillow.
Gwayne was already awake, propped on one elbow beside her. He wasn’t looking at her. His full attention was on the small, squirming bundle nestled in the hollow between them. Baelon, fetched from his crib at first light, stared up with wide, unblinking violet eyes. Gwayne’s hand hovered, his index finger extended. With a tenderness that made Naerys’s breath catch, he traced the impossibly smooth curve of the babe’s cheek, from temple to chin. Baelon’s mouth formed a perfect ‘o’, and he grabbed at the invading finger with a startlingly strong grip.
Gwayne let out a soft, punched-out laugh. “Got me.”
Naerys smiled into the linen. “He’s quick.”
Gwayne’s hazel eyes flicked to hers over the crown of their son’s head. The usual guardedness was absent, sanded away by the quiet of the room, the simplicity of the moment. He looked younger. He looked like he belonged there. He leaned across the small, warm space Baelon occupied, and kissed her.
It was slow. It was tender. His lips were chapped from sleep, the kiss tasting of morning and faint mint from the leaves he chewed. His hand slid from the mattress to cradle her jaw, his thumb stroking the hollow beneath her ear. It was a kiss of recognition, not possession. Baelon gave a loud, disgruntled gurgle, squished between them.
They broke apart, laughing softly, their foreheads resting together. Baelon waved his fist, still clamped on Gwayne’s finger.
“He objects,” Gwayne murmured, his breath warm on her lips.
“He’s hungry,” Naerys corrected, her body already responding to the thought, a familiar tightness building. She shifted, pushing herself up against the carved headboard, and tugged the thin linen shift aside. Baelon latched on with the desperate, efficient focus of a tiny dragon, his complaining silenced instantly.
Gwayne didn’t look away. He settled onto his side, facing them, his head propped on his hand. He didn’t stare with lust, or even plain curiosity. His gaze was reverent, watchful. He studied the fierce, rhythmic pulse at Baelon’s temple, the way Naerys’s fingers gently carded through the pale red fuzz on his head. After a moment, he reached out and draped his arm over her waist, his hand splaying possessively across the soft plane of her belly where their son had so recently grown. His touch was warm, heavy. An anchor.
They didn’t speak. The only sounds were Baelon’s greedy swallows and the distant cries of gulls beyond the tower walls. The light grew stronger, painting them in stripes of gold and shadow. Naerys felt a drowsy, profound peace settle into her bones. This was the country he’d described. It existed here, in this rumpled bed, in this silent communion.
The peace lasted until a discreet knock fractured it. Gwayne’s arm tightened reflexively around her for a second before he sighed and withdrew. “Enter.”
A maidservant slipped in, eyes downcast. “A messenger from Oldtown, my lord. Your father requests your presence in the solar at your earliest convenience.”
The air in the room changed. It grew colder, thinner. The country receded, its borders shrinking back to the edges of the mattress. Gwayne’s face shut down, the soft lines hardening into the familiar, courteous mask. “Tell him I will attend shortly.”
The maid fled. The door clicked shut. Baelon, finished, had drifted back to sleep, a drop of milk on his chin. Naerys adjusted her shift, the moment shattered.
“Earliest convenience,” Gwayne repeated flatly, throwing back the covers. He stood, a tall, lean shape silhouetted against the window. The scars on his back were stark in the morning light. “Which means now.”
He dressed quickly in silence, the easy intimacy of minutes ago evaporating like mist. When he was belting his tunic, he paused, looking at her. The mask slipped, just for her. She saw the strain, the dull resentment. “He’ll have tasks. He always does. Assessments of grain stores from lands I’ve never seen. Judgments on petty lords squabbling over sheep. A reminder of the monthly account books.” He ran a hand through his hair. “He’s preparing me to be a steward. Not a lord. A steward of his legacy.”
Naerys watched him, this man who could kill a wolf in the woods and hum a child to sleep in the same night. “What would you rather be doing?”
He looked at her as if the question was in a foreign tongue. He blinked. A slow, genuine smile, edged with irony, touched his mouth. “Right now? I’d rather be here. With you two.” He leaned over the bed, pressing a firm, quick kiss to her forehead, then one to Baelon’s. “But that’s not the deal, is it?”
He left, the door closing with a solid, final sound.
The day stretched, long and empty. Naerys tended to Baelon, walked the gallery, tried to read a crumbling scroll of poetry. The words blurred. Her mind kept returning to the woods he’d mentioned. The woods she’d never seen. The tower, for all its vastness, felt like a single, elaborate room. She knew the pattern of every tapestry, the creak of every floorboard. The air smelled always of stone and salt and lavender. She wanted to smell damp earth, pine resin, decay.
As dusk bled into a deep, velvet dusk, Gwayne found her in the nursery, rocking Baelon by the window. He still wore his day clothes, smelling of parchment and faint sweat. He looked tired, but his eyes were alert, almost restless.
“Get your cloak,” he said, his voice low.
She stilled the rocking chair. “What?”
“A thick one. It’s cold once the sun’s down.” He came closer, taking the sleeping babe from her arms with practiced ease and settling him into the crib. “I’ve been in a room with numbers all day. I need to move. And you… you look like you’re counting the stones in the wall.”
Her heart gave a hard, hopeful thump. “Where?”
“The woods.” He said it like a challenge, or a gift. Maybe both. “Just to the edge. There’s a path. We won’t go far.”
They slipped from a side gate, two shadows against the greater shadow of the Hightower. The air outside was a physical shock—cold, alive, carrying the raw, salty tang of the sea and, beneath it, the richer scent of wet leaves and dark soil. The world opened up, vast and noisy with wind and distant waves. Naerys pulled her wool cloak tight, her breath pluming silver.
Gwayne led the way, a lantern in his hand casting a wobbly circle of light on the uneven ground. The path was narrow, beaten earth between thick trunks of sentinel pines that towered into a black sky prickled with stars. The silence here was different. It was full of small sounds: the crunch of their boots on fallen needles, the skitter of some unseen creature, the sigh of wind in the high branches.
They walked without speaking for a long time. Naerys drank it in—the ragged tear of a bramble on her skirt, the musky scent of fox, the complete, overwhelming absence of stone. She felt her lungs expand, as if they’d been cramped for years.
“This is where I come,” Gwayne said finally, his voice swallowed by the trees. “When it gets too loud up there.”
“To think?” she asked.
“To not think.” He stopped, raising the lantern. They’d come to a small clearing where a fallen log, thick with moss, lay like a slumbering beast. “To just… be a body. Moving. Breathing.”
He sat on the log, gesturing for her to join him. The cold seeped through the wool of her cloak. She sat close enough that their shoulders touched. The heat from him was a welcome solidity in the vast, living dark.
“I killed a wolf here,” he said, staring into the blackness beyond their light. “Last winter. A big, half-starzed male. It was stalking the outer sheep pens.” He was silent for a moment. “It wasn’t like in the songs. It was ugly. It was scared. And it was so, so fast. I felt its breath on my face.” He turned to look at her, his eyes reflecting the lantern flame. “That’s the other part of me. Not the steward. Not the man in the nursery. The part that does what needs doing. It’s not honorable. It’s just… necessary.”
She understood. She was the daughter of Daemon Targaryen. She knew the necessary monsters lived in everyone. “Which part is the real you?”
He gave a short, quiet laugh. “They all are. That’s the problem.” He shifted, turning more fully toward her. The lantern light carved deep shadows under his cheekbones. “The other night. In the bath. That was real, too.”
Her throat tightened. “I know.”
“It’s not a simple thing for me,” he said, the words seeming dragged from a deep place. “Being with a woman. It never has been.”
The confession hung in the cold air between them, fragile as a crystal. He wasn’t looking at her now; he was watching his own hands, clenched in his lap. This was the unmapped territory, the truth behind his gentle distance, his initial reluctance.
“I know that, too,” Naerys whispered.
His head jerked up, eyes wide with shock and vulnerability. “How?”
“You think a woman doesn’t notice?” She kept her voice gentle, devoid of accusation. “The way you looked at me when we were first married. It wasn’t disgust. It was… a kind of grief. Like I was a task you didn’t know how to start.”
He let out a long, shuddering breath, a white cloud in the gloom. “It wasn’t you. It was never you.”
“I believe you.” And she did. The relief of saying it, of having it in the open here in the secretive woods, was immense. “What is it, then?”
He was silent for a long time. The woods creaked around them. “Men,” he finally said, the word barely a breath. “It’s always been men. Since I was a boy. A squire.” He closed his eyes, as if waiting for a blow.
Naerys reached out. She didn’t take his hand. She placed her palm flat against the cold wool over his chest, feeling the strong, frantic beat of his heart. “Oh, Gwayne.”
He covered her hand with his, pressing it hard against him. “My father. Ormund. The legacy. The name.” Each word was bitten off. “I tried. Gods, I tried. I prayed until my knees bled. I went to brothels and… it was a performance. A grim, shameful play. I thought I could box it away. Be a good son. A good lord. A good husband, in every way that was required.” He opened his eyes, and they were bright with unshed tears. “And then they gave me you. And you were kind. And you had my son. And you asked for a bath.”
She moved her hand up to his cheek, his skin cold and rough with stubble. “I’m not sorry I asked.”
A tear escaped, tracking a clean line through the dust of the day. He leaned into her touch. “I’m not sorry, either. It’s just… it’s a mess. I want to be good to you. I am good to you, in my heart. But what I feel when I’m with you… it’s not what the songs say. It’s something else. It’s loyalty. It’s profound… affection. It’s a fierceness. What happened in that tub… that was for you. That was about you. Do you understand the difference?”
She did. It was the difference between a hunger and a choice. His passion was a decision, a gift he willed into being for her sake. It made it more precious, not less. It was a truth, and it was theirs.
“I understand,” she said.
He searched her face, looking for pity, for horror. He found only acceptance. The tension drained from him, leaving him looking exhausted and young. He leaned forward, resting his forehead against hers. They stayed like that, in the dark clearing, two people sharing the weight of a single, impossible secret.
A branch snapped in the woods behind them, too loud, too close.
Gwayne was on his feet in an instant, fluid and silent, pushing Naerys behind him. His dagger was in his hand, pulled from his boot so fast she hadn’t seen him move. The lantern light glinted on the steel.
The part that does what needs doing.
They stood frozen, listening. The wind. The trees. No more sounds. After a minute, he slowly straightened, but he didn’t sheathe the blade. “We should go back,” he whispered, his voice all business. The moment of vulnerability was sealed away, protected now by this new, shared vigilance.
He took her hand, his grip firm and sure, and led her back onto the path. They walked faster now, the circle of lantern light jumping over roots and stones. The tower loomed ahead, a monolithic shadow against the starry sky, its beacon fire a tiny, distant eye.
They didn’t speak until they were through the side gate, the warm, stone-scented air of the courtyard enveloping them. He finally slid the dagger away.
Inside the torchlit corridor, he turned to her. His face was all harsh angles in the flickering light, but his eyes were soft. “Thank you,” he said, simply.
“For what?”
“For the woods.” He brushed a strand of wind-tangled hair from her face, his thumb lingering on her cheekbone. Then he leaned in and kissed her, not like he had in the morning, but with a new, solid certainty. A seal on their pact.
When he pulled away, he kept her hand in his. “Come on,” he said, his voice rough. “Let’s go check on our son.”
They walked back through the belly of the tower together, their footsteps echoing, their joined hands a quiet rebellion against the secrets of the stones around them, and the bigger, heavier secret they now carried between them, warm and alive as a heartbeat in the dark.
They walked back through the belly of the tower together, their footsteps echoing, their joined hands a quiet rebellion against the secrets of the stones around them, and the bigger, heavier secret they now carried between them, warm and alive as a heartbeat in the dark. The nursery was silent, Baelon a small, breathing mound under his blanket. They watched him for a long moment, the world narrowing to the rise and fall of his tiny chest. Then, wordlessly, they retreated to their own chamber, the door shutting with a soft, final click.
The space between them in the wide bed felt different now. It was not a gulf, but a negotiated territory. He blew out the candle. In the absolute dark, he found her hand. He laced his fingers with hers, his grip tight, almost painful. They fell asleep like that, anchored.
Naerys woke to a subtle, insistent pressure against her thigh. The room was grey with pre-dawn light, the shapes of furniture mere suggestions. The heat was unmistakable: the hard, thick line of Gwayne’s erection nestled in the cleft of her buttocks, his flannel smalls doing nothing to disguise his full, waking length. His breathing was still even in sleep behind her. She lay still, savoring the blunt physicality of it, this evidence of his body’s honest response. She slowly turned over onto her other side to face him.
His eyes were open. He was already watching her, hazel eyes soft with sleep and something deeper, a weary, fond recognition. He gazed at her lovingly, his hand coming up to sweep a tangle of silver-gold hair from her cheek. He didn’t speak. He simply leaned in and kissed her, his mouth warm and slow and searching. It was a kiss that tasted of shared night, of understanding. He shifted then, his movements languid and sure, climbing on top of her.
The weight of him was a comfort. He settled between her thighs, which fell open for him willingly. He was still wearing his smalls; she felt the damp spot at the front where he was already leaking for her. She pushed the linen down his hips, freeing him. He kissed her again, deeply, as he positioned himself. The broad head of his cock, slick and hot, nudged against her entrance. She was ready, wet from sleep and from the sight of him in the grey light. He pushed in.
He began intimately making love to her. It was a slow, deep, rolling rhythm, a world away from the frantic pounding in the bath. Each stroke was deliberate, a full, aching withdrawal followed by a steady, complete sheathing. He kept his eyes open, locked on hers. She wrapped her legs high around his waist, her heels pressing into the small of his back, pulling him deeper. A soft, broken sound escaped her throat.
“Right there,” she whispered.
He pressed his forehead to her shoulder, his breath hot and ragged against her skin. His hips kept their timeless, grinding pace. “You feel like heaven,” he mumbled into her, the words blurred. “So fucking perfect.” His control began to fray. The deep, measured thrusts grew shorter, sharper, more desperate. His fingers tangled in her hair. “Naerys—I’m—“
He came hard inside her, shaking. A raw, guttural groan was torn from him, muffled against her neck. She felt every violent pulse, the hot flood of his release, his whole body taut and trembling with the force of it. He collapsed onto her, his weight a delicious, spent burden.
They lay tangled, the only sound their struggling breath mingling in the quiet air. The room grew lighter, defining the curve of his shoulder, the fall of her hair across the pillow. His softening cock slipped from her, a trickle of his spend following. He didn’t move. She stroked the sweat-damp hair at his nape.
After a long moment, Naerys shifted beneath him. “Good morning to you, as well,” she said, her voice husky with sleep and sex, a soft laugh woven through the words.
He laughed too, a low, warm rumble she felt through her own chest. He lifted his head and pressed a gentle, lingering kiss to her forehead. “The best part of my day,” he murmured, “and the sun’s not even up.”