MARGAERY: The Reach is aptly named.
We're the ones who give your hands something to do at the table.
As the most fertile region of the Seven Kingdoms,
we grow the lion's share of the grains and fruit that feed this country.
Especially now, since the rebels have burned down the other fields.
Thankfully, House Tyrell is here to do its duty to the Crown
and keep the capital from starvation.
Yet, as with all gardens, weeds grow in the Reach, too,
though few name them as such.
Singers fill our heads with chivalry and courtly love,
fluff to make boys fight and girls swoon.
Oh, the songs are good enough for a pleasure barge down the Mander.
They give pleasure to the common people and harmony to the realm.
But if the rise of House Tyrell proves anything,
it's that virtue and honor have their place.
And if you're not careful, that place is the grave.
Unlike the Lannisters, Starks and Arryns,
we were never kings in our own right.
House Gardener ruled the Reach since the Dawn Age.
And we were their stewards.
While they warred to enrich their already rich domain,
we managed their castle of Highgarden.
But then Aegon Targaryen landed with his dragons.
Nobody knows why the Gardener king took the field against him.
Anyone could see that a man who grows flowers
should beware a man who grows fire-breathing monsters.
But maybe it wasn't wholly his idea.
Maybe someone whispered in his ear about all the face he'd lose
with the other six kings if he stayed home.
The rest is history.
The last Gardener king lost his face.
Along with this body.
And his steward, Harlen Tyrell, promptly yielded Highgarden to Aegon.
My grandmother swears that Harlen was like most of our men
and grew up banging steel together too loudly for thought to penetrate.
But, luckily, his wife had better sense.
Whatever the case, in return for Harlen's show of sense,
Aegon proclaimed House Tyrell the Lords of the Reach
and Wardens of the South,
passing over all the other houses with better claims.
House Hightower, who were kings before the Andals came,
their seat is the oldest city in Westeros.
They call it Oldtown.
Wealthy, proud and solitary,
there have been Hightowers
who wouldn't come down from their great lighthouse for decades.
Its name, fittingly, is the Hightower.
House Florent, who had actual blood ties to the Gardeners,
they whinge about their ancient rights to Highgarden every once in a while,
and now that their daughter is married to Stannis Baratheon,
about their rights to all of Westeros, too.
Apparently, putting a fox on your banners doesn't impart a fox's wiles.
House Tarly, who still gives the Reach the best soldiers it has,
if Aegon had named them as his lords,
the Reach would have become the greatest military camp in the world.
Until it starved to death.
The price for conscripting all the farmers.
Yet Aegon chose us.
Centuries later, when his descendant, Aerys, faced rebellion,
the Reach stayed loyal.
Mostly.
My father, Mace, dealt Robert his only defeat in the war.
Even if it was my father's vanguard who did most of the fighting before he arrived.
After the Battle of Ashford, we laid siege to Storm's End, Robert's home.
Unfortunately, the war ended before we could take it
and free up our armies to go save the king.
The new king, Robert, had a forgiving nature.
Our crimes were brushed aside without even one execution for the sake of formality.
Our family was surprised.
Until Robert's new Hand, Jon Arryn, came by with the bill.
The Reach is second only to the Westerlands in wealth.
And Robert meant to spend as much of it as he could get his hands on.
We gave him the coins he wanted.
And later, when he wanted our grain, or fruit, or wine,
he gave them back at whatever price we set.
Now much of Westeros is ashes.
The rest of it is armies.
As the Starks are fond of saying, "Winter is coming."
And for leagues outside the capital, there isn't a harvest to be seen.
Have no fear. The Reach is, as always, bountiful.
House Tyrell will manage the harvest
and keep the Seven Kingdoms from starvation,
like the good stewards we once were.
Just ask House Gardener.