Playing the Game (Game of Thrones)

“My Lady, we must consider our options. The Faith Militant press closer to Highgarden by the day, and I cannot guarantee the army will stand in their way.”

… House Tyrell had certainly seen better days; Margaery can’t help thinking as Randyll Tarly’s words wash over her. Down to just her and her grandmother, with even her mother taken by suicide, Margaery Tyrell was indisputably Lady of Highgarden. She could also, ostensibly, still come to be known as Lady Paramount of the Reach, and Warden of the South. Her father’s old titles, both of them.

Though, that particular pipe dream was becoming less and less likely by the day, wasn’t it? She would need a properly established Monarch to grant her such rights. Given the lack of precedent, and the fact that there’d never been a Lady Paramount, nor a female Warden before now, she would never survive trying to claim those titles on her own.

Especially when such… naked ambition would almost immediately cause the betrayal of the man standing in front of her. Lord Randyll Tarly of House Tarly, said to be the Reach’s last great military commander. For now, he was loyal to her and House Tyrell, at least on the surface. But Margaery knew why that was. She knew what he wanted.

Of course, she doesn’t let any of her true thoughts show on her face. Back straight, hands folded in her lap, a calm and soft smile on her lips, Margaery Tyrell sits regally, still a young beauty that draws the eye with her comely features and altogether soft demeanor. This wasn’t how it was supposed to go. She was supposed to be Queen. But alas… things did not always work out as one might expect, or even have wanted.

Keeping her tone as soft as her features, gentle yet questioning, Margaery tilts her head ever so slightly to the side.

“You… cannot guarantee that the army will stand in their way, Lord Tarly? Do the men no longer hold loyalty to House Tyrell?”

In his defense, the noble has the good grace to at least look offended on her behalf, as he grimaces and shakes his bald head.

“I’m afraid that the soldiers are… torn between their loyalty to the Seven, and their loyalty to you, my Lady.”

Unfortunately for Randyll Tarly, Margaery sees right through him. He might be an old hand at leading men into battle, but he’s still relatively unpracticed when it comes to politics. He’s an ambitious old goat, but one that has only seen the opportunities in front of him more recently. The way he’s trying to steer this conversation is like that of a child slowly trying to weasel his way into a dessert.

Alas, Margaery cannot just turn him away. And she feels as if day by day, they get closer and closer to her being forced to give him what he wants, no matter the… unsubtle methods he uses to push her in the direction he wants her to go. Still, his most recent words provoke an actual, honest reaction in her, as Margaery finds her lip curling back in a sneer, her eyes growing flinty as she leans forward.

“The Faith Militant are NOT the Seven. They are heretics and blasphemers who slew the High Septon as well as my father and brother. I’m told they’ve even killed their vaunted High Sparrow, in recent times! There should be no question that they pervert the Faith of the Seven with every breath they take!”

A hand on her arm is the only thing that finally calms Margaery down. Just under the table, her grandmother reaches out from beside her and touches her gently, but firmly. Surprised by the sudden contact, Margaery shoots her grandmother a look for a moment.

Lady Olenna Tyrell has not visibly moved from her position beside her. The old woman has never looked more her age, sitting there seemingly in her dotage, staring out the window that currently constitutes the room’s source of natural light. Known for her wit and sarcasm, they called her the Queen of Thorns. These days though, Margaery knew the whispers had turned more… insulting. These days, Olenna was known as the Withered Rose.

Regardless, Lord Tarly cannot see her grandmother’s hand beneath the table, and while his eyes do follow Margaery to Olenna, he looks… almost pityingly at the old woman, before turning his gaze back to the young Lady Tyrell. Indeed, the pity remains in his face… even if it doesn’t feel at all real, as he dips his head in apology.

“I know that my Lady, and you know that. Of course. But… the men do not know that. They only know what they’ve been told. The rumors about you continue to persist to this day, and with you refusing to take on a husband, the rumors only grow…”

And there it is. They’ve finally gotten to the heart of the matter. Lord Randyll Tarly saw an opportunity for advancement for his House. He saw an opportunity to usurp House Tyrell. And frankly, if these weren’t such strange times, Tarly would probably have already replaced Tyrell as Lord Paramount of the Reach and Warden of the South. If there was a King sat upon the Iron Throne in King’s Landing, Margaery didn’t doubt that she would have already been usurped, and bloodlessly at that.

Only the lack of any discernable Monarch had kept House Tyrell in power despite losing all of its male claimants. Well, that and all of Margaery’s incredible efforts to that effect. It wasn’t as though she’d been idle, not by any stretch of the imagination. Unfortunately, even her best was steadily proving to be just not good enough…

“The words the Faith Militant would peddle about me are lies one and all. They killed my father and brother and made up sick, terrible lies about them as well. And now good Reachmen are allowing similar lies about their liege to worm into their ears? You HAVE told them these are falsehoods, have you not?!”

Margaery doesn’t let herself get shrill, but she does allow her voice to be raised just enough to get her point across. And once more, Randyll Tarly has the good grace to pretend to be contrite and offended on her behalf, even bowing his head to her in response.

“Of course, my Lady. But that does not change the situation we find ourselves in. The Faith Militant, heretics though they might be, believe they fight with the backing of the Seven. They come down the Roseroad even now and have apparently passed Bitterbridge. They will be to us within a fortnight, and there’s not much I can do about that. Not unless…”

Here, he trails off purposefully. Once again, such ham-fisted politicking that its enough to make Margaery’s skin crawl. It takes quite a bit of effort to keep how much disdain she feels for Lord Tarly’s childish attempts from her face. In the end, she can’t afford to just ignore his leading words. She has to keep him on side and engaged in his duties, or all truly IS lost.

“Unless what, Lord Tarly?”

Like a kitten pouncing on a much bigger cat, Randyll leans forward.

“A proper marriage would solidify the army’s loyalty, my Lady. My son, Dickon, is of the right age. House Tarly has ever been loyal to House Tyrell. Show the Reach that that loyalty is recognized. Marry Dickon, and I can secure the loyalty of every Reachman from here to Sunflower Hall.”

It takes everything Margaery has not to scoff. Such a… one track mind, Lord Tarly. Unfortunately, she cannot rebuke him nearly as sternly as she wants to. As flimsy as House Tyrell’s position is, Margaery can only ever be gentle in her denials.

“… We’ve had this conversation before, Lord Tarly…”

And indeed, they had. Margaery had made her position quite clear, for all that Tarly had continued to push for it all the same. She knew that eventually she would have to get married. But Margaery Tyrell was no fool. If she married while the Reach was still in this state of turmoil and flux, while the Faith Militant was bearing down on their heads and threatening to ravage the lands, then she might as well have handed herself over to the Reach giftwrapped in a bow.

There would be no reason for her new husband to keep her, once they’d married. By right, he would become the new Lord Paramount of the Reach, Warden of the South. He would have the ability to supplant House Tyrell as the ruling House of Highgarden, as Tyrell in turn had done to the Gardeners so many centuries before.

The worst case scenario would be that the Faith Militant proved to be too strong and ultimately her new husband, likely Dickon Tarly in this hypothetical, handed her over to appease them. But even the best case scenario, if Margaery wed too early, would be that her new husband would garner all the glory for pushing the Faith Militant out of Reach lands.

In either case, House Tyrell would fall to the wayside. It would not be Dickon Tarly marrying into House Tyrell, with Margaery ruling Highgarden, but her marrying into House Tarly, with Dickon taking over as Lord of the Reach.

That… that she could not allow. Which was precisely why Margaery had made her excuses, continually claiming that she would only marry once the lands were no longer besieged. If she could just hold off until the Faith Militant were removed from the Reach entirely, then she could claim their removal was the work of House Tyrell and its vassals… and she wouldn’t even be lying all that much. Then and only then would Margaery marry, though if she could avoid it, she would prefer to marry a weaker-willed man than Dickon Tarly. Someone she could keep in check…

“We have, my Lady… but unfortunately, I believe the situation has changed. Desperate times call for desperate measures.”

Lord Tarly’s response sends a jolt through Margaery’s spine, her eyes widening for a moment before she gets her reaction under control. It’s not just the words he uses, but the way he says it. Solemn, with a sense of finality. She realizes, staring at the balding military commander, that he’s not just going to accept a gentle rebuke this time around. He’s not going to let her weasel out of this. Somehow, the political novice has caught her in a trap…

Margaery opens her mouth… and then closes it again, unsure what to say. She needs a moment to think. No, more than that, she needs a moment alone with her grandmother. However, before she can formulate a way to request that without giving the game away, something else happens. The door to the room is suddenly swung open, and the man they’d just been chatting about comes barging in, panting and out of breath. Dickon Tarly looks to have run all the way here, and in armor at that.

“F-Father! Banners, in the d-distance!”

Whipping around, Randyll Tarly’s eyes widen and his hands clench into fists.

“What?! The Faith Militant is here already?! That’s not possible!”

Shaking his head side to side, Dickon continues to catch his breath.

“N-No, father. They… it’s the Starks. And the Targaryen King! And… they have… dragons!”

Margaery can’t hide her shock at those words, her entire carefully crafted demeanor coming crashing down at Dickon’s report. She knows she’s staring, open-mouthed at the boy, but she can’t help it. Fortunately, Lord Tarly is just as shocked as she is by this new information.

“What… that’s… no, impossible!”

“I saw it with my own eyes, father!”

Dickon looks stricken. A big, strong, strapping young lad, Margaery couldn’t help but find there to be a lot to like about the man. If things were different, she would actually be happy to marry him. But in this moment… it’s clear he’s afraid. Meanwhile, Randyll is forced to either continue denying it and call his son and heir a liar or face the facts.

He wrestles with it for a moment, and while he does so, another light touch on Margaery’s arm catches her attention. Jolting, the young Lady of Highgarden realizes precisely what she has to do in that moment.

“Lord Tarly!”

Putting on her most authoritative voice, Margaery catches Randyll Tarly’s attention, forcing him to look at her. She is still in charge here, technically, and there’s only one reasonable response to the news Dickon has brought.

“You will not engage the Starks in battle unless they attack first. Fly a flag of truce and see if they and the Targaryen King wish to parley. I will be happy to meet with them, in these trying times.”

Even as much of a child at political maneuvering as Randyll Tarly is, he’s at least smart enough to recognize an opportunity slipping through his fingers when he sees one.

“My Lady, I’m not sure-”

“You have your orders, Lord Tarly. Please, carry them out.”

It’s the first time she’s ever cut him off. The first time she’s felt like she could get away with it, truth be told. His son is in the room after all, looking back and forth between the two of them, still in a panic. And it’s obvious, at least to someone of her political acumen, that Randyll Tarly hasn’t fully explained his plans to Dickon.

In the end, Tarly the Elder is forced to bow at the waist.

“As you command, my Lady.”

And with that, he and Dickon take their leave, ostensibly to negotiate a meeting under truce between her and… and the Targaryen King. Margaery swallows thickly. She doesn’t know much about Jon Snow. Not nearly as much as she would have liked. But she knows one thing… he’s a better option than the ones she has in front of her right now. Still…

“Grandmother…”

In an instant, Lady Olenna Tyrell transforms. From staring almost vacantly out the window in Lord Tarly’s presence, the old woman suddenly straightens her back, eyes flashing with that same barbed intelligence she’d always been known for as she looks over at Margaery with thinned, cracked lips. The Withered Rose was anything but… a fabrication that they’d concocted to keep Margaery’s many enemies from seeing fit to assassinate Olenna and leave her without any support.

“This is your one and only opportunity, child. You must be ready to seize it with both hands.”

Margaery inhales sharply at that, glad to hear her own thoughts echoed back by her sharp as a whip grandmother. Still, she is not without her doubts.

“He does not sit upon the Iron Throne yet. What if he fails to secure it?”

Shaking her head, Olenna smirks ever so slightly.

“The boy is smarter than I would have thought. King’s Landing is a cesspit that sucks in all who enter it. He will have to go there eventually, to put an end to the madness that pervades it if nothing else… but he made the right call, coming here instead. The Reach has ever been Westeros’ breadbasket, and I don’t imagine he found much in the way of supplies for his armies in the North, for all that his landing there was sentiment.”

Then, Olenna’s face takes on a sharpened look to it once again.

“However, that he has come down from the North now, with the Starks on side and even stronger than before… means he has not yet suffered defeat. He will be confident… perhaps overly so, but he will also be strong. You must approach him as only a Rose can, my dear granddaughter. Entice him with your beauty, but do not let him think you are without thorns. Still, in the end you must bend the knee to him and no other. HE is the only one who can secure House Tyrell’s claim to Highgarden.”

Margaery swallows thickly, even as she slowly nods.

“… I’ve heard tell that he has a harem from Essos. That he has more children than any Targaryen King we’ve had in generations.”

Humming at that, her grandmother slowly nods.

“You’re considering seducing him? Perhaps… perhaps that is the way forward. I can only advise you, child. You are not like your father, who needed to be more… directly led. In the end, I trust you to make the right choice. Whatever that might be.”

That gets an explosive exhale from Margaery, her grandmother’s vote of confidence feeling amazing but also like a punch to the gut, all at once. Still, there was no denying that their fortunes had just changed.

Whether it was for the better or worse remained to be seen…

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