Lady Rebekkah Nayland has spent her life - and it's been a very long one - watching those she considers of lesser ability and lesser worth rise while those she deems fit for power - and this includes herself above most all others - are left to languish, their potential wasted. She has spawned a litter of children and grandchildren who have every one of them proven to disappointing, either by their natures or by the unfortunate positions of their birth that rob them of proper prominence. A husband, who she never loved and never thought worthy of her in any measure, is long dead and despite the cold trench of obligation that had been her marriage bed she never took another lover after Lord Darron's death. The kingdom she loved lies in the hands of a usurping whoremonger, and her own keep is little but a few chambers in a stinking bogland with the unfortunate name of Hag's Mire. That is what they call her now, though she still wields enough power that none dare say it to her face. But she knows what they say of her. The Hag of the Mire. Who seems only to live on fueled by spite (Lord Rickhart has been waiting decades for her to die, but she keeps thwarting him). But in truth, it is not spite the fuels her, though she has her share of bitterness. It is love. And the fire that still burns in the deep, sharp corners of her mind, even when all else is fading.
Part 1: The Red Rose of Darry
She was born Rebekkah Darry near eighty years ago. Lord Darry's eldest child, and his sole one for some time. His first wife was sickly and unable to have another, and Rebekkah was 10 before her father finally broke down and put aside a wife for whom he held great fondness to take another bride. This one, a buxom, empty-headed teenage creature, bore him a satisfactory number of sons. Still, Lord Darry always harbored a fondness for his eldest. Even as a child she had a keen mind and a thirst for knowledge. She devoured the library in their little castle and seemed naturally gifted when it came to sums. Her maester remarked he had never seen a girl child of such brilliance. Which, even then, Rebekkah saw as the most back-handed of compliments. She took little pleasure in the company of other young ladies, who she found vacuous and dull, though she was not given to 'tomboyish' pursuits either. She trotted along after her maester and her father's steward, soaking up matters scholarly and matters of administration like a sponge. Her father remarked many times to her that it was a pity she'd not been born a son, for she showed impressive potential for managing a household. Though she knew it was said out of love, this stung her far worse than anything from her maester.
The Darrys, though not a wealthy or large house, was one in favor with the Targaryens, and so at the age of 13 she was sent to court to learn more of politics. And to try and net herself a husband. Though a bookish creature, she was not timid or mousy. She was graced with striking feature and a biting wit, and she found she enjoyed life in the capitol very much. The dances and masques, the gossip from all Seven Kingdoms and across the Narrow Sea, and the libraries that outstripped anything she could've dreamed of back in her father's small castle. On cold nights in the Mire, memories of the beauty and pageantry and intellectual stimulation of this time still warm her.
And memories of her prince. Aemon Targaryen was, despite his royal blood, nothing in the grand scheme of things. So far down the line of succession he may as well have been a commoner for all he'd inherit. With that ahead of him, and a natural bent toward scholarship, he'd set himself early on the path of maester-ship. He could see few girls beyond his books, and few bothered to look at him. But she did. And he looked back at her. Games of cyvasse and stirring conversations about Valyrian poetry and the pros and cons of the forms of governance in the Free Cities turned to passion, as things between teenagers will. She gave him her maidenhood gladly, and she quite believes he told her the truth when he said she was the only girl he'd bedded.
She'd have married him. Longed to marry him. But Aemon had already committed himself to a maester's chains, and even the Red Rose of Darry could not tempt him from that duty. He left for and the Citadel. And, to her father's great embarrassment, Rebekkah followed him. Not to beg him again to take her hand, she was too proud for that. But to try to join him. She was as brilliant - and more - than any student there, and well-suited for a maester's life if she could not have her scholar prince. She drew up a petition, which she intended to present to the Archmaesters themselves, for admittance to the Citadel despite her gender. It was lengthy, passionate, and meticulously researched with numerous citations. They turned her away without an audience, for what was she but a silly woman chasing a man who'd spurned her?
So the Red Rose returned to Darry, denied the only two worlds she ever even dreamed of loving.
Part 2: The Lady Nayland
Despite the spectacle she'd made of herself in Oldtown, Rebekkah Darry had flowered at court and was still a fine bride for any Riverlands man, so her father didn't have too much trouble making a marriage pact. The lord he chose for her was one young Walder Frey of the Twins, a small House but a slight step up for a Darry, and one placed in an area of strategic importance for trade and commerce (he figured his daughter would find some enjoyment in the management of such household accounts). But, when Rebekkah went to the Twins to meet Walder Frey, she made absolute destruction of any pact her father had tried to forge. She took one look at Walder and spurned him, called him ill-favored and stupid, and said she would rather die a withered spinster than have him lay one fingertip on her.
Naturally, this went over poorly, and proved yet another horrific embarrassment to poor Lord Darry. Though he could have forced the marriage, Lord Walder would not suffer the insult, and fair few other men in the land would have Rebekkah after that display. At last, Lord Darry did manage to bargain…with one of the Frey vassals. A great insult to a woman would had teased courtiers and near-been a princess. But such was the lot left for her after the bridges she'd burned. Knowing she had no other choice left, Rebekkah coldly agreed. And the Red Rose left Darry to journey to a place called Hag's Mire, where she became lady wife to Lord Darron Nayland.
At first Rebekkah prayed she might have as sickly a womb as her mother, just to spite her new husband and lord father. The life of a spinster, perhaps a septa if there was no other outlet left for her, was not so bad in her view. She would never have what she wanted anyhow. But that was not to be. The first child she bore Lord Nayland was a strong son, who they named Rickart. More sons and daughters followed. The Nayland marriage, though cool, was not an awful one as things go. Rebekkah proved herself useful when it came to management of his household, and Lord Darron soon found himself relying on her far more than he did his steward (he actually did not bother to keep one during the last ten years of his life and just allowed her to fill that role, though upon his death Rickart 'replaced' her with a proper one again). And if Darron did not inspire her passion - either physically or intellectually - he was neither a cruel man nor an intolerably stupid one. She did her duty by him, and he allowed her to keep a fine library and to hand-pick their House maesters (a task her son still leaves to her, given the satisfactory record she's had with them). It couldn't honestly be said she was happy, but she made of it what she could.
During her husband's life, Aemon Targaryen wrote to her only once. After the death of King Maekar I, when Aemon was summoned to court in the year of the Great Council, and the Targaryen line had so whittled that he was offered the crown. He turned it down, of course, as history knows, and went to serve the Night's Watch to make it clear he had no ambitions toward the throne. His letter was brief, only saying that he might have chosen differently had he taken her hand all those years ago, for she would have made a fine queen. Rebekkah burned that letter and would not answer it until years later, when Lord Darron was gone, but as she watched it turned to ash in the flames she forgave her prince a little. Still, many days she asks what might have been, for herself and for Westeros, if she'd sat upon the throne beside her Scholar King.
Part 3: The Raven Widow
But that was not the way history was to be written, and Rebekkah Nayland grew old quietly and in relative obscurity, with children who would inherit only petty titles. Lord Darron died in an old man, so Rickart was already of age and then some when he took rulership of Hag's Mire. Though she had never loved him, Rebekkah did mourn her husband in a way. He had, at least, been pragmatic enough to see what use she could be to him, and they had lived in a partnership of sorts. Rickart had no interest in allowing her to retain any power in the house. He hired a proper steward and sent her packing back to her chambers and her books (and occasionally her grandchildren, though it could not be said she was the warmest or most doting gramma). The years have seen her power in the household greatly diminished, yet not as entirely gone as Lord Rickart might wish. She still retains a good deal of respect among the older servants, and she's always managed to wrap the family maester around her withered old little finger, try and Rickart might to find one that won't become as much her creature as his own. In a way it's become a highly mean-spirited little game with them. He tries to isolate her as much as possible, she spends her days finding ways to ferret out secrets and gossip that even her lordly son does not yet know. And does very little with them, in her capacity doddering around the Mire, save smile a bit in smugness at her superiority over her offspring.
She also plays cyvasse. Her skill at the game was known and impressive in the Mire long before her husband died, but since he departed it's become something of a legend. It began with the board. While she keeps several in the castle, both in her chambers and the library, she had THE board specially made after Lord Darron's death. Sent away to Dorne to have it crafted, out of marble of varying shades, and hand-delivered to her by a courier from the southern sands. It sits on a table in her chamber, and no one touches it save herself, yet a game is always being played. By raven, or so she says. Some speculate she's just finally going insane in her old age, or is lying as yet another obscure mind-game she plays with Rickart. And yet, she does send ravens (creatures she's raised herself) off with messages attached, and every month or so, a raven returns with a message back to her. To and from the North, it's most frequently said, though again few are quite sure. Some claim it's all misdirection and she's playing with an archmaester down in Oldtown, or some old Royalist supporter in Highgarden or Dorne. A few even claim her birds come from the Wall itself, though what the old crone of a lady could want with a Night's Watchman nobody can fathom.
As most of the world has forgotten that the lore keeper of Castle Black was once called Aemon Targaryen, it has likewise been forgotten that the Red Rose of Darry might have once been his queen. She will never see him again, and she accepts this. But she still writes, the letters mostly consisting only of movement directions on the board, and he writes her back in kind. That cyvasse board is said to be the only thing she truly loves. She only seems happy when she sits at it and one is allowed to disturb it but her since a servant overturned it four years ago (the girl was sent away from the castle, fired and put out, though there are rumors she disappeared and died in the Mire, and Rebekkah does not really discourage this talk). Her weakling of a grandson Rowan had a fascination with it as a younger boy and once mussed with the positioning of its pieces in a game that had spanned over a year. Rebekkah had him soundly beaten (she was still spry enough to hold a switch herself at the time, and she gave him a few lashes of her own so he'd Remember. Forever).
Part 4: The Hag of the Mire
Due to her personal sentiments, and loyalty the Darrys showed the Targaryens during Robert's Rebellion, she pushed Rickart to defy Lord Waldur Frey and declare his support for the Royalists. He predictably refused. This was the point that truly cemented her view of him: an ambitious but small-minded power-grubber with no spark of greatness in him, who would never amount to anything the sad little lordling of a stinking bog. A few of her knights did have more spine, including her favored boy (but pathetically low-born, so even he's useless), Ser Rygar, and she loves best out of all her family those that had enough steel in them to go and fight rather than sit in the bog like cowards. They lost, of course, and to add insult the Nayland banners ended up marching with the Freys for Robert, albeit only to join celebrations and mop-up work as all the real fighting was done. While Rebekkah had no great love for Aerys, she sees the downfall of the Targaryens as an end to the glory of Westeros. Robert Baratheon is a usurping whore-monger, and his queen nothing more than a pretty blonde bank of Westerlands gold through which he can spend for his follies. But there was greatness in the dragon line, and now the dragons are dead, and she doubts very much the stags and lions can manage to hold the Iron Throne.
Not that it matters much to her at this point. She rarely leaves Hag's Mire these days, save when she's trotted out for familial obligations so large she can't beg them off (or at which her presence will annoy Rickart enough to make it worth the effort). Mostly she sits in her chambers, plays her games with her mysterious correspondent from faraway, reads her books, despairs of her offspring, and dreams of days past, with both bitterness and bittersweet regret. They call her the Hag of the Mire now, though she still commands enough respect (and fear) that none dare say it to her face. In private, she laughs. All women become crones, and that does not bother her. But not all were once the Red Rose of Darry, and not all might have been queens, or maesters, not all escaped awful marriages by sheer force of will, or ran a household with skill and wit that most lordling men will never possess. And a sad few number have known love that has endured when all else is fading and gone, even if it now only flies on black raven wings.
