The morning after Brienne's wedding dawned clear and bright and entirely unprepared for the scandal that greeted it.
Alexander was in the map room, reviewing naval deployment schedules over a cup of tea that had gone cold an hour ago, when the commotion began. It started as a distant murmur, the particular quality of sound that a large household produces when something has happened that everyone wants to discuss but no one wants to be the first to discuss loudly. The murmur grew, acquiring volume and texture and the unmistakable undertone of barely suppressed hilarity, and by the time it reached Alexander's door, it had become the kind of noise that required investigation.
He set down his pen, considered the possibilities, and allowed himself a small, private smile before arranging his expression into one of innocent curiosity and stepping into the corridor.
"What has happened?" he asked the first servant he encountered, a young man whose face was contorted with the effort of maintaining professional decorum while his eyes danced with the light of someone who had just witnessed the funniest thing he had ever seen.
"It is the Prince, my lord. Ser Alexander. He was found in the stables. Naked."
"Naked."
"Entirely naked, my lord. In the horse stall. The third one from the left, with the bay mare that Lord Estermont brought. He appears to have been... placed there. During the night. Without his clothes, which have not been located."
"That is most unfortunate."
"Yes, my lord. Most unfortunate." The servant's composure cracked, very briefly, and a sound escaped that might have been a cough but that bore a suspicious resemblance to a laugh. "The Queen has been informed. She is not pleased."
"No. I imagine she would not be." Alexander paused. "Has the Prince been provided with clothing?"
"A blanket, my lord. He refused to wear the stable boy's spare garments, which were the only items immediately available. He called them filthy and threatened to have the stable boy executed."
"That does sound like the Prince. Please ensure that appropriate clothing is brought from the guest chambers immediately. And have the kitchens prepare a hot meal for the royal family. Something restorative. Bacon, eggs, fresh bread. The sort of thing that helps people recover from... unexpected mornings."
The servant nodded, his face a masterwork of suppressed emotion, and departed at a pace that suggested he was not going to the kitchens first but was, in fact, going to share the news with every person he encountered between here and there.
Alexander returned to the map room, closed the door, and laughed.
It was not, he reflected, the most sophisticated prank he had ever orchestrated. The logistics had been simple: a carefully measured dose of dreamwine in the prince's wine cup at the feast, administered by a servant whose instructions had been very specific and whose discretion had been purchased at a rate that ensured permanent silence; a thirty-minute window while Joffrey slept the heavy, drugged sleep of the thoroughly sedated; four Black Swords operatives who had carried the unconscious prince from his chambers to the stables with the efficiency of men trained in considerably more demanding extractions; and the removal and careful concealment of every stitch of the prince's clothing, which were now at the bottom of Castle Morne's cistern, where they would remain until long after the royal party had departed.
It was, Alexander acknowledged, a petty thing. Beneath his dignity, perhaps. Certainly beneath the level of strategic thinking that he usually applied to his interactions with the powerful.
But Joffrey Baratheon had spent two weeks making crude remarks about Samwell, leering at Margaery, sneering at Brienne, and generally conducting himself with the graceless cruelty of a boy who had never been taught that power came with obligations. The Olympic Games had been a celebration of excellence, and Joffrey had treated it as a showcase for his own mediocrity. The wedding had been Brienne's triumph, and Joffrey had tried to make it about his petulance.
Alexander did not tolerate cruelty. It was, along with incompetence and dishonesty, one of the three things he had decided, at the age of eight, that he would spend his life opposing. And while he could not oppose the Crown Prince directly, could not challenge him or correct him or deliver the consequences that Joffrey's behaviour had long since earned, he could do this.
He could put the boy in a horse stall, naked and ridiculous, and let the realm's nobility see him for what he was: a bully stripped of his pretensions, as vulnerable and as absurd as anyone else when deprived of the armour of rank and the clothing of authority.
It was, Alexander decided, a lesson. Not one that Joffrey would learn from, because Joffrey did not learn from anything. But a lesson that the observers would absorb, which was the real purpose. The lords and ladies who had spent two weeks evaluating House Tarth would leave the island with one final impression: that the boy who had built the wall and won the melee and hosted the Games also possessed a sense of humour, and that the humour had teeth.
The smile returned, small and satisfied, and Alexander went back to his naval deployments.
* * *
The reactions unfolded throughout the morning with the predictable diversity that Alexander had anticipated.
Cersei was furious. Alexander did not witness her fury directly, because Cersei Lannister's fury was not the kind that expressed itself in public, but its effects were visible in the speed with which the royal household began packing, the brittleness of the Queen's smile when she appeared at the morning meal, and the particular quality of silence that surrounded the royal table, the silence of people who were very angry and very determined not to show it.
Brienne, who had joined the morning gathering with Wendel at her side, caught Alexander's eye across the hall. Her expression was the particular configuration of a woman who had raised younger siblings and who therefore possessed an infallible instinct for determining which child in a room was responsible for whatever had just gone wrong. She studied her brother's face for approximately three seconds, during which Alexander maintained an expression of flawless innocence that would have convinced anyone who did not share his blood, and then she shook her head, very slightly, in a gesture that communicated exasperation, recognition, and the barest trace of reluctant amusement.
Wendel, beside her, was considerably less restrained. The Manderly knight was eating his breakfast with the particular enthusiasm of a man who had heard the news, understood the implications, and decided that the most appropriate response was to enjoy his eggs while the enjoying was good. He caught Alexander's eye and winked, a gesture so brazen that Alexander had to look away to maintain his composure.
Robert, by contrast, appeared to find the entire situation hilarious. He emerged from the guest chambers with the slightly glazed expression of a man who had been woken by his wife's rage and had wisely decided to agree with everything she said while privately finding the situation considerably more amusing than he was permitted to express. He ate bacon with the hearty appetite of a man who had decided that the best response to scandal was breakfast, and he spoke to Lord Selwyn with the casual warmth of a king who was thoroughly enjoying someone else's embarrassment and was not particularly concerned about whose child was involved.
"Boys will be boys," Robert said, which was precisely the sort of statement that explained why his own son had grown up to be the kind of person who ended up naked in horse stalls.
Joffrey himself was not visible. He had retreated to the guest chambers immediately after being clothed and had not emerged, a response that Alexander judged to be the most sensible decision the prince had made during his entire visit to Tarth. His absence was noted by everyone and commented upon by no one, at least not within earshot of the royal party, though the laughter that occasionally erupted from clusters of guests in the gardens and corridors suggested that commentary was occurring with considerable enthusiasm in less monitored locations.
Margaery found Alexander on the terrace overlooking the harbour, where he was watching the first of the departure ships being loaded with the luggage and retainers of the smaller delegations. She appeared beside him with the quiet grace that was her signature, wearing a morning gown of soft green that caught the sunlight in a way that suggested the gown had been chosen for exactly this purpose.
"Good morning, Ser Alexander," she said, and her smile was the particular variety that contained entire conversations in its curvature. "I hear the Prince had an adventurous evening."
"So I understand. Most unfortunate."
"Most unfortunate," she agreed. "Though I confess the stable boy's account of the discovery is already being transcribed by at least four different scribes in four different delegations, which suggests that the unfortunate incident will achieve a certain literary immortality."
"The power of narrative. Even the most embarrassing events become educational when they are shared widely enough."
"Educational." Margaery's smile deepened. "That is one word for it." She leaned on the terrace rail beside him, and for a moment, the strategic poise that was her usual armour softened into something more genuine. "Sam is convinced you had nothing to do with it. He says you would never risk the diplomatic consequences."
"Sam is a loyal friend. His faith in my restraint is touching."
"His faith in your restraint is misplaced, and he knows it." She turned to look at him directly, and her brown eyes were bright with the particular intelligence that made Margaery Tyrell one of the most dangerous people Alexander had ever met who was also, simultaneously, one of the people he liked most. "He also knows that you did it for him. For the things Joffrey said about him at the feast. Sam would never say so, because Sam does not believe he is worth that kind of risk. But he knows."
Alexander said nothing for a moment. The harbour was busy below them, ships being loaded, crews calling to each other across the water, the machinery of departure engaging with the efficient rhythm of a process that the Tarth harbourmaster had managed dozens of times.
"I did not do it for Sam," he said. "Or rather, not only for Sam. I did it because Joffrey is a bully, and bullies require consequences, and because the consequences that should come from his parents have not been forthcoming and are unlikely to materialise."
"You know that Cersei suspects."
"Cersei suspects everything. It is her defining characteristic. But suspicion without evidence is merely paranoia, and I have been very careful about evidence."
"You are always careful. It is both your greatest strength and your most irritating quality." Margaery paused, and when she spoke again, her voice carried a warmth that was stripped of strategy, naked and genuine in a way that she rarely permitted herself to be. "I am leaving today. The Tyrell party departs with the afternoon tide. I wanted to tell you, before the formal farewells begin, that these past weeks have been the most interesting of my life. Not the most comfortable or relaxing, but the most interesting. And interesting, in my experience, is considerably more valuable than comfortable."
"You sound as though you are quoting someone."
"I am quoting you. You said something similar at Highgarden, during our first conversation. I have remembered it because it struck me then as true, and it has only become truer since."
"I am flattered that my words have proved memorable."
"Your words are always memorable, Alex. That is rather the problem." She straightened from the rail and restored the polished composure that was her public face. "Come to Highgarden. When you can, when the demands of your impossible island permit it. Grandmother wants to discuss the perfume expansion, and Willas has questions about your cement that he refuses to ask by raven because he says the mathematical notation does not translate well to bird-carried parchment."
"And you? What do you want to discuss?"
Margaery smiled, and the smile was the one Alexander had seen only a handful of times, the one that was not calculated or strategic or designed to achieve a specific effect, but simply the expression of a young woman who had found, in a boy with violet eyes and an island full of wonders, something that she valued for its own sake.
"Everything," she said. "I want to discuss everything."
She turned and walked back toward the castle, her green gown moving in the morning light like a leaf carried on a gentle current. Alexander watched her go and felt something that he had learned to recognise over the past two years, the quiet, persistent warmth of genuine affection complicating the clean lines of strategic calculation. Margaery Tyrell was an asset and an ally and a potential partner in the political architecture he was building. She was also his friend, and he was beginning to suspect, with the particular unease of someone who preferred his emotions to be tidy, that she might eventually become something more, who knows.
That was a complication for the future. Today, there were departures to manage.
Samwell appeared as Margaery departed, the two of them exchanging a nod of mutual recognition as they passed. Sam's expression was the carefully arranged innocence of a man who was trying very hard not to look as though he knew something.
"The Prince," Sam said, settling beside Alexander at the rail. "I heard about the Prince."
"As has everyone, apparently."
"You did not do it."
"Of course I did not do it, Sam. I am a newly knighted lord with diplomatic responsibilities and a reputation for strategic restraint. The idea that I would drug a prince and deposit him naked in a horse stall is absurd."
"Completely absurd."
"Entirely beneath me."
"Without question." Sam paused. "It was very funny, though."
"I would not know. I was in the map room all morning, reviewing naval deployments. A very boring morning. No horse stalls involved whatsoever."
They looked at each other. Sam's carefully maintained innocence crumbled first, and the grin that replaced it was the most openly joyful expression Alexander had seen on his friend's face since the day he had told him about the fostering arrangement at Highgarden.
Alexander allowed himself a matching grin, brief and private and shared between two people who understood each other well enough to say everything by saying nothing.
"Come," Alexander said. "There are departures to oversee, gifts to distribute, and a King to farewell. We have a great deal of work to do before the day is out."
"And after?"
"After, we begin the real work. The kind that does not involve horse stalls or naked princes."
"A pity. The horse stall work was rather more entertaining."
"All work benefits from occasional entertainment. It is one of the principles I intend to include in my eventual treatise on governance."
"You are writing a treatise on governance?"
"Not yet. But I am collecting material. Today has provided an excellent case study in the relationship between humiliation and political consequence."
They walked together toward the great hall, where the formal farewells were about to begin, and behind them, the harbour filled with the ships and sails and ambitions of a realm that was about to enter the most turbulent period in its history, though only one person on the island knew exactly how turbulent it would be.
* * *