Fire & Blood

A Time of Testing—The Realm Remade

King Jaehaerys I Targaryen returned to King’s Landing alone, on the wings of his dragon, Vermithor. Five knights of his Kingsguard had come before him, arriving three days earlier to ascertain that all was in readiness for the king’s arrival. Queen Alysanne did not accompany him. Given the uncertainty that surrounded their marriage and the fraught nature of the king’s relationship with his mother, Queen Alyssa, and the lords of the council, it was thought prudent that she remain on Dragonstone for a time, with her Wise Women and the rest of the Kingsguard.

The day was not an auspicious one, Grand Maester Benifer tells us. The skies were grey, and a persistent drizzle had fallen half the morning. Benifer and the rest of the council awaited the king’s coming in the inner yard of the Red Keep, cloaked and hooded against the rain. Elsewhere about the castle, knights and squires and stableboys and washerwomen and scores of other functionaries went about their daily chores, pausing from time to time to glance up at the sky. And when at last the sound of wings was heard, and a guardsman on the eastern walls caught sight of Vermithor’s bronze scales in the distance, there came a cheer that grew and grew and grew, rolling past the Red Keep’s walls, down Aegon’s High Hill, across the city, and well out into the countryside.

Jaehaerys did not land at once. Thrice he swept over the city, each time lower than before, giving every man and boy and barefoot wench in King’s Landing a chance to wave and shout and marvel. Only then did he bring Vermithor down in the yard before Maegor’s Holdfast, where the lords were waiting.

“He had changed since last I saw him,” Benifer records. “The stripling who had flown to Dragonstone was gone, and in his place was a man grown. He was taller than before by several inches, and his chest and arms had filled out. His hair was flowing loose about his shoulders, and a fine golden down covered his cheeks and chin, where before he had been clean-shaved. Eschewing all kingly raiment, he wore salt-stained leathers, garb fit for hunting or riding, with only a studded jack to protect him. But on his swordbelt, he bore Blackfyre…his grandsire’s sword, the sword of kings. Even sheathed, the blade could be mistaken for no other. A shiver of fear went through me when I saw that sword. Is there a warning there? I wondered, as the dragon settled to the ground, smoke rising from between his teeth. I had fled to Pentos when Maegor died, frightened of what fate awaited me under his successors, and for an instant as I stood there in the damp I wondered whether I had been a fool to return.”

The young king—a boy no longer—soon dispelled his Grand Maester’s fear. As he slid gracefully from Vermithor’s back, he smiled. “It was as if the sun had broken through the clouds,” reported Lord Tully. The lords bowed before him, several going to their knees. Across the city, bells began to ring in celebration. Jaehaerys pulled off his gloves and tucked them into his belt, then said, “My lords. We have work to do.”

One luminary had not been present in the yard to greet the king: his mother, Queen Alyssa. It fell to Jaehaerys to seek her out in Maegor’s Holdfast, where she had secluded herself. What passed between mother and son when they came face-to-face for the first time since the confrontation on Dragonstone no man can say, but we are told that the queen’s face was red and puffy from weeping when she appeared a short time later on the king’s arm. The Dowager Queen, a regent no more, was present for the welcoming feast that evening, and at numerous other court functions in the days beyond that, but no longer did she have a seat at council sessions. “Her Grace continued to do her duty by the realm and her son,” Grand Maester Benifer wrote, “but there was no joy in her.”

The young king began his realm by remaking the council, keeping some men and replacing others who had proved unequal to their tasks. He confirmed his mother’s appointment of Lord Daemon Velaryon as Hand of the King, and retained Lord Corbray as the Commander of the City Watch. Lord Tully was thanked for his service, reunited with his wife, Lady Lucinda, and sent home to Riverrun. To replace him as master of laws, Jaehaerys named Albin Massey, Lord of Stonedance, who had been amongst the first men to seek him out on Dragonstone. Massey had been forging a maester’s chain at the Citadel only three years earlier, when a fever had carried off both his older brothers and his lord father. A twisted spine condemned him to walk with a limp, but as he said famously, “I do not limp when I read, nor when I write.” For lord admiral and master of ships, His Grace turned to Manfryd Redwyne, Lord of the Arbor, who came to court with his young sons Robert, Rickard, and Ryam, squires all. It marked the first time the admiralty had gone to any man not of House Velaryon.

All King’s Landing rejoiced when it was announced that Jaehaerys had also dismissed Edwell Celtigar as master of coin. The king spoke to him gently, it was said, and even praised the leal service of his daughters to Queen Alysanne on Dragonstone, going so far as to name them “two treasures.” The daughters would remain with the queen thereafter, but Lord Celtigar himself left for Claw Isle at once. And with him went his taxes, every one of them struck down by royal decree three days into the young king’s rule.

Finding a suitable man to take Lord Edwell’s place as master of coin proved to be no easy task. Several of his advisors urged King Jaehaerys to appoint Lyman Lannister, supposedly the richest lord in Westeros, but Jaehaerys was disinclined. “Unless Lord Lyman can find a mountain of gold under the Red Keep, I do not know that he has the answer we require,” His Grace said. He looked longer at certain cousins and uncles of Donnel Hightower, for the wealth of Oldtown derived from trade rather than the ground, but the uncertain loyalties of Donnel the Delayer when faced with Septon Moon gave him pause. In the end Jaehaerys made a far bolder choice, reaching across the narrow sea for his man.

No lord, no knight, not even a magister, Rego Draz was a merchant, trader, and money-changer who had risen from nothing to become the richest man in Pentos, only to find himself shunned by his fellow Pentoshi and denied a seat in the council of magisters because of his low birth. Sick of their scorn, Draz gladly answered the king’s call, moving his family, friends, and vast fortune to Westeros. To grant him equal honor with the other members of the council, the young king named him a lord. As he was a lord without lands, sworn men, or a castle, however, some wit about the castle dubbed him “the Lord of Air.” The Pentoshi was amused. “If I could tax air, I would be a lord indeed.”

Jaehaerys also sent off Septon Mattheus, that fat and furious prelate who had fulminated so loudly against incestuous unions and the king’s marriage. Mattheus did not take his dismissal well. “The Faith will look askance at any king who thinks to rule without a septon by his side,” he announced. Jaehaerys had a ready answer. “We shall have no lack of septons. Septon Oswyck and Septa Ysabel will remain with us, and there is a young man coming from Highgarden to see to our library. His name is Barth.” Mattheus was dismissive, declaring that Oswyck was a doddering fool and Ysabel a woman, whilst he had no knowledge of Septon Barth. “Nor of many other things,” the king replied. (Lord Massey’s famous remark, that the king required three persons to replace Septon Mattheus in order to balance the scales, was likely uttered shortly after, assuming it was uttered at all.)

Mattheus departed four days later for Oldtown. Too corpulent to sit a horse, he traveled in a gilded wheelhouse, attended by six guardsmen and a dozen servants. Legend tells us that whilst crossing the Mander at Bitterbridge, he passed Septon Barth coming in the other direction. Barth was alone, riding on a donkey.

The young king’s changes went well beyond the nobles who sat upon his council. He made a clean sweep of dozens of lesser offices as well, replacing the Keeper of the Keys, the chief steward of the Red Keep and all his understewards, the harbormaster of King’s Landing (and in time, the harbormasters of Oldtown, Maidenpool, and Duskendale as well), the Warden of the King’s Mint, the King’s Justice, the master-at-arms, kennelmaster, master of horse, and even the castle ratcatchers. He further commanded that the dungeons beneath the Red Keep be cleaned and emptied out, and that all the prisoners found in the black cells be brought up into the sun, bathed, and allowed to make appeal. Some, he feared, might well be innocent men imprisoned by his uncle (in this Jaehaerys proved sadly correct, though many of those captives had gone quite mad during their years in darkness, and could not be released).

Only when all this had been done to his satisfaction and his new men were in place did Jaehaerys instruct Grand Maester Benifer to dispatch a raven to Storm’s End, summoning Lord Rogar Baratheon back to the city.

The arrival of the king’s letter set Lord Rogar and his brothers at odds. Ser Borys, oft considered the most volatile and belligerent of the Baratheons, proved the calmest in this instance. “The boy will have your head if you do as he bids,” he said. “Go to the Wall. The Night’s Watch will take you.” Garon and Ronnal, the younger brothers, urged defiance instead. Storm’s End was strong as any castle in the realm. If Jaehaerys meant to have his head, let him come and take it, they said. Lord Rogar only laughed at that. “Strong?” he said. “Harrenhal was strong. No. I will see Jaehaerys first and explain myself. I can take the black then if I choose, he will not deny me that.” The next morning, he set off for King’s Landing, accompanied only by six of his oldest knights, men who had known him since childhood.

The king received him seated on the Iron Throne with his crown upon his head. The lords of his council were present, and Ser Joffrey Doggett and Ser Lorence Roxton of the Kingsguard stood at the base of the throne in their white cloaks and enameled scale. Elsewise the throne room was empty. Lord Rogar’s footsteps echoed as he made the long walk from the doors to the throne, Grand Maester Benifer tells us. “His lordship’s pride was well-known to the king,” he wrote. “His Grace had no wish to wound him further by forcing him to humble himself before the entire court.”

Humble himself he did, however. The Lord of Storm’s End fell to one knee, bowed his head, and laid his sword at the base of the throne. “Your Grace,” he began, “I am here as you commanded. Do as you will with me. I ask only that you spare my brothers and House Baratheon. All that I did, I did—”

“—for the good of the realm as you saw it.” Jaehaerys raised a hand to silence Lord Rogar before he could say further. “I know what you did, and what you said, and what you planned. I believe you when you say you meant no harm to my person or to my queen…and you are not wrong, I would make a splendid maester. But I hope to make an even better king. Some men say that we are now enemies. I would sooner think of us as friends who disagreed. When my mother came to you seeking refuge, you took us in, at great risk to yourself. You could have easily clapped us in chains and made a gift of us to my uncle. Instead you swore your sword to me and called your banners. I have not forgotten.

“Words are wind,” Jaehaerys went on. “Your lordship…my dear friend…spoke of treason, but committed none. You wished to undo my marriage, but you could not do so. You suggested placing Princess Aerea upon the Iron Throne in my place, but here I sit. You did send your brother to remove my niece Rhaella from her motherhouse, true…but for what purpose? Perhaps you only wished to have her for a ward, lacking any child of your own.

“Treasonous actions deserve punishment. Foolish words are another matter. If you truly desire to go to the Wall, I will not stop you. The Night’s Watch needs men as strong as you. But I would sooner you remain here, in my service. I would not sit upon this throne if not for you, all the realm knows that. And I still have need of you. The realm has need of you. When the Dragon died and my father donned the crown, he was beset on all sides by would-be kings and rebel lords. The same may befall me, and for the same reason…to test my resolve, my will, my strength. My mother believes that godly men throughout the realm will rise against me when my marriage is made known. Mayhaps so. To meet these tests, I need good men around me, warriors willing to fight for me, to die for me…and for my queen, if need be. Are you such a man?”

Lord Rogar, thunderstruck at the king’s words, looked up and said, “I am, Your Grace,” in a voice thick with emotion.

“Then I pardon your offenses,” King Jaehaerys said, “but there will be certain conditions.” His voice grew stern as he listed them. “You will never speak another word against me or my queen. From this day forth, you shall be her loudest champion and suffer no word to be spoken against her in your presence. Furthermore, I cannot and will not suffer my mother to be disrespected. She will return with you to Storm’s End, where you will live as husband and wife once again. In word and deed you will show her only honor and courtesy. Can you abide by these conditions?”

“Gladly,” said Lord Rogar. “Might I ask…what of Orryn?”

That gave the king pause. “I shall command Lord Hightower to free your brother Ser Orryn and the men who went with him to Oldtown,” Jaehaerys said, “but I cannot allow them to go unpunished. The Wall is forever, so instead I will sentence them to ten years of exile. They can sell their swords in the Disputed Lands, or sail to Qarth to make their fortunes, it matters not to me…if they survive, and commit no further crimes, in ten years’ time they can come home. Are we agreed?”

“We are,” Lord Rogar responded. “Your Grace is more than just.” Then he asked if the king would require hostages of him, as a surety of his future loyalty. Three of his brothers had young children who could be sent to court, he pointed out.

In answer, King Jaehaerys descended the Iron Throne and bade Lord Rogar follow him. He led his lordship from the hall to the inner ward where Vermithor was being fed. A bull had been slaughtered for his morning meal and lay upon the stones charred and smoking, for dragons always burn their meat before consuming it. Vermithor was feasting on the flesh, tearing loose great chunks of meat with each bite, but when the king approached with Lord Rogar, the dragon raised his head and gazed at them with eyes like pools of molten bronze. “He grows larger every day,” Jaehaerys said as he scratched the great wyrm under his jaw. “Keep your nieces and your nephews, my lord. Why would I need hostages? I have your word, that is all that I require.” But Grand Maester Benifer heard the words he did not speak. “Every man and maid and child in the stormlands is my hostage, whilst I ride him, His Grace said without saying,” wrote Benifer, “and Lord Rogar heard him plain.”

Thus was the peace made between the young king and his former Hand, and sealed that night by a feast in the great hall, where Lord Rogar sat beside Queen Alyssa, man and wife once more, and raised a toast to the health of Queen Alysanne, pledging her his love and loyalty before all the assembled lords and ladies. Four days later, when Lord Rogar departed to return to Storm’s End, Queen Alyssa went with him, escorted by Ser Pate the Woodcock and a hundred men-at-arms to see them safe through the kingswood.[5]

In King’s Landing, the long reign of Jaehaerys I Targaryen began in earnest. The young king faced a score of problems when he assumed the rule of the Seven Kingdoms, but two loomed larger than all the rest: the treasury was empty and the Crown’s debt was mounting, and his “secret” marriage, which grew less secret with every passing day, sat like a jar of wildfire on a hearth, waiting to explode. Both questions needed to be dealt with, and quickly.

The immediate need for gold was resolved by Rego Draz, the new master of coin, who reached out to the Iron Bank of Braavos and its rivals in Tyrosh and Myr to arrange not one but three substantial loans. By playing each bank against the others, the Lord of Air negotiated as favorable terms as might be hoped for. The securing of the loans had one immediate effect; work on the Dragonpit was able to resume, and once again a small army of builders and stonemasons swarmed over the Hill of Rhaenys.

Lord Rego and his king both realized that the loans were a stopgap measure at best, however; they might slow the bleeding but they would not stanch the wound. Only taxes could accomplish that. Lord Celtigar’s taxes would not serve; Jaehaerys had no interest in raising port fees or bleeding innkeeps. Nor would he simply demand gold from the lords of the realm, as Maegor had. Too much of that, and the lords would rise up. “Nothing is so costly as putting down rebellions,” the king declared. The lords would pay, but of their own free will; he would tax the things they wanted, fine and costly things from across the sea. Silk would be taxed, and samite; cloth-of-gold and cloth-of-silver; gemstones; Myrish lace and Myrish tapestries; Dornish wines (but not wines from the Arbor); Dornish sand steeds; gilded helms and filigreed armor from the craftsmen of Tyrosh, Lys, and Pentos. Spices would be taxed heaviest of all; peppercorns, cloves, saffron, nutmeg, cinnamon, and all the other rare seasonings from beyond the Jade Gates, already more costly than gold, would become still costlier. “We are taxing all the things that made me rich,” Lord Rego japed.

“No man can claim to be oppressed by these taxes,” Jaehaerys explained to the small council. “To avoid them, a man need only forgo his pepper, his silk, his pearls, and he need not pay a groat. The men who want these things desire them desperately, however. How else to flaunt their power and show the world what wealthy men they are? They may squawk, but they will pay.”

The spice and silk taxes were not the end of it. King Jaehaerys also brought forth a new law on crenellations. Any lord who wished to build a new castle or expand and repair his existing seat would need to pay a hefty price for the privilege. The new tax served a dual purpose, His Grace explained to Grand Maester Benifer. “The larger and stronger a castle, the more its lord is tempted to defy me. You would think they might learn from Black Harren, but too many do not know their history. This tax will discourage them from building, whilst those who must build regardless can replenish our treasury whilst they empty theirs.”

Having done what he could to repair the Crown’s finances, His Grace turned his attention to the other great matter awaiting him. At long last, he sent for his queen. Alysanne Targaryen and her dragon, Silverwing, departed Dragonstone within an hour of his summons, after having been apart from the king for nigh on half a year. The rest of her household followed by ship. By this time, even blind beggars in the alleys of Flea Bottom knew that Alysanne and Jaehaerys had been wed, but for the sake of propriety the king and queen slept separately for a moon’s turn, whilst preparations were made for their second wedding.

The king was not disposed to spend coin he did not have on another Golden Wedding, as splendid and popular as that event had been. Forty thousand had witnessed his mother marry Lord Rogar. A thousand came together in the Red Keep to see Jaehaerys take his sister Alysanne to wife again. This time it was Septon Barth who pronounced them man and wife, beneath the Iron Throne.

Lord Rogar Baratheon and the Dowager Queen Alyssa were amongst those standing witness this time. Together with his lordship’s brothers Garon and Ronnal, they had made their way back from Storm’s End to attend the ceremony. But it was another wedding guest who excited the most talk: the Queen in the West had come as well. Borne on the wings of Dreamfyre, Rhaena Targaryen had flown in to see her siblings wed…and to visit her daughter Aerea.

Bells rang throughout the city as the rites were concluded, and a flight of ravens took wing to every corner of the realm to proclaim “this happy union.” The king’s second wedding differed from his first in one other crucial respect; it was followed by a bedding. Queen Alysanne, in later years, would declare that this was at her insistence; she was ready to lose her maidenhead, and she wanted no more questions as to whether she were “truly” married. Lord Rogar himself, roaring drunk, led the men who disrobed her and carried her to the bridal bed, whilst the queen’s companions Jennis Templeton, Rosamund Ball, and Prudence and Prunella Celtigar were amongst those who did the honors for the king. There, upon a canopied bed in Maegor’s Holdfast in the Red Keep of King’s Landing, the marriage of Jaehaerys Targaryen and his sister Alysanne was consummated at long last, sealing their union for all time before the eyes of gods and men.

With secrecy finally at an end, the king and his court waited to see how the realm would respond. Jaehaerys had concluded that the violent opposition that had greeted his brother Aegon’s marriage had several causes. Their uncle Maegor’s taking of a second wife in 39 AC, in defiance of both the High Septon and his own brother, King Aenys, had shattered the delicate understanding between the Iron Throne and the Starry Sept, so the marriage of Aegon and Rhaena had been seen as a further outrage. The denunciation thus provoked had lit a fire across the land, and the Swords and Stars had taken up the torches, along with a score of pious lords who feared the gods more than their king. Prince Aegon and Princess Rhaena had been little known amongst the smallfolk, and they had begun their progress without dragons (in large part because Aegon was not yet a dragonrider), which left them vulnerable to the mobs that sprung up to attack them in the riverlands.

None of these conditions applied to Jaehaerys and Alysanne. There would be no denunciation from the Starry Sept; whilst some amongst the Most Devout still bristled at the Targaryen tradition of sibling marriage, the present High Septon, Septon Moon’s “High Lickspittle,” was complaisant and cautious, not inclined to wake sleeping dragons. The Swords and Stars had been broken and outlawed; only at the Wall, where two thousand former Poor Fellows now wore the black cloaks of the Night’s Watch, did they have sufficient numbers to be troublesome, were they so inclined. And King Jaehaerys was not about to repeat his brother’s mistake. He and his queen meant to see the land they ruled, to learn its needs firsthand, to meet his lords and take their measure, to let themselves be seen by the smallfolk, and to hear their griefs in turn…but wherever they went, it would be with their dragons.

For all these reasons, Jaehaerys believed that the realm would accept his marriage…but he was not a man to trust in chance. “Words are wind,” he told his council, “but wind can fan a fire. My father and my uncle fought words with steel and flame. We shall fight words with words, and put out the fires before they start.” And so saying, His Grace sent forth not knights and men-at-arms, but preachers. “Tell every man you meet of Alysanne’s kindness, her sweet and gentle nature, and her love for all the people of our kingdom, great and small,” the king charged them.

Seven went forth at his command; three men and four women. In place of swords and axes, they were armed only with their wits, their courage, and their tongues. Many a tale would be told of their travels, and their exploits would become legends (growing vastly larger in the process, as is the way of legends). Only one of the seven speakers was known to the common folks of the realm when they set out: no less a person than Queen Elinor herself, the Black Bride who had found Maegor dead upon the Iron Throne. Clad in her queenly raiment, which grew shabbier and more threadbare by the day, Elinor of House Costayne would travel the Reach giving eloquent testimony to the evil of her late king and the goodness of his successors. In later years, giving up all claims to nobility, she would join the Faith, rising eventually to become Mother Elinor at the great motherhouse in Lannisport.

The names of the other six who went forth to speak for Jaehaerys would in time become nigh as famous as the queen’s. Three were young septons; cunning Septon Baldrick, learned Septon Rollo, and fierce old Septon Alfyn, who had lost his legs years before and was carried everywhere in a litter. The women the young king chose were no less extraordinary. Septa Ysabel had been won over by Queen Alysanne whilst serving her on Dragonstone. Diminutive Septa Violante was renowned for her skills as a healer. Everywhere she went, it was said, she performed miracles. From the Vale came Mother Maris, who had taught generations of orphan girls at a motherhouse on an island in Gulltown’s harbor.

In their travels throughout the realm, the Seven Speakers talked of Queen Alysanne, her piety, her generosity, and her love for the king, her brother…but for those septons, begging brothers, and pious knights and lords who challenged them by citing passages from The Seven-Pointed Star or the sermons of High Septons past, they had a ready answer, one that Jaehaerys himself had crafted in King’s Landing, ably assisted by Septon Oswyck and (especially) Septon Barth. In later years, the Citadel and the Starry Sept alike would call it the Doctrine of Exceptionalism.

Its basic tenet was simple. The Faith of the Seven had been born in the hills of Andalos of old, and had crossed the narrow sea with the Andals. The laws of the Seven, as laid down in sacred text and taught by the septas and septons in obedience to the Father of the Faithful, decreed that brother might not lie with sister, nor father with daughter, nor mother with son, that the fruits of such unions were abominations, loathsome in the eyes of the gods. All this the Exceptionalists affirmed, but with this caveat: the Targaryens were different. Their roots were not in Andalos, but in Valyria of old, where different laws and traditions held sway. A man had only to look at them to know that they were not like other men; their eyes, their hair, their very bearing, all proclaimed their differences. And they flew dragons. They alone of all the men in the world had been given the power to tame those fearsome beasts, once the Doom had come to Valyria.

“One god made us all, Andals and Valyrians and First Men,” Septon Alfyn would proclaim from his litter, “but he did not make us all alike. He made the lion and the aurochs as well, both noble beasts, but certain gifts he gave to one and not the other, and the lion cannot live as an aurochs, nor an aurochs as a lion. For you to bed your sister would be a grievous sin, ser…but you are not the blood of the dragon, no more than I am. What they do is what they have always done, and it is not for us to judge them.”

Legend tells us that in one small village, the quick-witted Septon Baldrick was confronted by a burly hedge knight, once a Poor Fellow, who said, “Aye, and if I want to fuck my sister too, do I have your leave?” The septon smiled and replied, “Go to Dragonstone and claim a dragon. If you can do that, ser, I will marry you and your sister myself.”

Here is a quandary every student of history must face. When looking back upon the things that happened in years past, we can say, this and this and this were the causes of what occurred. When looking back on things that did not happen, however, we have only surmise. We know the realm did not rise up against King Jaehaerys and Queen Alysanne in 51 AC as it had against Aegon and Rhaena ten years earlier. The why of it is a good deal less certain. The High Septon’s silence spoke loudly, no doubt, and the lords and common folk alike were weary of war…but if words have power, wind or no, surely the Seven Speakers played a part as well.

Though the king was happy in his queen, and the realm happy with their marriage, Jaehaerys had not been wrong when he foresaw that he would face a time of testing. Having remade the council, reconciled Lord Rogar and Queen Alyssa, and imposed new taxes to restore the Crown’s coffers, he was faced with what would prove to be his thorniest problem yet: his sister Rhaena.

Since taking her leave of Lyman Lannister and Casterly Rock, Rhaena Targaryen and her traveling court had made their own royal progress of sorts, visiting the Marbrands of Ashemark, the Reynes of Castamere, the Leffords at the Golden Tooth, the Vances at Wayfarer’s Rest, and finally the Pipers of Pinkmaiden. No matter where she turned, the same problems arose. “They are all warm at first,” she told her brother, when she met with him after his wedding, “but it does not last. Either I am unwelcome or too welcome. They murmur of the cost of keeping me and mine, but it is Dreamfyre who excites them. Some fear her, more want her, and it is those who trouble me most. They lust for dragons of their own. That I will not give them, but where am I to go?”

“Here,” the king suggested. “Return to court.”

“And live forever in your shadow? I need a seat of my own. A place where no lord may threaten me, banish me, or trouble those I have taken under my protection. I need lands, men, a castle.”

“We can find you lands,” the king said, “build you a castle.”

“All the lands are taken, all the castles occupied,” Rhaena replied, “but there is one I have a claim to…a better claim than your own, brother. I am the blood of the dragon. I want my father’s seat, the place where I was born. I want Dragonstone.”

To that King Jaehaerys had no answer, promising only to take the matter under consideration. His council, when the question was put to them, were united in their opposition to ceding the ancestral seat of House Targaryen to the widowed queen, but none had any better solution to offer.

After reflecting on the matter, His Grace met with his sister again. “I will grant you Dragonstone as your seat,” he told her, “for there is no place more fitting for the blood of the dragon. But you shall hold the island and the castle by my gift, not by right. Our grandsire made seven kingdoms into one with fire and blood, I cannot and will not make them two by carving you off a separate kingdom of your own. You are a queen by courtesy, but I am king, and my writ runs from Oldtown to the Wall…and on Dragonstone as well. Are we of one mind on this, sister?”

“Are you so uncertain of that iron seat that you must needs have your own blood bend the knee to you, brother?” Rhaena threw back at him. “So be it. Give me Dragonstone and one thing more, and I shall trouble you no further.”

“One thing more?” Jaehaerys asked.

“Aerea. I want my daughter restored to me.”

“Done,” the king said…mayhaps too hastily, for it must be remembered that Aerea Targaryen, a girl of eight, was his own acknowledged successor, heir apparent to the Iron Throne. The consequences of this decision would not be known for years to come, however. For the nonce it was done, and the Queen in the West at a stroke became the Queen in the East.

The year continued without further crisis or test as Jaehaerys and Alysanne settled in to rule. If certain members of the small council were taken aback when the queen began to attend their meetings, they voiced their objections only to one another…and soon not even that, for the young queen proved to be wise, well-read, and clever, a welcome voice in any discussion.

Alysanne Targaryen had happy memories of her childhood before her uncle Maegor seized the crown. During the reign of her father, Aenys, her mother, Queen Alyssa, had made the court a splendid place, filled with song, spectacle, and beauty. Musicians, mummers, and bards competed for her favor and that of the king. Wines from the Arbor flowed like water at their feasts, the halls and yards of Dragonstone rang with laughter, and the women of the court dazzled in pearls and diamonds. Maegor’s court had been a grim, dark place, and the regency had offered little change, for the memories of King Aenys’s time were painful to his widow, whilst Lord Rogar was of a martial temperament and once declared mummers to be of less use than monkeys, for “they both prance about, tumble, caper, and squeal, but if a man is hungry enough, he can eat a monkey.”

Queen Alysanne looked back on the short-lived glories of her father’s court fondly, however, and made it her purpose to make the Red Keep glitter as it never had before, buying tapestries and carpets from Free Cities and commissioning murals, statuary, and tilework to decorate the castle’s halls and chambers. At her command, men from the City Watch combed Flea Bottom until they found Tom the Strummer, whose mocking songs had amused king and commons alike during the War for the White Cloaks. Alysanne made him the court singer, the first of many who would hold that office in the decades to come. She brought in a harpist from Oldtown, a company of mummers from Braavos, dancers from Lys, and gave the Red Keep its first fool, a fat man called the Goodwife who dressed as a woman and was never seen without his wooden “children,” a pair of cleverly carved puppets who said ribald, shocking things.

All this pleased King Jaehaerys, but none of it pleased him half so much as the gift that Queen Alysanne gave him several moons later, when she told him she was with child.