Chapter 91 88

The Reach. Highgarden. 298 AC.

The Reach is a vast region in the southwest of Westeros, the most fertile and most populous part of the country. Its mild climate and abundance of rich land have made it the breadbasket of the Seven Kingdoms. It is the largest of the six southern kingdoms, and before Aegon Targaryen's conquest it was a sovereign realm under the rule of House Gardener. When the Gardeners fell, the Tyrells received lordship over the Reach and the castle of Highgarden.

The Reach is commonly described as the largest and most densely populated of the six southern kingdoms, setting aside the sparsely inhabited expanse of the North, though that description is somewhat imprecise. It is true that today the borders of House Tyrell's holdings, the Lords of Highgarden, largely correspond to the borders of that kingdom which bore the name the Reach and existed thousands of years before Aegon's Conquest. In earlier times, however, the region was in essence four separate kingdoms: Oldtown, the Arbor, the Westermarch, and the Reach proper.

The Reach is the second wealthiest region after the Westerlands and the most fertile in all the Seven Kingdoms. Thanks to a beneficent climate, snow does not fall as much as other parts in the southern Reach even in the harshest multi-year winters, and agriculture flourishes here as nowhere else. Vast wheat fields are sown, along with melons, pumpkins, fire plums, peaches, and grapes. The Arbor is famed for its wines, both dry red and golden vintage. Beneath Highgarden, golden roses blanket whole fields stretching as far as the eye can see. The powerful fleets of the coastal lords, the Shield Islands, and the Arbor, all sworn to the Tyrells, are a match for the royal fleet in strength.

The Reach has long been and remains a great land, giving its people abundant reason for pride. It is the most populous, fertile, and powerful holding in the Seven Kingdoms, second in wealth only to the gold-rich West, a seat of learning, music, culture, trade, and every art both bright and dark, the granary of Westeros, and home to great navigators, wise and noble kings, fearsome sorcerers, and the most beautiful women in the world.

When the dragons came, King Mern IX marched against Aegon I Targaryen at the Field of Fire alongside the King of the Rock. Their combined army numbered six hundred banners, five thousand mounted warriors, and nine times that in free riders and armed men. The warriors met on the fields of the Reach, among golden wheat ripe for harvest. Once Vhagar, Meraxes, and Balerion breathed fire together, nearly four thousand people burned that day, among them Mern himself and every one of his kin and tens of thousands suffered burn injuries

After the battle, the Dragon marched on Highgarden, and the royal steward Harlen Tyrell wisely surrendered the castle to the Conqueror and swore fealty along with his family. In return Aegon made the Tyrells Lords of Highgarden, Wardens of the South, and Lords Paramount of the Reach, to the displeasure of older and more distinguished houses.

For nearly three hundred years, through wealth, shrewdness, and marriage, the Tyrells had ruled the Reach. And now, with the realm plunged into civil war, the Golden Roses had placed their wager on Renly Baratheon, the late King Robert's younger brother. Several weeks had passed since the battle on the Rose Road, where Lord Tywin Lannister had broken the vanguard of the Reach's hundred-thousand-strong army. Since then neither side had attempted anything of scale, and the two forces simply stood facing each other.

The realm held its breath. More than a hundred and fifty thousand men were already committed to this contest, nearly three times the number who had fought in the bloodiest engagement of Aegon the Conqueror's day. Whatever the outcome, the battle would alter the course of the war. And the ladies of the men who had marched away could not find peace, knowing that if their fathers, brothers, husbands, and sons lost, the fate of the defeated would fall on them as well.

Lady Olenna Tyrell, known also as the Queen of Thorns, was the true ruler of the Reach in place of her somewhat dim son, Mace Tyrell. Despite her advanced years, this woman, clear of mind and iron of will, had spent her entire life steadfastly protecting the interests of her family. She was no stranger to living with military uncertainty. The same could not be said for her granddaughter, Queen Margaery Tyrell, wife of King Renly Baratheon.

Olenna did not say so directly, but she worried deeply for her granddaughter. Margaery was a beautiful, young, and clever girl, who absorbed her grandmother's lessons well. But for all her many qualities, the Golden Rose of Highgarden was still inexperienced, and that weighed on her. So the Queen of Thorns made a point of spending as much time with her as she could.

"What are you doing, dove?" To ease her worry, Margaery kept herself occupied, and often turned to embroidery.

"A golden rose, grandmother." Absorbed in her work, Margaery answered briefly, earning nothing from Olenna but a roll of her eyes.

"How original," the old woman replied with unmistakable sarcasm. "I eat off plates decorated with roses, sleep in a bed with roses embroidered on it. There is even a golden rose on my chamber pot, as though that will make it smell any better." Margaery only smiled. Strange as it was, she had always been fond of her grandmother's sharpness.

"Dove, will I see a great-grandchild before they put me in the ground? Mm?" Margaery flushed immediately and looked faintly embarrassed. Exactly as Olenna had expected. She was young.

"Grandmother!"

"What, grandmother? You are the daughter of a great house, a king's wife, married for three months now. Where is the child?" Olenna decided to put the question plainly.

"Hmph." Margaery set down her embroidery hoop and sighed heavily. "The king is more interested in my brother than in me."

"And there have been no attempts at all?" the Tyrell matriarch inquired.

"There were some, but they came to nothing. I even invited Loras to join us, but it still did not work." Like any young woman, she wanted to be desired by her husband, but what was one to do when he was….

Olenna understood her granddaughter. Margaery had most likely even begun to doubt her own appeal and look for the fault in herself. The Queen of Thorns had promised to help with that. In truth, in the eyes of the old woman, the problem was no problem at all. A little seaweed from the Summer Islands and, whatever Renly's preferences, the child would follow.

"I am worried, grandmother," Margaery admitted. "About Father, about my brothers, about all the family who marched off to this war."

"Everything will be fine. Garlan and Loras are excellent fighters and our household guard goes with them. And sensible people surround the fool. They will not let Mace get himself killed. Besides, an army of sixty thousand swords is not there for mere decoration."

"Why such a small army?" For most people in the world ten thousand soldiers was an army and fifty thousand an unfathomable host, but she was the daughter of a paramount lord and knew the real balance of forces. "Yes, the vanguard was broken, but forty thousand men could not simply have vanished."

Olenna was pleased with Margaery's grasp of things.

"You are right. Killed, taken captive, deserted, that accounts for nearly twenty thousand. The rest were reorganized and put back to use. Dorne has called its banners, and ten thousand men have gathered at the Kingsgrave. The Ironborn have called a kingsmoot, and that has never ended well for the Reach."

"Then what is Lord Tarly waiting for?" Both women had tacitly agreed to forget that Mace Tyrell and Renly Baratheon were officially in command of the army.

"No one reports to me, but I believe Randyll Tarly is waiting to see how things end in the Vale." Seeing that Margaery did not quite follow, Olenna elaborated. "Stannis Baratheon. Things are not going well for him in the Vale. Most of the rebel lords who rose against the Falcon's Eye are dead. The Tolletts were dealt with harshly and publicly. If the elder Arryn wins, Stannis's vassals will turn to Renly, which means the North, the Riverlands, and most likely the Vale. The Young Stark has proved he can fight. He broke the Lannisters at the Twins and is now sweeping the Riverlands clean of lions. Stannis's death gives Renly a new army to the northwest. If the elder Baratheon wins instead, we will have to move quickly, since he will be able to bring three regions together into a single force."

"I see." Margaery genuinely did. "Then why has the elder Arryn not taken anyone's side?"

"There is nothing in it for him but trouble. Doran Martell taught Arryn well. If the Vale commits to any king, it makes enemies of the other two. And at this moment none of the claimants can offer anything of real value in exchange for Arryn's loyalty."

The situation with the Dornish army on the border was something Olenna did not like at all. Prince Doran Martell was a cautious man, or perhaps simply a passive one, and yet here he was calling his banners at the borders. For the ancient enemies of Dorne, nothing good could come of that.