The King of Winters

Chapter-93

Argella

On the morning of her wedding, the serving girls filled Argella's tub with steaming hot water and scrubbed her head to toe until she glowed pink. Her mother's own bedmaid trimmed her nails and brushed and curled her dark hair so it fell down her back in soft ringlets. She brought a dozen of the scents as well. Argella couldn't have cared any less about those scents. She denied them flatly. She had allowed more than enough to let them brush her hair and dress her up in a gown. She did not want to go to her wedding smelling like flowers as well.

Her mother arrived with the seamstress, and watched as they dressed Argella in her wedding clothes. The smallclothes were all silk, but the gown itself was cloth-of-gold and black samite, and lined with black satin. The bodice was slashed in front almost to the skirts, the deep vee covered over with a ornate panel of black Myrish lace crusted with jewels and gems. The gown was so heavy with gold and diamonds and other gemstones that it would be a blessing if she could walk. The fabric was entirely covered in reflective precious gems, diamonds and topaz and rubies and sapphires and fire opals, yellow and red and orange and white and black with bits of blue that caught the light and reflected it brightly. The slightest movement made her look as if she was engulfed in tongues of fire. The skirts were long and full, the waist so tight that Argella had to hold her breath as they laced her into it. They brought her new shoes as well, gilded slippers of soft gold that hugged her feet like lovers. "You are very beautiful, my lady," the seamstress said when she was dressed.

Argella rolled her eyes. She couldn't care less about how she looked in the heavy gown. The ceremony better be short or else her wedding gown might not last long even for a single day. "The ceremony better be short," Ella said. "Or else I might tear off this thing. I could barely even breathe or walk in this."

"Stop that," her mother said. "You are not a little girl anymore. You are going to be a Queen, so behave like one." She looked at her from head to heel critically. "Turn around so I can see you better."

Argella groaned and spun, her skirts swirling around her. Lady Cersei studied her critically. "Something for the head, I think. The silver hairnet with moonstones and pearls."

"At once, Your Grace," her maid replied.

She took up the headdress. It was a hair net of fine-spun silver, the strands so thin and delicate the net seemed to weigh no more than a breath of air when Argella took it in her fingers. Small gems were set wherever two strands crossed, moonstones and pearls. The maid arranged her hair artfully in a delicate silver net winking with pearls and moonstones against her dark hair. They clasped a heavy silver chain around her neck, with a large sapphire cut in the shape of a teardrop for pendant. Her mother nodded finally in approval. "Yes. The gods have granted you all of my beauty, Argella. I hope that you've got my mind as well. Charm him with it."

Charm him, Argella thought. She was more likely to bother him with her unladylike activities. Andrew better not hope her to be a southron flower. She was no flower. "I think this is more than enough decoration, mother."

Cersei Lannister ignored the question. "The cloak," she commanded, and the women brought it out: a long cloak of cloth-of-gold heavy with onyx beads. Argella looked at it, her maiden's cloak. This was to be her last day as a maid, she thought as they fastened it about her neck with a slender gold chain.

Her hand went to her throat. Soon enough she would trade this for her husband's cloak and all her freedom and dreams would go away with it. The thought of losing all that was dreadful. She shook the thoughts away. She would always be a Baratheon at heart, no matter what cloak she wears.

"Come along now, the wedding guests are waiting."

She was very much occupied in her thoughts that she barely heard her mother. The thoughts about Storm's End and the life she had left behind was too heavy on her mind. It hurt when she thought that she might never get to see Storm's End again, or ride through the Rainwood or conquer the storms as she has always wanted. "Yes," Ella blurted at last.