Her initial reaction was to bristle at the implied insult cast at her betrothed. The Westermen's snipes did not hurt her--they were just green-landers, after all, and she was Ironborn. Their words were like a poison to which she had built an immunity, but disrespect toward Lucion angered her. It wasn't in Maryen's nature to question why he had won her loyalty or whether he deserved it, just to act upon it. Her camaraderie with the Lord of the Golden Tooth waned, though not wholly.

Her countenance darkened and her fingers tightened on the stem of her glass, but she waited for Lefford to finish his tale. While he spoke, she called to a servant to fetch her a different vintage, something from the Stormlands if the cellar had it. A scant few vineyards peppered the southernmost portion of the region between the Reach and Dorne, but the storm-men did not tend their grapes with the same devotion as their neighbors, producing metallic, sour wines. Maryen had developed a taste for them ever since some raiders brought half a hundred casks to the Islands from a merchant ship they'd boarded. She wanted a drink to match her mood. For now, she contented herself with the rich red and the olives' bitter saltiness.

Maryen clamped a pit between her front teeth, then spit it into her hand and dropped it on the table. That is how I should treat Lefford's attitude. A temporary annoyance. She replied, "Doubtlessly, a more ferocious man would have sent the courtier off on the first day, if he didn't behead him at the start."

She paused to swallow a mouthful of wine, letting her meaning unfold in his thoughts. Maryen resumed, "Do you know what happens to lone lions? I can't claim to know a lot about the animals--I never paid much mind to the maester's lessons, you see--but their fate must be like other social creatures when separated from their kind: birds, fish, men even...They die." She halted again, the gravity of her words plain in her tone, and the inkling of a threat glittering in her stare. "It has to be a rather stupid lion who would pick a fight with his pride over their petty snarls, wouldn't you agree? Especially if they were just growling on the eve of the hunt, too hasty to stalk within striking range of their prey, ready to fight amongst themselves and go hungry. Lucion, the King, is not a stupid man." A smile broke onto her face; it did not diminish her features' harshness, but rather sharpened it. Her voice, however, reclaimed a portion of its former friendliness. "And neither are you, I think. I'd bid you remember it well, Lord Gerold."