It was a warm summer afternoon.
The kind with a lot of white fluffy clouds floating in the sky, moving unhurriedly in a single direction.
The sun hanging straight above in the sky was also just warm enough not to be scorching, making it the perfect day for an outing with the family.
Down below lay the wide, meandering Rose Road, a major highway that started from the distant capital in Kings Landing, bridged twice over the river Mander, passed the castle of Highgarden and went all the way to Oldtown.
This road was not only the biggest unbroken road in Westeros, right after the King's road, but was also the most comfortable one to traverse, with lots and lots of inns, hotels and towns along the way, offering cheap rooms and food, so that no one walking on this road ever felt the need to sleep outside.
And considering that Reach was called the breadbasket of Westeros, there was no shortage of large, beautiful fields filled with golden swaying wheat stalks that stretched as far as the eye could see.
Just walking amidst these blossoming farmsteads gave one a sense of peace as if they were in a paradise...
But on this day, this calm peace of the countryside was abruptly broken by a long line of human convoy coming down the road in an orderly manner.
Nobles, Knights, Soldiers, Merchants and all kinds of Smallfolks could be seen in this convoy moving slowly but steadily as if they were a colony of ants mingling among each other peacefully.
Abruptly, one after another, small and big heads began emerging from fields on both sides of the road, staring at the convoy down the road with shock, awe, and trepidation in their eyes.
Some of the older smallfolks took one look and immediately grabbed their tools and began running away towards their homes, wanting nothing to do with whatever this was, while other younger folks, who hadn't seen much of life yet, were far less afraid and came closer to see this rare sighting with a sense of excitement and curiosity.
A few minutes later, one of the sharp-eyed onlookers caught sight of a fluttering flag and abruptly exclaimed while raising a trembling finger, "I-I know that flag! T-That's the Tarly house symbol!!"
"What?! The House Tarly of Hornhill?!"
"Yes. A-And isn't the one behind that the flag of Oldtown, of the house of um...tower something,"
"The Hightowers?"
"Exactly."
"And wait, not only that, there's the rose of High Garden on that big one. House Tyrell's flag."
"W-What are all these big nobles up to? Where are they going?" one of the older middle-aged men asked with surprise and awe on his face, "Is there a war somewhere?"
"What?" "A war?!"
A hush immediately fell onto the crowd at those words, as the faces of the older smallfolks paled and their eyes widened in horror, as if they were reminiscing about something from more than half a lifetime ago.
"D-Don't be absurd, we would have been conscripted, and our harvest would have been snatched long ago, if there was to be a war." Thankfully, one of the smarter ones in the crowd, who was the brother of a merchant, clarified before the panic could spread among the farmers.
"He is right. If they were marching for war, they wouldn't be bringing so many slow carriages along with them, would they?"
"Then where else could they be going in such great numbers?"
That stumped most of the innocent smallfolks present there, as there were very few occasions other than a war where these stuck-up nobles would willingly bother to tolerate each other in such close proximity while travelling.
"I know! I know!!" One of the younger lads, not even wearing any shirt on his chest, suddenly jumped out and exclaimed excitedly, "T-They all must be going to attend that Tourney!!"
"What tourney, boy?! Don't talk nonsense!" The boy's mother snapped as she hurriedly pulled her naughty brat back to her side.
"I am not making it up," The boy continued determinedly, despite his mother's best effort to silence him, "My friend, Koby, has a brother who is a squire in the nearby fort, and h-he said that there is going to be a big trouney in the capital. And everyone who is a knight is going there to participate."
"The boy makes sense," The Middle-aged man from earlier said while stroking his beard, as the boy was abruptly forced to disappear by his mother, "I have also heard about this so-called Tourney from my brother when he went into town. It's supposed to be quite a big gathering, where most of the great nobles from the Seven Kingdoms are said to be attending."
"A tourney bringing so many nobles out of their castles..." an old man murmured with a somewhat worried look on his face, as he remembered quite clearly the war that followed the last time a Tourney gathered this much attention.
...
From the outside, this large convoy looked just like it was one giant gathering, but only when one came closer would they realise how much distance and distinctiveness there was between each different group belonging to the various noble families.
It was as if they were all afraid of being lumped together with a family with standing lower than theirs.
The smaller noble families only brought, or rather, were allowed to bring just one or at most two simple carriages, and a limit of ten to fifteen men as their guards, while the bigger ones, such as the Houses Redwyne, Florents, and Tarly, had at least five carriages, and about fifty men in their group which didn't even include the cooks, soldiers, maids, stable hands, squire, and all other kinds of servants.
And this wasn't even the limit, as that crown went to the family leading the pack from the middle, who brought almost thrice as much of everything as the next noble family, including hundreds of soldiers, more than a dozen knights, and not to mention the sheer amount of carriages in their cliques.
Carriages that came in all sorts of sizes, from small to large, carrying all kinds of close and distant relatives who all came under the Tyrell umbrella, but the largest and most extravagant carriage stood out from all, with its intricate decoration of gold, gems, and made wholly out of wood the colour of rose, and was being pulled by about half dozen white horses.
It was the very epitome of wealth.
And only House Tyrell, with its immense resources and with its innate need to let the world know that they were the rightful Lord Paramounts of the Reach, that they were the second richest family in Westeros, would go to such lengths to show off.
Perhaps even the Westerlands might not be able to pull up such a grand parade as not to mention the disgust that Lord Tywin would feel in putting on this kind of show for those he considered his lesser; he would also never allow his vessels to put on such a display of power in front of the commoners.
At this moment, inside the grand carriage, a lively discussion was underway between half a dozen noble women, each wearing dresses so expensive that they could feed a village with them for a year.
But just as someone was explaining(bragging) about the intricate details on the latest dress that her husband had brought for her from an Essosi merchant who 'exclusively' sold to them, a sharp voice abruptly cut through her words.
"Enough of you chattering." Every noblewoman sitting there flinched and turned to the old women sitting at the very end, looking at them with irritation in her eyes, "You have given me a headache with all your constant squawking," she snorted before waving her hand dismissively, "Go on. Get out of my sight. Go help your good-for-nothing husbands look good or something,"
The noble women were all stunned for a few moments before someone sitting at the other end took the lead, and they all began to slowly exit the carriage one by one, all while muttering under their breaths that she was being very unreasonable and not acting like a noble by kicking them out so abruptly.
But they only dared to voice their displeasure in low, inaudible voices as they knew very well the temper of the Tyrell Matriarch, who wouldn't care too much about their standing and would reprimand them openly in front of everyone if they dared to offend her.
"You are the one who asked mother to call for them, Grandmother," a pleasant voice said as the carriage emptied except for the two of them, "So is it not wrong now to kick them out so rudely?"
"What's so rude about it?" Olenna replied with a scoff, as she picked up a piece of cheese from the plate in front of her, "I called them in because I was hoping to glean some useful information out of their loose mouths, not to listen to their incessant chatter. Their naggings about whose dress was more expensive and whose family had more connections were tiring on the ears. So why would I bother listening to them for any longer than necessary?"
Margery helplessly shook her head at that, as the girl knew that it would be easier to make a Maester renounce his vows and marry than to force her grandmother to be polite with anyone.
"But you are wrong about them being completely useless, Grandmother," Margery said with an small smile on her face, "After all, we didn't know before this meeting that there had been a fight between the King and the Queen, and that Queen Cersei has already rejected Robin Arryn and Robb Stark for her daughter, after Robert Baratheon suggested this match to her."
Of course, the woman who was the source of this information had only mentioned this in passing, saying it was a small anecdote that her cousin, whose family lived in Stormlands and who served as a Baratheon guard, had written to her in a letter.
"And that piece of news was the only reason I tolerated the lot for so long. Otherwise, I would have kicked them out long ago," Olenna shook her head with a dismissive expression on her face, "But this news doesn't matter much to us, because our focus on this trip is neither the Baratheons nor the Lannisters. You remember that right?" she asked while looking meaningfully at her grandaughter, whose beauty had completely blossomed over the past two years and now looked so mesmerising that everyone who saw her compared her with the Queen.
"I remember Grandmother." The girl nodded calmly, "The task is not a difficult one for me. After all, I was already very fond of him when we met him during the time he saved cousin Tara from the Ironborn. So it should be easy to reestablish our connection when we meet and go from there."
"Good." The old woman said as she leaned back, looking a little relieved, "You, girl, are the only one in our family that I can rely on without worry, because if it were left to your father, then our family would have already—"
"But Grandmother, I still don't understand," The girl interrupted before her Grandmother could go on a tangent while complaining about her father, "Why him? Why Jon Snow?"
It's not that the girl was averse to the idea of Jon Snow; in fact, it was the opposite, as the young maiden even held a faint anticipation in her heart towards the boy, as he was not only handsome and a great warrior, but was also capable enough that he had established a massive shipping company at such a young age.
And all these qualities brought him straight to the top of her list of potential suitors, not to mention that his cunning was more than a match for her, someone who had learned at her grandmother's lap from a young age.
And most importantly, he was actually not afraid of her intelligence, and she hadn't even needed to pretend to be a demure little girl in front of him in the short few interactions they shared during his visit.
His feats were so absurd for his age that it even forced the King and his people to overlook his parentage and reward him with a knighthood with such fanfare.
So all in all, even if one were to nitpick, they would be hard-pressed to say something bad about him.
But even then, none of these achievements should have been enough for her grandmother to even think about forging a connection between him and her family, using her.
Not to mention the fact that her Grandmother was essentially telling her to sacrifice this rare chance for her to interact with the Royal progeny, and focus on Jon instead, basically letting go of her ambition to marry their family into the royal family.
And while her grandmother hadn't told her outright to seduce him yet, the girl could read between the lines and understood that the old Matriarch was telling her to set a foundation between the two of them, so that it could be used in the future when the time came.
And all this confused the girl very much, so she finally decided to ask her directly, but...
"You will understand everything later," Olenna answered evasively, while patting the back of her granddaughter's hand, with a somewhat distant look in her eyes, as if she was looking at something far away, "Just trust in your Grandmother girl, and know that she wouldn't let you be wronged."
///