The King of Winters

Chapter-94

Argella

She woke up in the bed all alone again. Andrew had already left the chambers by the time she woke up. The sheet and the stuffed pillow he had used last night were neatly placed on the chair where he had spent the night away from her bed. She wondered where he had gone to. He spent very little time in the chambers Lord Hoster had graciously lend them for their entire stay. Argella did not fail to see that. Often he returned to her when she had already shrugged into her bedding gown and he always left before she woke up.

Something rubbed against her hand beside the bed. Argella rolled around and saw red eyes staring up at her. "Do you know where your human friend has gone?" she asked the wolf. The direwolf simple cocked his head and sniffed her hand all in silence. Andrew had given him a fitting name. The white wolf was quiet as a ghost and Argella has never heard him make any noise, not so much as a growl or even a snarl when he was angered. Argella stroked the wolfs head, gently. "I thought as much." Ghost nipped at her fingers, playful, and trotted back to his place by the fire.

At least Andrew had left Ghost with her to keep her company while he was busy with his war. She must be grateful for that. She was still in bed, curled up tight, her curtains drawn, and she could not have said if it was morning or noon. She threw back the sheets and got up from the bed. Her bed hangings were yanked back, and Argella Baratheon, the Queen in the North stepped out of her bed in the chambers of Riverrun.

Her blanket fell to the floor. Underneath she had only a thin bedgown to cover her nakedness. The doors opened as two bedmaids crept closer to her. "I will need hot water for my bath," she told them. When the serving girls filled the tub with hot water, she sent them away preferring to bathe alone. They had brought a dozen vials and bottles of perfumes and scented oils all of different fragrances, but Argella used none. She was from Storm's End and she smelled of rain and woodsmoke like the lands she came from.

The hot water made her think of Storm's End, and she took strength from that. She cleaned her face, scrubbed the dirt from her back, washed her hair and brushed it out until it sprang back in thick jet black curls. The maids waited for her to get out of the bath to help her dress, but Argella sent them away again. They were women in the service of her mother and no doubt she had instructed them to warp her up in silk and gold and gemstones. When the time came to dress, she chose the leather jerkin she loved to wear and knotted a soft lambswool cloak trimmed with white fox fur beneath her chin. It was not a fitting dress for a queen or a woman wedded, but she didn't care. She was still a maid though and there was no problem in following her maiden ways. She recalled how Andrew had not minded seeing her in leathers and cotton jerkins and linen tunics. Perhaps it would show him what he could expect from her.

Just as she was picking up her bow and the quiver of arrows, the invitation from her mother arrived to join the ladies for breakfast in the great hall of Riverrun. Argella rolled her eyes at the invitation. She would have much rather preferred to shoot some arrows in the yard or fish some trout for Ghost than sit with the ladies and hear their mindless chatter. She should deny the offer. She's a queen now and she could do that, but Argella knew that wouldn't sit well with her mother. She already knew the questions she would have to face even before she made it there. She didn't know why the women were all so interested in what happened between her sheets. Her own friends from Stormlands whispered to her in hushed tones, enquiring about the King's prowess in bed and asked her if he was actually a savage wolf like they said of him. Even the maids of the Riverlands wondered amongst themselves in silence about the day she would lose her maidenhead. It should be curiosity, she supposed. They just want to know what it is like to know a King and share their bed with him and have a prince. The thought sounded so stupid to her though.

She knew that her husband would not be there or Gendry or her father. Even her brother spent less time with her since her marriage. He liked to train in the yard every morning. Sometimes their father joined him. She would have liked to see that at least instead of being here. She would not be allowed her to participate. But no one could keep her from watching it.