Chapter 8: The Carriage Debate
The morning leaked into the room like a slow poison, grey and cold. Alysanne had not slept. She’d lain perfectly still, listening to the heavy silence from the chair by the dead fire, then the soft, eventual sounds of Garon rising, dressing, and leaving without a word. Only when the door had shut firmly behind him did she let out the breath she’d been holding.
Her body ached in unfamiliar places. A deep, bruised soreness between her thighs was a stark reminder, a brand. She felt raw, scraped out. The shift she wore was stiff in places, crusted with the evidence of the night. Proof. She hated the word. She sat up, movements stiff, and saw the empty wine cup on the floor by the chair. The memory of his mouth on hers, the desperate, furious connection, flashed behind her eyes, hot and shameful. She shoved it down, building a wall of ice around it.
Her maids arrived, their faces carefully blank. They brought a basin of steaming water, clean clothes—tunics and breeches of tough wool and leather, practical riding gear for a long journey. Alysanne stared at them.
“Where are my gowns?”
“His lordship’s orders, my lady,” one maid murmured, eyes downcast. “For the road. It’s faster.”
Of course it was. A Baratheon solution: discard beauty for utility. She submitted to their scrubbing, the water scalding away the physical traces of him. They helped her into the unfamiliar clothes. The breeches felt constricting, the tunic heavy. She felt like a child playing at being a squire.
Down in the main courtyard, the world was sharp and loud. Dawn had given way to a flat, pale morning. The air smelled of wet stone, horse dung, and forge-smoke. A party of twenty Baratheon men-at-arms stood beside their restless mounts, the black stag banners snapping in a brisk wind off the sea. Garon was at the center of it all, a tower of dark leather and surly purpose. He was speaking to his captain, a grizzled man with a scar through his lip, pointing at something on a scroll. He looked like he’d been up for hours.
He glanced up as she approached. His eyes swept over her, from her loosely braided hair down to the practical boots she’d been given. There was no warmth in his gaze, only assessment. Like he was inspecting a new piece of gear.
“You’re late,” he said, rolling the scroll and tucking it into his belt.
“I was attending to the maester,” she replied, her voice cool. It was true. The old man had come, had taken the linen sheet with its damning stains without meeting her eyes, muttering about ravens to Highgarden and Storm’s End. Proof, dispatched.
Garon grunted, as if the topic was distasteful. “The carriage isn’t coming. It’ll slow us by three days. We ride.”
Alysanne blinked. She looked past him at the waiting horses, massive destriers and lighter rouncies shifting and snorting. The ground seemed to tilt. “I beg your pardon?”
“You heard me. We need to make the Blackwater rush before the rains swell it. A carriage is a wheeled coffin on those tracks. Horses are faster.”
“I am not riding a horse to Storm’s End,” she said, each word clipped and precise.
A few of the nearby guards glanced over, then quickly looked away. The captain studied a buckle on his saddle with intense interest.
Garon took a step closer, lowering his voice to a growl meant for her alone. “This isn’t a garden party in Highgarden. It’s five hundred miles of rough country. We ride.”
“And I said no.” She held her ground, forcing her hands not to clench. “You may command your men, Lord Baratheon. You do not command me to break my bones falling from some ill-tempered beast.”
“You’ll have a gentle palfrey. My men will ensure you don’t fall.”
“You are not listening!” The ice in her voice cracked, revealing the fury beneath. “I will not be dragged across the realm clinging to a saddle like a sack of grain. I require a carriage.”
“You require?” He laughed, a short, harsh bark. “You require safety? Comfort? This is the real world, my lady. It’s uncomfortable. It’s dangerous. You should know that by now.” His eyes flickered, just for an instant, to the high windows of the Red Keep behind her. A reference to the previous night, to the danger he himself had been.
The implication stung. It fueled her rage, burning away the last of her control. “You brute. You selfish, bull-headed brute! Is your precious time worth more than my neck? Or is this just another lesson? Another way to strip me down until I’m as rough and plain as you?”
His own temper ignited, his face hardening. “This is about getting home without getting murdered by bandits or bogged down in mud! It’s about sense, not your delicate sensibilities!”
“My sensibilities have kept me alive at a court that would eat a blunt sword like you for breakfast!” she shouted. The courtyard had gone quiet. Even the horses seemed to still. “I spent last night proving I am your wife. The least you can do is not kill me on the journey!”
“Kill you? Riding a horse?”
“YES!”
The word echoed off the stones. They were glaring at each other, chests heaving, two paces apart in the midst of the silent, watchful yard.
Garon shook his head, a muscle ticking in his jaw. “This is idiocy. Every highborn lady can ride.”
“Well, I can’t!” she yelled, the truth tearing out of her, naked and furious.
The silence that followed was absolute. Even the wind seemed to pause.
Garon stared at her. His anger dissolved into pure, uncomprehending shock. “What?”
Alysanne’s face flushed hot. The admission felt like a defeat worse than any surrender. She lifted her chin, defiant. “I never learned. My mother thought it unbecoming. She said a lady should be carried, not straddle a beast like a commoner. I had a pony for a year when I was six. It threw me. I never got back on.” The memory was a sharp, childish humiliation.
Garon continued to stare, his brow furrowed. He looked from her to the waiting horses, then back to her, as if she’d just announced she couldn’t walk. “You’re a Tyrell of Highgarden. You have stables that rival the Rock.”
“And I walked through them,” she said, her voice dropping, tight with shame. “I can either walk to Storm’s End, or ride in a carriage. Choose.”
For a long moment, he was silent. The conflict played out on his face: impatience, frustration, a dawning, grudging understanding. The practical lord warring with the man who had just discovered a fundamental flaw in his strategic calculations.
He let out a long, slow breath through his nose. Then, without a word, he turned and walked toward his own horse, a towering black destrier with a temper to match its master’s. He took the reins from his startled squire.
He walked the big black horse back to where Alysanne stood, frozen. The animal huffed, its hot breath clouding in the cool air, its great hooves clacking on the cobbles. It was the most terrifying thing she had ever seen up close.
Before she could speak, before she could even step back, Garon closed the distance. In one fluid motion, he dropped the reins, placed his hands on her waist, and lifted her off the ground.
She gasped, a short, shocked sound. Her hands flailed, then gripped the hard leather of his vambraces for purchase. He was immovable, a column of muscle and will. He didn’t swing her up into the saddle. He simply turned and set her down, squarely, onto the back of his own warhorse.
The saddle was hard and high. The ground was very far away. The horse shifted beneath her, a massive, rolling motion of power that made her stomach lurch. She grabbed instinctively for the pommel, her knuckles white.
Garon looked up at her, his stormy eyes unreadable. “You can’t ride a horse,” he said, as if finalizing the terms of a truce. “So you’ll ride with me. We’ll make better time, and you won’t fall.” He gathered the reins in one hand, placed a boot in the stirrup, and swung up behind her in a single, easy motion.
He settled against her back, his chest pressing into her shoulders, his thighs framing hers. She was enveloped by him, surrounded by the smell of leather, steel, and the clean, cold scent of the morning on his skin. It was more intimate than the bed had been.
He reached around her to take the reins, his arms forming a cage. His voice was a low murmur by her ear, meant only for her. “Hold on to the saddle. Or hold on to me. But if you squirm, you’ll spook him.”
He clicked his tongue. The destrier surged forward.
Alysanne grabbed the pommel, her body rigid with terror. The world lurched into motion, the courtyard spinning around her as Garon guided the horse toward the main gate. She felt the raw, terrifying power of the animal beneath her, every stride a potential catastrophe. And behind her, solid as a wall, was her husband. The man who had ruined her, who had argued with her, who had just learned of her inadequacy, and who had, with brutal efficiency, solved the problem she had created.
He didn’t speak. He just rode, his body communicating with the horse through slight shifts of weight. The gate of the Red Keep passed overhead, casting them into shadow and then releasing them into the bright, noisy sprawl of the city.
And Alysanne, Lady of Storm’s End, heir to Highgarden, who had faced down kings and stopped riots, held on for her life, feeling more helpless, and more strangely alive, than she ever had before.