a bird sings to the moon, part ii
Sabine doesn't know what she is doing here. She picks her feet up, careful, stepping over the straw, wrinkling her nose at the smell of manure. The stable is musty and dark in the dawn light. The hands are all out in the yard, busy preparing for the trek to Riverrun. Her trunk is already packed. Selene is still sleeping. She'll snore through breakfast and then wake in a dreadful hurry, rushing about, forgetting to comb her hair until tomorrow, leaving it a snarl of red curls. Their mother will be quietly furious. Selene won’t notice until she goes to ask another question and will watch in shock and horror as their mother snaps.
Sabine is good at predicting what people will do. She has a keen eye, her aunt always said. The bastard one, that is. Her father’s trueborn sister left for the West when Sabine was a babe.
She peers into the last stall. The old, bent-backed mule inside snorts at her, cross. "I don't know why I've come to say goodbye," Sabine tells the mule. "You don't care. You hate me."
It's true. The mule has tried to kick her numerous times. Aunt Alla always laughed and tugged on the crest of black hair that ran up the mule's spine. "Now, now," Alla had said. "It's not honorable to hurt a lady."
Sabine remembers sticking her tongue out. Aimed it between the mule's eyes. "Yes, that's right. I'm a lady, and you mustn't hit me. There's no honor in hitting a lady."
To hold that conviction had been so easy. And to assume others held it as well. That there are certain lines not to be crossed. That honor is a shield. Her house words are cast from it, all shining silver. They mean something.
She had believed that, once.
Her breath sounds loud in the low-roofed stable. Sabine clutches at the wooden gate that covers the mule's stall. "I should never have convinced her to leave this place," she confesses. The creature flicks an ear back. Its black eyes seem to understand.
A horse cannot choose. A horse must follow their rider. She can hear her bastard aunt telling her that, speaking in a low voice, that no one might hear them in the stable. Sabine snuck out of her room often in the night, padding with bare feet down the steep stone steps where Alla Stone slept.
“But he is dead now and no one weeps for him,” Sabine finally says. “I shall be more discerning when I arrange the next marriage. A great lady is expected to arrange such things, you understand. Perhaps I’ll have you slaughtered and roasted to serve at the wedding feast.”
The mules’ ears go flat against her skull. Sabine hurries away.
Around the back, a crumbled track runs to the stablemaster’s lodgings. Sabine picks this direction, that she might not meet any other early risers who would question what she is doing and why she has been antagonizing a mule.
She does meet another on the path, however. Her sister Selene, leaning over the stablemaster’s boy where they are sprawled together in the hay, kissing the tip of his nose and giggling.
Selene, who she thought was sleeping, when she hadn’t responded to Sabine’s knock on her door.
The boy sees her first. He shoves Selene off. She lands on her rump with a huff. “You needn’t have done that, Tor,” she says, and then she sees her sister and her cheeks flood with blotchy red color. “S-Sabine! By the Seven, what are you doing up and at the stables?”
“I had not thought to see you here either,” Sabine bites out, her tone severe. “Rolling about in the hay with the dogs and other low creatures.” Her spine is a stiff rod. Fists clenched. Anyone could have come round that corner rather than her - a guard, a servant, their father. Her sister sits there gaping at her. Duller than a rock, that girl!
The boy scampers away. Which is good, since Sabine is feeling ornery as that hateful mule and as likely to stomp something. “You are meant to be readying your trunks,” she says.
“Sabine, you don’t understand. We were only playing. Torrhen tells the most lively jokes, you should hear them, and I could not help - ”
“If father had caught you, he would not have a lively tongue left to speak them.”
“But you found us, and you would not tell father.”
Her sister scrambles to her feet, shaking hay out of her hair. “No, please, Sabine! You cannot, please!” Tears are already filling her pale eyes, leaking out of her like an overfull cup. “It was only a jape, only a bit of fun.”
She lets her silence linger a few heartbeats longer, that she might see snot begin to drip from Selene’s nose. “I could be convinced to hold my own tongue if I had some assurances.”
“Anything,” is the quick response.
Perfectly snared, but such disappointingly easy prey. “Ever the negotiator. I am sure you would surrender our castle to the first brigand with two teeth and a sword.”
“I don’t think you want a castle,” Selene says.
Sabine is startled into laughter. “Of course not, dearest sister. What I want is quite simple. It can hardly be named an imposition. Light payment, in comparison to the pound of flesh our father would have occasion to seize.”
Selene wilts at the mention of Lord Ellard. Sabine clasps her hands together in front of her embroidered bodice, gentle and prepossessing as any grand lady.
“You must go and ready my trunk. And I will have the choice of your first dance partner at every feast. And,” her mind is skipping ahead, “I’ll choose your gown and how you dress your hair as well.”
Her trunk is already packed, but Sabine will unpack it just for the pleasure of watching her sister do it for her.
“You would do well to simply obey me faithfully in all things,” she says with satisfaction.
Selene hesitates. No doubt she is regretting her promise. Sabine sighs. “Otherwise, I do not know. How am I to bring such a wanton sister to Dorne?” She picks at her nails and frowns.
“To - to Dorne?” Her voice wavers. “Do you mean… am I to accompany you?”
“Perhaps you might have, if you had not proved to be untrustworthy in the company of any handsome boy.”
“Oh, but I am! You can trust me, Bean, I swear it. What must I do to prove myself to you? Be your obedient servant? Then I will.”
“For one, you will not call me Bean ever again,” she snaps. “It is an abhorrent name, one for a child, not a lady.” She gestures sharply, bidding Selene to follow her along the path back to the castle. “If you might prove yourself devoted to my service until the wedding at Riverrun is come and gone, I will consider bringing you to Dorne as one of my ladies.”
Selene nods, a vigorous motion likely to strain her neck if continued. “Only don’t choose any style for my hair that is too harsh,” she says, suddenly timid. “You know I like the ones with flowers and ribbons.”
“I said I will choose.” Selene hunches down, trudging along the path, eyes low. “One ribbon, I think, is likely,” Sabine says. “One or two ribbons. I won’t have you look like a festooned horse that has just been named the Queen of Love and Beauty.”
Her sister’s head comes up. “Blue? Might they be blue?”
“I must consider the merits of various colors,” Sabine says. She lets her sister talk on and on about the virtues of blue, and all the while she thinks of horses, and marriage.
Her sister wants affection. She is prey to every knight with a song. Better that Sabine should pick one for her. Lead him, as with a bridle, right to the septon’s feet. From the Vale to the Riverlands to the Reach, and then on to Dorne. Their journey should have no end of prospects. A true, gallant knight. A strong sword arm. Good teeth. Some fool that will pick Selene flowers and pretend to care when she cries so that Sabine might not have to. It will be endless amusement, finding her simple sister a husband.
That is to be one of her duties as a great lady, making marriages, hadn’t she said? And who better to practice on. It is what little sisters are for, after all.
She smiles until Selene packs her very last dress.
annaxmalina
pixelskylines
jacobvanloon
kianamaiart
2087
jbbartram-illu
yousharknotpass