Simple Servant - Game of Thrones

Chapter Four

(297 AC)

Margaery.

They brought him before her family in chains.

Margaery was made to watch from the gallery along the western wall. She started to cry when she saw how they'd treated him; they had put him in rags and didn't bother to treat the wounds the gaolers inflicted upon him, and the shackles that bound his hands had ruined the skin so horribly that his wrists were blistered and bleedings. The two guardsmen threw him to the pale marble tiles before the raised pulpit, where her father, mother, and grandmother sat. Garlan glared at Nolan while Loras looked ready to kill him there and then, but the look on her grandmother's face was what Maragery was most afraid of.

When she'd been summoned to the Queen of Thorns's chambers, Margaery had thought it would be like all the other times — a simple chat and some cheese, but it hadn't been that. It was instead Lady Olenna Tyrell speaking while Margaery sat in terrified silence, and before the afternoon was done, her nana had all but imprisoned her, isolating her from even Loras and Garlan so that she could spread the horrible lie that Nolan had raped her.

"Do you know why you are here, boy?" Her lord father said, and for the first time in her entire life at Highgarden, Margaery thought Mace Tyrell sounded every bit a lord.

Her love looked up from the steps. "My lord," he said hoarsely. Were they not giving him water? "I must confess myself I do not."

"My granddaughter came to me one day, terrified and traumatised," the Queen of Thorns explained, "and informed me that a stablehand had deviled her innocence — a stablehand that had your eyes. You have very distinct eyes, I must admit."

Nolan's eyes were a blue so deep you could drown in them, and she had, and they always had a gentle and warm look in them, but now they seemed almost dead. "I must admit, I am rather confused," he said. "I've never even seen your granddaughter, my lady. Where would I find the desire to do such a horrible thing to her?"

"You claim my sister is lying?" Loras asked angrily.

Nolan bowed his head. "I'm only saying it was not me," he said. "I have no reason to wish ill upon the lady, nor did I ever desire to make her acquaintance... So how will I die?"

The acceptance was the worst part. "You would not defend yourself?" Her mother, Lady Alerie Tyrell, tall and dignified, with long silver hair, asked with confusion tingeing her tone.

"What is there to defend, my lady?" Nolan asked. "I'm a simple stablehand. My life means nothing to you or yours. The moment my name was uttered, my fate was sealed."

Willas frowned, tapping his cane. "You could take the black."

"And live among rapers?" Nolan declared. "I'd rather die."

"You are a raper," Loras spat.

"As you say," Nolan replied. A sharp sob escaped Margaery, and she covered her face and trembled. "My word means nothing to you. My life is nothing to you. So why should you care to listen? When I woke up in that dark, dank cell, I accepted I was going to die."

It was Garlan who spoke now. "You won't even demand a trial?" He asked, confused. "I've seen you fight. I've fought against you. You'd win, like as not."

"I do not doubt that I'd defeat any champion you send forward," Nolan said. "But what good will it do? Somewhere along the roseroad, I will stumble from my horse, choke on a bone, or drink tainted water... So again, I ask you, how will I die?"

"Beheading," her grandmother said. "Luckily for you. Swift and painless, too good a death for you in my eyes, but Margaery is more merciful than I."

Nolan bowed his head. "Thank you, my lady," he said. "Not many men get to know how they will die. I should count myself fortunate... Will you do me one kindness?"