To Take What Is Rightfully Ours

Chapter 50. Ensuring the Votes

Note: This month is promising to be very busy for me so it is very likely that there will be no new chapters until December. However, I plan on posting a small Diane/Rhaena one-shot soon as a bonus chapter so stay tuned 😉🥰

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Now that the celebratory tournament was behind them, Diane could move on to the next part of their plan which she really looked forward to.

Changing Widow's Law.

From the get-go, it was Rhaenyra and Daemon's project more than it was Diane's but now, that it was entering a final phase, Diane's help would be invaluable in its execution. The text of the new law took Daemon and Rhaenyra quite a while to agree on and polish. At first, Daemon just wanted to copy a Dragonstone law that just stated that firstborns are supposed to inherit titles/property regardless of their sex (mostly because it was less work) but Rhaenyra shut it down. She loved the idea but, first of all, such a big change should be introduced in a separate law and not by introducing changes to the Widow's Law. And second of all, Westeros was not ready for such changes just yet. They could come back to it when Rhaenyra was Queen but for now, they just needed to make sure the law was on their side regarding succession. And it meant rewriting the Widow's Law in a way that would clearly state that a daughter from the first marriage would always take precedence over a son from the second/third/fourth etc marriage, which was still a step forward for a lot of women.

After the text was done, another problem arose. How do they make Viserys sign it into law? Sure, Diane laid down the groundwork by whispering in the King's ear all the right things but it still was up to Daemon and Rhaenyra to do the main job of convincing him. Halfway through Rhaenyra decided that it was better not just to convince Viserys to make it law but to make the Small Council vote for it. It was riskier but would also make the changes more "secure". Such a process was used once during the reign of Aenys I and a few times during the reign of King Jaehaerys I. If something was made into law by the decision of the Small Council, the King wouldn't be able to reverse it or change it single-handedly. The only way to change such a law was to make the Small Council vote again. Rhaenyra thought it was a good safety measure in case - Gods forbid - someone managed to usurp her (or any woman who would sit on the Iron Throne after her). It wasn't unbreakable - after all, the usurper could force the Small Council to vote his way, considering that the ruler usually made their own Small Council - but it would slow things down and it would give them a chance to react.

The Small Council currently had eight members. To pass the changes they needed a majority of votes (5). Technically they could get away with 4 votes if one of them was the King's but it was safer to get a majority just in case. They had three already: Daemon, Rhaenyra, and the King himself (because it wouldn't work without him, unfortunately). Otto Hightower was obviously out as well as Mellos because the Grand Maester would not stand for the law that gave women more power. This left three people (Lyman Beesbury, Lyonel Strong, and Corlys Velaryon), two of which they had to persuade to vote the right way.

Diane said she would get it handled. Corlys liked her and they had already established a common ground so it wouldn't be too hard to ensure his vote. And Lyonel just needed to be reminded that his son really liked being Deputy Commander of the City Watch and for it to stay that way he should vote accordingly. It shouldn't be too hard either. When it came to Lyman, Diane thought he could be persuaded but she didn't have leverage on him that she deemed good enough to do that so she decided to leave him be. With Corlys' and Lyonel's votes, his became irrelevant.

The issue with that plan was that they had to distribute copies of the new law to the members of the Small Council beforehand so they could "make their minds about it" or whatever crap King Aenys came up with for it to work. Which included Otto Hightower.