Margot
Lady Rowan
Laura Prepon
Laura Prepon as Margot Rowan
Name: Margot Rowan
Aliases: None yet
Faction: The Reach
Organization: House Rowan
Occupation: Lady of Goldengrove
Rank: Noble Lady
Age: Oct 10 92 (30)

Lady Margot Rowan passed away in the fifth month of the year 124 AL, of complications following the birth of her daughter Julia.

Description

The promise of Lady Margot Rowan's beauty has in these last years come into full flower. One might say she has gained much whilst yielding nothing.

Her complexion is fair and flawless, showing only the faintest signs of the passage of time, and only about her pale blue eyes. Her face has a feline quality, lent by her narrow nose, high cheekbones, and finely-pointed chin; evident in every moment is her intelligence, her composure, her maturity, yet when she smiles her cheeks shift into a girlish roundness and show pretty little dimples, and she often wears her lustrous blue-black hair loose about her shoulders and down to her waist as though she were still a maiden.

Her silhouette curves in a sinuous 'S' shape the delight and despair of many a masculine acquaintance, and after bearing two children she has a slight curve to her belly as well as an assortment of others in ripe proportion. Her slender pale throat and her full pale bosom are the most becoming of all accoutrements to her wardrobe of white silk and white linen and ermine-trimmed white woolen gowns, in which rather than merely walking she glides.

She wears simple but perfect jewels: a delicately-wrought and priceless seven-pointed star pendant of diamonds set in white gold, a wedding band to match, perhaps a circlet of white pearls woven through her hair. Her white floral fragrances shift subtly with the changes of the seasons.

Background

The marriage of Lady Alicent Hightower to King Viserys I was a rising tide which lifted a great many boats in the Reach — and one such craft belonged to Lady Margot Hightower, a first cousin to the new queen.

Like many Hightower ladies she found that an advantageous alliance was soon made for her despite her lowish place in that house. For most of the handful of years between the royal marriage and her own she served as lady-in-waiting to her more fortunate cousin in King's Landing; and then at seventeen she was united in matrimony with Ser Antony Rowan, the heir to Goldengrove, whose family was widely regarded as the fourth most important in the Reach. She would all her days be a wealthy woman of title and consequence, without even being obliged to leave the fertile fields and flower-gardens of her home.

Her upbringing and her own nature conduced to the felicitous creation of a young lady who was all she ought to be: courteous, accomplished, faithful, even-tempered, fair of face and form, respectful of the gods but not so far as to spoil other people's fun, and unfailingly kind and charitable to the smallfolk of her new husband's lands. When two years later in 112 AC she presented her husband with their firstborn child, a healthy son and heir for House Rowan, the seal seemed set upon a wholly unexceptionable life.

It wasn't till after the birth and swiftly succeeding death of the young Rowans' second son in 114 AC that anyone beyond their own family circle at Goldengrove had cause to suspect the cracks in their marriage.

The overall volume of the discussions taking place in their private quarters rose dramatically. Accusations passed back and forth. Who'd insisted on that awful old family nurse. Who was an unnatural mother. Who was a disgusting beast. Who was a cold fish. Family and friends began to be prevailed upon, often against their will, to take sides. Lady Margot's brother Ser Gyles Hightower turned from a frequent visitor to a permanent fixture, and is said to have come to fisticuffs with Ser Antony on more than one occasion before being turned out and forbidden to set foot upon Rowan lands.

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At last Lady Margot slipped away like a thief in the night to Highgarden, the home of her sister Lady Bryony — in truth a first cousin two years younger, brought up with Margot and Gyles after her own parents' untimely demise and married for some years to a minor Tyrell lordling who was often absent. It was understood that she was still grieving, that she was out of her senses. The Rowans were prevailed upon to be patient with her. By the time they realised she wasn't coming back, it was too late. Ser Antony's reputation had been blackened amongst his father's overlords; Lady Margot's visit to her dearest friend had taken on the air of a search for asylum; and though pressure was exerted for her return, it never exceeded the opposite pressure she was capable of mustering. The distressed wife of a vassal, a creature so charming, an ornament to every feast and such a help with the children, Lady Margot was always welcome amongst Lady Bryony's kin — the ladies were each a solace and a comfort for the other, at Highgarden, or the Hightower, or during occasional visits to King's Landing — and so the years slipped away.

From 117 AC, their eldest son began to spend a fortnight twice a year at Highgarden, visiting the Tyrells… and his mother. It can hardly be said that Ser Antony was enthused by this prospect, but given the bad odour surrounding House Rowan in those revered halls, and how poorly it would resound to their credit if they kept the boy permanently from his mother in the face of all her tearful entreaties to Lord Tyrell, the agreement was made and kept. Each time the retainers in charge of him would make a point of tearing him away at the crack of dawn on the appointed day; each time he would return to Goldengrove laden down with his mother's extravagant gifts, and with new garments gloriously embroidered by her own fair hands which would hardly even fit him till his next visit, growing like a weed as he was.

The wedding of Prince Dhraegon and Lady Marsei at the end of 122 AC brought many scattered Hightowers to Oldtown to join in the celebrations, among them Lady Margot (for some months since her goodfather's passing, Lady Rowan of Goldengrove), Lady Bryony Tyrell, and the latter's brood of children. They happened to linger through the new year and so were still in the city when news reached them that the heir to House Rowan, the last surviving child of Lady Margot's marriage, was dead in a hunting accident.

What this portends for Lord and Lady Rowan is uncertain.

RP Hooks

  • Intimately connected with the cream of the Reach via her upbringing in Oldtown and her long sojourn in Highgarden.
  • Well-known for her high degree of feminine accomplishment as well as the lamentable state of her marriage.
  • A distributer of largesse to the less fortunate.
  • An enthusiastic amateur gardener.
  • Green not Black.

Quirks

  • Always Wears White

The Hightower colours are white and grey; the Rowan colours are white and gold. With her marriage Lady Margot's jewellery changed from silver to gold, but for many years now her custom has been to wear only pure spotless white, silk or linen in the summer, fine wool and soft fur in the winter, as an expression both of her wealth and of her personal refinement.

  • Beloved By Smallfolk

The lady's own servants find all that white a chore to maintain, admittedly, but they are compensated well enough for their pains — and she not only makes an effort to offer frequent and judicious kindnesses to the smallfolk in her vicinity, but also to remember their names and where and when she has met them before. Her condescension may strike those who know her best as deliberate, even calculated, rather than the tender outpourings of a feminine heart, but there's no denying it goes over well with the populace at large. Her beauty and her nobly-borne unhappiness only sweeten the tableau.

  • Famous: Martyred Wife

It is understood amongst Lady Rowan's friends that the new Lord Rowan is a faithless brute and his lady bore his behaviour toward her as long as she could before seeking sanctuary with her sister. Not that she has ever said so in as many words — not that she is in the habit of relating indiscreet anecdotes — it's more in what she doesn't say, what she can't bring herself to say, the subjects and the persons from which she averts her lovely blue eyes, her known fastidiousness and delicacy of character. Everyone knows Lord Rowan has a temper, whilst Lady Rowan is obviously a perfect lady. Everyone knows Lord Rowan keeps mistresses, whilst Lady Rowan has never looked at another man. There's even a rumour — who knows where it came from? — of his… unreasonable expectations in the bedchamber.

  • Unblemished Reputation

Of course Lady Rowan has a care for the appearance she presents as a wife living apart from her husband. She keeps a septa with her; she travels under her brother's protection; at Highgarden she occupies the chamber next to Lady Bryony's; in Oldtown she resides in the Hightower, her own childhood home. Men admire her, naturally, and yearn to be of service in little ways — she has been known to grant the occasional favour at Highgarden tourneys — but it is understood that the unhappy marriage which lends her situation that extra frisson of romantic appeal constitutes also the barrier which prevents her ever from receiving a fellow's addresses. It must not be. It cannot be.

  • Nearsighted

This is a recent development.

  • Wealth: Opulent

One fortune is not enough to keep up with her spending on gowns and entertainments; so it’s fortunate that, as the lady of one of the Reach's oldest and greatest houses, and a Hightower by birth, she may draw upon two.

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