Fire & Blood

Under the Regents—War and Peace and Cattle Shows

King Aegon III was still a boy, well shy of his thirteenth nameday, but in the days following the death of Ser Tyland Lannister he displayed a maturity beyond his years. Passing over Ser Marston Waters, second in command of the Kingsguard, His Grace bestowed white cloaks upon Ser Robin Massey and Ser Robert Darklyn and made Massey Lord Commander. With Grand Maester Munkun still down in the city tending to victims of the Winter Fever, His Grace turned to his predecessor, instructing the former Grand Maester Orwyle to summon Lord Thaddeus Rowan to the city. “I would have Lord Rowan as my Hand. Ser Tyland thought well enough of him to offer him my sister’s hand in marriage, so I know he can be trusted.” He wanted Baela back at court as well. “Lord Alyn shall be my admiral, as his grandsire was.” Orwyle, mayhaps hopeful of a royal pardon, hurriedly sent the ravens on their way.

King Aegon had acted without consulting his council of regents, however. Only three remained in King’s Landing: Lord Peake, Lord Mooton, and Grand Maester Munkun, who came rushing back inside the Red Keep the moment Ser Robert Darklyn commanded that its gates be opened once again. Manfryd Mooton was bedridden, still recovering his strength after his battle with the fever, and asked that any decisions be postponed until Lady Jeyne Arryn and Lord Royce Caron could be summoned back from the Vale and the Dornish Marches to take part in the deliberations. His colleagues would have none of it, however, Lord Peake insisting that the former regents had given up their places on the council by departing King’s Landing. With the Grand Maester’s support (Munkun would later come to rue his acquiescence), Unwin Peake then set aside all of the king’s appointments and arrangements, on the grounds that no boy of twelve had the judgment to decide such weighty matters himself.

Marston Waters was confirmed as Lord Commander of the Kingsguard, whilst Darklyn and Massey were commanded to surrender their white cloaks, so that Ser Marston might bestow them on knights of his own choosing. Grand Maester Orwyle was returned to his cell, to await execution. So as not to offend Lord Rowan, the regents offered him a place amongst them, and the office of justiciar and master of laws. No similar gesture was made to Alyn Velaryon, but of course there was no question of such a boy of his years, and of such uncertain lineage, serving as lord admiral. The offices of King’s Hand and Protector of the Realm, previously separate, were now combined, and filled by none other than Unwin Peake himself.

Mushroom tells us that King Aegon III reacted to the decisions of his regents with a sullen silence, speaking only once, to protest the dismissal of Massey and Darklyn. “Kingsguard serve for life,” the boy said, to which Lord Peake replied, “Only when they have been properly appointed, Your Grace.” Elsewise, Septon Eustace tells us, the king received the decrees “courteously” and thanked Lord Peake for his wisdom, as “I am still a boy, as your lordship knows, and in want of instruction in these matters.” If his true feelings were otherwise, Aegon did not choose to voice them, but instead retreated back into silence and passivity.

For the remainder of his minority, King Aegon III took little part in the rule of his realm, save for fixing his signature and seal upon such papers as Lord Peake presented him. On certain formal occasions, His Grace would be brought out to sit the Iron Throne or welcome an envoy, but elsewise he was little seen inside the Red Keep, and never beyond its walls.

It behooves us now to pause for a moment and turn our gaze upon Unwin Peake, who would rule the Seven Kingdoms in all but name for the best part of three years, serving as Lord Regent, Protector of the Realm, and Hand of the King.

His house was amongst the oldest in the Reach, its deep roots twisting back to the Age of Heroes and the First Men. Amongst his many illustrious ancestors, his lordship could count such legends as Ser Urrathon the Shieldsmasher, Lord Meryn the Scribe, Lady Yrma of the Golden Bowl, Ser Barquen the Besieger, Lord Eddison the Elder, Lord Eddison the Younger, and Lord Emerick the Avenger. Many Peakes had served as counselors at Highgarden when the Reach was the richest and most powerful kingdom in all Westeros. When the pride and power of House Manderly became overweening, it was Lorimar Peake who humbled them and drove them into exile in the North, for which service King Perceon III Gardener granted him the former Manderly seat at Dunstonbury and its attendant lands. King Perceon’s son Gwayne took Lord Lorimar’s daughter as his bride as well, making her the seventh Peake maiden to sit beneath the Green Hand as Queen of All the Reach. Through the centuries, other daughters of House Peake had married Redwynes, Rowans, Costaynes, Oakhearts, Osgreys, Florents, even Hightowers.

All this had ended with the coming of the dragons. Lord Armen Peake and his sons had perished on the Field of Fire beside King Mern and his. With House Gardener extinguished, Aegon the Conqueror had granted Highgarden and the rule of the Reach to House Tyrell, the former royal stewards. The Tyrells had no blood ties to the Peakes, and no reason to favor them. And thus the slow fall of this proud house had begun. A century later, the Peakes still held three castles, and their lands were wide and well-peopled, if not particularly rich, but no longer did they command pride of place amongst the bannermen of Highgarden.

Unwin Peake was determined to redress that, and restore House Peake to its former greatness. Like his father, who had sided with the majority at the Great Council of 101, he did not believe it was a woman’s place to rule over men. During the Dance of the Dragons, Lord Unwin had been amongst the fiercest of the greens, leading forth a thousand swords and spears to keep Aegon II on the Iron Throne. When Ormund Hightower fell at Tumbleton, Lord Unwin believed command of his host should have come to him, but this was denied him by scheming rivals. This he never forgave, stabbing the turncloak Owain Bourney and plotting the murders of the dragonriders Hugh Hammer and Ulf White. Foremost of the Caltrops (though this was not widely known), and one of only three still living, Lord Unwin had proved at Tumbleton that he was no man to trifle with. He would prove that again in King’s Landing.

Having elevated Ser Marston Waters to command of the Kingsguard, Lord Peake now prevailed upon him to confer white cloaks on two of his own kin, his nephew Ser Amaury Peake of Starpike, and his bastard brother Ser Mervyn Flowers. The City Watch was placed under the command of Ser Lucas Leygood, the son of one of the Caltrops who had died at Tumbleton. To replace the men who had died during the Winter Fever and the Moon of Madness, the Hand bestowed gold cloaks on five hundred of his own men.

Lord Peake did not have a trusting nature, and all he had seen (and been a part of) at Tumbleton had convinced him that his enemies would bring him down if given half a chance. Ever mindful of his own safety, he surrounded himself with his own personal guard, ten sellswords loyal only to him (and the gold he lavished on them) who in due course became known as his “Fingers.” Their captain, a Volantene adventurer named Tessario, had tiger stripes tattooed across his face and back, the marks of a slave soldier. Men called him Tessario the Tiger to his face, which pleased him; behind his back, they called him Tessario the Thumb, the mocking sobriquet that Mushroom had bestowed upon him.

Once secure in his own person, the new Hand began bringing his own supporters, kin, and friends to court, in place of men and women whose loyalty was less assured. His widowed aunt Clarice Osgrey was put in charge of Queen Jaehaera’s household, supervising her maids and servants. Ser Gareth Long, master-at-arms at Starpike, was granted the same title at the Red Keep and tasked with training King Aegon for knighthood. George Graceford, Lord of Holyhall, and Ser Victor Risley, Knight of Risley Glade, the sole surviving Caltrops aside from Lord Peake himself, were appointed Lord Confessor and King’s Justice respectively.

The Hand even went so far as to dismiss Septon Eustace, bringing in a younger man, Septon Bernard, to tend to the spiritual needs of the court and supervise His Grace’s religious and moral instruction. Bernard too was of his blood, being descended from a younger sister of his great-grandsire. Once relieved of his duties, Septon Eustace departed King’s Landing for Stoney Sept, the town of his birth, where he devoted himself to the writing of his great (if somewhat turgid) work, The Reign of King Viserys, First of His Name, and the Dance of the Dragons That Came After. Sadly, Septon Bernard preferred composing sacred music to setting down court gossip, and his writings are therefore of little interest to historians and scholars (and of less interest to those who find pleasure in sacred music, it grieves us to say).

None of these changes pleased the young king. His Grace was especially unhappy with his Kingsguard. He neither liked nor trusted the two new men, and had not forgotten the presence of Ser Marston Waters at his mother’s death. King Aegon misliked the Hand’s Fingers even more, if that is possible, especially their brash and foul-mouthed commander, Tessario the Thumb. That mislike turned to hatred when the Volantene slew Ser Robin Massey, one of the young knights that Aegon had wished to name to his Kingsguard, in a quarrel over a horse both men wished to buy.

The king soon developed a strong antipathy for his new master-at-arms as well. Ser Gareth Long was a skilled swordsman but a stern taskmaster, renowned at Starpike for his harshness toward the boys he instructed. Those who did not meet his standards were made to go for days without sleep, doused in tubs of iced water, had their heads shaved, and were oft beaten. None of these punishments were available to Ser Gareth in his new position. Though Aegon was a sullen student who displayed little interest in swordplay or the arts of war, his royal person was inviolate. Whenever Ser Gareth spoke to him too loudly or too harshly, the king would simply throw down his sword and shield and walk away.

Aegon seemed to have only one companion he cared about. Gaemon Palehair, his six-year-old cupbearer and food taster, not only shared all of the king’s meals, but oft accompanied him to the yard, as Ser Gareth did not fail to note. As a bastard born of a whore, Gaemon counted for little in the court, so when Ser Gareth asked Lord Peake to make the lad the king’s whipping boy, the Hand was pleased to do so. Thereafter any misbehavior, laziness, or truculence on King Aegon’s part resulted in punishment for his friend. Gaemon’s blood and Gaemon’s tears reached the king as none of Gareth Long’s words ever had, and His Grace’s improvement was soon marked by every man who watched him in the castle yard, but the king’s mislike of his teacher only deepened.

Tyland Lannister, blind and crippled, had always treated the king with deference, speaking to him gently, seeking to guide rather than command. Unwin Peake made a sterner Hand; brusque and hard, he showed little patience with the young monarch, treating him “more like a sulky boy than like a king” in Mushroom’s words, and making no effort to involve His Grace in the day-to-day rule of his kingdom. When Aegon III retreated back into silence, solitude, and a brooding passivity, his Hand was pleased to ignore him, save on certain formal occasions when his presence was required.

Rightly or wrongly, Ser Tyland Lannister was perceived as having been a weak and ineffectual Hand, yet somehow also sinister, scheming, even monstrous. Lord Unwin Peake came to the Handship determined to demonstrate his strength and rectitude. “This Hand is not blind, nor veiled, nor crippled,” he announced before king and court. “This Hand can still wield a sword.” And so saying, he drew his longsword from its scabbard and raised it high so all might see it. Whispers flew about the hall. It was no common blade that his lordship held, but one forged of Valyrian steel: Orphan-Maker, last seen in the hands of Bold Jon Roxton as he laid about at Hard Hugh Hammer’s men in a yard at Tumbleton.

The Feast Day of Our Father Above is a most propitious day for making judgments, the septons teach us. In 133 AC, the new Hand decreed that it should be a day when those who had previously been judged would at last be punished for their crimes. The city gaols were crowded to bursting, and even the deep dungeons below the Red Keep were near full. Lord Unwin emptied them. The prisoners were marched or dragged out to the square before the Red Keep’s gates, where thousands of Kingslanders gathered to see them receive their due. With the somber young king and his stern Hand looking down from the battlements, the King’s Justice set to work. As there was too much work for one sword alone, Tessario the Thumb and his Fingers were tasked with aiding him.

“It would have gone more quickly if the Hand had sent to the Street of Flies for butchers,” Mushroom observes, “for it was butcher’s work they were about, hacking and cleaving.” Forty thieves had their hands removed. Eight rapers were gelded, then marched naked to the riverside with their genitals hung about their necks, to be put aboard ships for the Wall. A suspected Poor Fellow who preached that the Seven sent the Winter Fever to punish House Targaryen for incest had his tongue removed. Two pox-riddled whores were mutilated in unspeakable ways for passing the pox to dozens of men. Six servants found guilty of stealing from their masters had their noses slit; a seventh, who cut a hole in a wall to peek upon his master’s daughters in their nakedness, had the offending eye plucked out as well.

Next came the murderers. Seven were brought forth, one an innkeep who had been killing certain of his guests (those he judged would not be missed) and stealing their valuables since the Old King’s time. Where the other murderers were hanged straightaway, he had his hands hacked off and burned before his eyes, then he was hung by a noose and disemboweled as he strangled.

Last came the three most prominent prisoners, the ones that the mob had been waiting for: yet another “Shepherd Reborn,” the captain of a Pentoshi merchantman who had been accused and found guilty of bringing the Winter Fever from Sisterton to King’s Landing, and the former Grand Maester Orwyle, a convicted traitor and a deserter from the Night’s Watch. The King’s Justice, Ser Victor Risley, attended to each of them himself. He removed the heads of the Pentoshi and the false Shepherd with his headsman’s axe, but Grand Maester Orwyle was granted the honor of dying by the sword, in view of his age, high birth, and long service.

“When Our Father’s Feast was done and the mob before the gates dispersed, the King’s Hand was well satisfied,” wrote Septon Eustace, who would depart for Stoney Sept the next day. “Would that I could write that the smallfolk returned to their homes and hovels to fast and pray and beg forgiveness for their own sins, but that would be far from the truth. Flush with blood, they sought out dens of sin instead, and the city’s alehouses, wine sinks, and brothels were crowded unto bursting, for such is the wickedness of men.” Mushroom says the same, though in his own way. “Whenever I see a man put to death, I like to have a flagon and a woman afterward, to remind myself that I am still alive.”

King Aegon III stood atop the gatehouse battlements throughout the Feast of Our Father Above, and never spoke nor looked away from the bloodletting below. “The king had as well been made of wax,” observed Septon Eustace. Grand Maester Munkun echoes him. “His Grace was present, as was his duty, yet somehow he seemed far away as well. Some of the condemned turned to the battlements to shout out cries for mercy, but the king never seemed to see them, nor hear their desperate words. Make no mistake. This feast was served to us by the Hand, and ’twas he who gorged upon it.”

By midyear the castle, city, and king were all firmly in the grasp of the new Hand. The smallfolk were quiet, the Winter Fever had receded, Queen Jaehaera hid in seclusion in her chambers, King Aegon trained in the yard by morning and stared at the stars by night. Beyond the walls of King’s Landing, however, the woes that had afflicted the realm these past two years had only worsened. Trade had withered away to nothing, war continued in the west, famine and fever ruled much of the North, and to the south the Dornishmen were growing bolder and more troublesome. It was past time the Iron Throne showed its power, Lord Peake decided.

Construction had been completed on eight of the ten great warships commissioned by Ser Tyland, so the Hand resolved to begin by opening the narrow sea to trade once more. To command the royal fleet, he tapped another uncle, Ser Gedmund Peake, a seasoned battler known as Gedmund Great-Axe for his favored weapon. Though justly renowned for his prowess as a warrior, Ser Gedmund had little knowledge or experience of ships, however, so his lordship also summoned the notorious sellsail Ned Bean (called Blackbean, for his thick black beard) to serve as the Great-Axe’s second-in-command and advise him on all matters nautical.

The situation in the Stepstones as Ser Gedmund and Blackbean set sail was chaotic, to say the least. Racallio Ryndoon’s ships had been swept from the sea for the most part, but he still ruled Bloodstone, largest of the islands, and a few smaller rocks. The Tyroshi had been on the point of overwhelming him when Lys and Myr had made peace and launched a joint attack on Tyrosh, forcing the Archon to recall his ships and swords. The three-headed alliance of Braavos, Pentos, and Lorath had lost one of its heads with the withdrawal of the Lorathi, but the Pentoshi sellswords now held all the Stepstones not in the hands of Racallio’s men, and the Braavosi warships owned the waters between.

Westeros could not hope to prevail in a sea war against Braavos, Lord Unwin knew. His purpose, he declared, was to put an end to the rogue Racallio Ryndoon and his piratical kingdom and establish a presence upon Bloodstone, to ensure that never again could the narrow sea be closed. The royal fleet—comprised of the eight new warships and some twenty older cogs and galleys—was nowise large enough to accomplish this, so the Hand wrote to Driftmark, instructing the Lord of the Tides to gather “your lord grandsire’s fleets and put them under the command of our good uncle Gedmund, so that he may open the sea roads once again.”

This was no more than Alyn Velaryon had long desired, as the Sea Snake had before him, though when he read the message the young lord bristled and declared, “They are my fleets now, and Baela’s monkey is more suited to command them than Nuncle Gedmund.” Even so, he did as he was bid, bringing together sixty war galleys, thirty longships, and more than a hundred cogs and great cogs to meet the royal fleet as it swept out from King’s Landing. As the great war fleet passed through the Gullet, Ser Gedmund sent over Blackbean to Lord Alyn’s flagship, Queen Rhaenys, with a letter authorizing him to take command of the Velaryon squadrons, “so that they may benefit from his many years of experience.” Lord Alyn sent him back. “I would have hanged him,” he wrote to Ser Gedmund, “but I am loath to waste good hempen rope on a bean.”

In winter, strong north winds oft prevail upon the narrow sea, so the fleet made splendid time on its voyage south. Off Tarth, another dozen longships rowed out to further swell their ranks, commanded by Lord Bryndemere the Evenstar. The tidings that his lordship brought proved less welcome, however. The Sealord of Braavos, the Archon of Tyrosh, and Racallio Ryndoon had made common cause; they would rule the Stepstones jointly, and only such ships as were licensed to trade by Braavos or Tyrosh would be allowed to pass. “What of Pentos?” Lord Alyn wanted to know. “Discarded,” the Evenstar informed him. “A pie split three ways offers larger slices than one cut into quarters.”

Gedmund Great-Axe (who had been so seasick during the voyage that the sailors had named him Gedmund Green-Sick) decided that the King’s Hand should be informed of this new alignment amongst the warring cities. The Evenstar had already sent a raven to King’s Landing, so Peake decreed that the fleet would remain at Tarth until a reply was received. “That will lose us any hope of taking Racallio by surprise,” argued Alyn Velaryon, but Ser Gedmund proved adamant. The two commanders parted angrily.

The next day when the sun rose, Blackbean woke Ser Gedmund to inform him that the Lord of the Tides was gone. The entire Velaryon fleet had slipped off during the night. Gedmund Great-Axe snorted. “Run back to Driftmark, I’d venture,” he said. Ned Bean agreed, calling Lord Alyn “a scared boy.”

They could not have been more wrong. Lord Alyn had taken his ships south, not north. Three days later, whilst Gedmund Great-Axe and his royal fleet still lingered off the coast of Tarth waiting on a raven, battle was joined amongst the rocks, sea stacks, and tangled waterways of the Stepstones. The attack caught the Braavosi unawares, with their grand admiral and twoscore of his captains feasting on Bloodstone with Racallio Ryndoon and the envoys from Tyrosh. Half of the Braavosi ships were taken, burned, or sunk whilst still at anchor or tied to a dock, others as they raised sail and tried to get under way.

The fight was not entirely bloodless. The Grand Defiance, a towering Braavosi dromond of four hundred oars, fought her way past half a dozen smaller Velaryon warships to gain the open sea, only to find Lord Alyn himself bearing down on her. Too late, the Braavosi tried to turn to face her attacker, but the huge dromond was ponderous in the water and slow to answer, and Queen Rhaenys struck her broadside with every oar churning water.

The Queen’s prow smashed into the side of the great Braavosi ship “like a great oaken fist,” one observer wrote later, splintering her oars, crashing through her planks and hull, toppling her masts, cutting the massive dromond almost in two. When Lord Alyn shouted to his rowers to back them off, the sea rushed into the gaping wound the Queen had made, and the Grand Defiance went down in mere moments, “and with it, the Sealord’s swollen pride.”

Alyn Velaryon’s victory was complete. He lost three ships in the Stepstones (one, sadly, was the True Heart, captained by his cousin Daeron, who perished when she sank), whilst sinking more than thirty and capturing six galleys, eleven cogs, eighty-nine hostages, vast amounts of food, drink, arms, and coin, and an elephant meant for the Sealord’s menagerie. All this the Lord of the Tides brought back to Westeros, along with the name that he would carry for the rest of his long life: Oakenfist. When Lord Alyn sailed Queen Rhaenys up the Blackwater Rush and rode in through the River Gate on the back of the Sealord’s elephant, tens of thousands lined the city streets shouting his name and clamoring for a glimpse of their new hero. At the gates of the Red Keep, King Aegon III himself appeared to welcome him.

Once within the walls, however, it was a different story. By the time Alyn Oakenfist reached the throne room, the young king had somehow vanished. Instead Lord Unwin Peake scowled down at him from atop the Iron Throne, and said, “You fool, you thrice-damned fool. If I dared, I would have your bloody head off.”

The Hand had good cause to be so wroth. However loudly the mob might cheer for Oakenfist, their bold young hero’s rash attack had left the realm in an untenable position. Lord Velaryon might have captured a score of Braavosi ships and an elephant, but he had not taken Bloodstone, nor any of the other Stepstones; the knights and men-at-arms such a conquest would have required had been aboard the larger ships of the royal fleet that he abandoned off the shores of Tarth. The destruction of Racallio Ryndoon’s pirate kingdom had been Lord Peake’s objective; instead, Racallio appeared to have emerged stronger than ever. The last thing the Hand desired was war with Braavos, richest and most powerful of the Nine Free Cities. “Yet that is what you have given us, my lord,” Peake thundered. “You have given us a war.”

“And an elephant,” Lord Alyn answered insolently. “Pray, do not forget the elephant, my lord.”

The remark drew nervous titters even from Lord Peake’s own handpicked men, Mushroom tells us, but the Hand was not amused. “He was not a man who liked to laugh himself,” the dwarf says, “and he liked being laughed at even less.”

Though other men might fear to provoke Lord Unwin’s enmity, Alyn Oakenfist was secure in his own strength. Though barely a man grown, and bastard born as well, he was wed to the king’s half-sister, had all the power and wealth of House Velaryon at his command, and had just become the darling of the smallfolk. Lord Regent or no, Unwin Peake was not so mad as to imagine he could safely harm the hero of the Stepstones.

“All young men suspect they are immortal,” Grand Maester Munkun writes in the True Telling, “and whenever a young warrior tastes the heady wine of victory, suspicion becomes certainty. Yet the confidence of youth counts for little against the cunning of age. Lord Alyn might smile at the Hand’s rebukes, but he would soon be given good reason to dread the Hand’s rewards.”

Munkun knew whereof he wrote. Seven days after the triumphant return of Lord Alyn to King’s Landing, he was honored in a lavish ceremony in the Red Keep, with King Aegon III seated on the Iron Throne and the court and half the city looking on. Ser Marston Waters, Lord Commander of the Kingsguard, dubbed him a knight. Unwin Peake, Lord Regent and Hand of the King, draped an admiral’s golden chain about his neck and presented him with a silver replica of the Queen Rhaenys as a token of his victory. The king himself inquired if his lordship would consent to serve upon his small council, as master of ships. Lord Alyn humbly agreed.

“Then the Hand’s fingers closed about his throat,” says Mushroom. “The voice was Aegon’s, the words Unwin’s.” His leal subjects in the west had long been troubled by reavers from the Iron Islands, the young king declared, and who better to bring peace to the Sunset Sea than his new admiral? And Alyn Oakenfist, that proud and headstrong youth, found he had no choice but to agree to sail his fleets around the southern end of Westeros to win back Fair Isle and end the menace of Lord Dalton Greyjoy and his ironmen.

The trap was neatly set. The voyage was perilous, and like to take a heavy toll of the Velaryon fleets. The Stepstones teemed with enemies, who would not be taken unawares a second time. Past them lay the barren coasts of Dorne, where Lord Alyn was not like to find safe harbor. And should he gain the Sunset Sea, he would find the Red Kraken waiting with his longships. If the ironmen prevailed, the power of House Velaryon would be broken for good and all, and Lord Peake need never again suffer the insolence of the boy called Oakenfist. If Lord Alyn triumphed, Fair Isle would be restored to its true lords, the westerlands would be freed from further outrage, and the lords of the Seven Kingdoms would learn the price of defying King Aegon III and his new Hand.

The Lord of the Tides made a gift of his elephant to King Aegon III as he took his leave of King’s Landing. Returning to Hull to gather his fleet and take on provisions for the long journey, he said his farewells to his wife, the Lady Baela, who sent him on his way with a kiss, and the news that she was with child. “Name him Corlys, after my grandsire,” Lord Alyn told her. “One day he may sit the Iron Throne.” Baela laughed at that. “I will name her Laena, after my mother. One day she may ride a dragon.”

Lord Corlys Velaryon had made nine famous voyages on his Sea Snake, it will be recalled. Lord Alyn Oakenfist would make six, upon six different ships. “My ladies,” he would call them. On his voyage round Dorne to Lannisport, he sailed a Braavosi war galley of two hundred oars, captured in the Stepstones and renamed the Lady Baela after his young wife.

Some might think it queer for Lord Peake to send off the largest fleet in the Seven Kingdoms whilst war with Braavos threatened. Ser Gedmund Peake and the royal fleet had been recalled from Tarth to the Gullet, to guard the entrance to Blackwater Bay should the Braavosi seek to retaliate against King’s Landing, but other ports and cities all up and down the narrow sea remained vulnerable, so the King’s Hand dispatched fellow regent Lord Manfryd Mooton to Braavos to treat with the Sealord and return his elephant. Six other noble lords accompanied him, along with threescore knights, guardsmen, servants, scribes, and septons, six singers…and Mushroom, who supposedly hid in a wine cask to escape the gloom of the Red Keep and “find a place where men remembered how to laugh.”

Then as now, the Braavosi were a pragmatic people, for theirs is a city of escaped slaves where a thousand false gods are honored, but only gold is truly worshipped. Profit means more than pride amongst the hundred isles. Upon arrival, Lord Mooton and his companions marveled at the Titan, and were taken to the fabled Arsenal to witness the building of a warship, completed in a single day. “We have already replaced every ship that your boy admiral stole or sank,” the Sealord boasted to Lord Mooton.

Having thus demonstrated the power of Braavos, however, he was more than willing to be placated. Whilst he haggled with Lord Mooton over terms of peace, Lords Follard and Cressey spread lavish bribes amongst the city’s keyholders, magisters, priests, and merchant princes. In the end, in return for a very sizable indemnity, Braavos forgave Lord Velaryon’s “unwarranted transgression,” agreed to dissolve her alliance with Tyrosh and break all ties with Racallio Ryndoon, and ceded the Stepstones to the Iron Throne (since the islands were held by Ryndoon and the Pentoshi at this time, the Sealord had in effect sold something that he did not own, but this was not unusual in Braavos).

The mission to Braavos proved eventful in other ways as well. Lord Follard became enamored of a Braavosi courtesan and elected to remain close to her rather than return to Westeros, Ser Herman Rollingford was killed in a duel by a bravo who took offense at the color of his doublet, and Ser Denys Harte supposedly engaged the services of the mysterious Faceless Men to kill a rival back in King’s Landing, Mushroom asserts. The fool himself so amused the Sealord that he received a handsome offer to remain in Braavos. “I do confess that I was tempted. In Westeros my wit is wasted capering for a king who never smiles, but in Braavos they would love me…too well, I fear. Every courtesan would want me, and soon or late some bravo would take umbrage at the size of my member and prick me with his little pointy dwarf-skewer. So back to the Red Keep Mushroom scurried, and more fool me.”

So it came to pass that Lord Mooton returned to King’s Landing with peace in hand, but at a grievous cost. The huge indemnity demanded by the Sealord so depleted the royal treasury that Lord Peake soon found it necessary to borrow from the Iron Bank of Braavos just so the Crown might pay its debts, and that in turn required him to reinstate certain of Lord Celtigar’s taxes that Ser Tyland Lannister had abolished, which angered lords and merchants alike and weakened his support amongst the smallfolk.

The last half of the year proved calamitous in other ways as well. The court rejoiced when Lady Rhaena announced that she was with child by Lord Corbray, but joy turned to grief a moon’s turn later when she miscarried. Widespread famine was reported in the North, and the Winter Fever descended on Barrowton, the first time it had ever traveled so far inland. A raider named Sylas the Grim led three thousand wildlings against the Wall, overwhelming the black brothers at Queensgate and spreading out across the Gift until Lord Cregan Stark rode forth from Winterfell, joined with the Glovers of Deepwood Motte, the Flints and Norreys of the hills, and a hundred rangers from the Night’s Watch to hunt them down and put an end to them. A thousand leagues to the south, Ser Steffon Connington was hunting too, pursuing a small band of Dornish raiders across the windswept marches. But he rode too far and too fast, ignorant of what lay ahead until one-armed Wyland Wyl came down on him, and Lady Elenda found herself widowed once again.

In the west, Lady Johanna Lannister hoped to follow her victory at Kayce by striking another blow against the Red Kraken. Assembling a ragtag fleet of fishing boats and cogs beneath the walls of Feastfires, she loaded a hundred knights and three thousand men-at-arms aboard, and sent them out to sea under the cover of darkness to retake Fair Isle from the ironmen. The plan was to land them undetected on the south end of the island, but someone had betrayed them, and the longships were waiting. Lord Prester, Lord Tarbeck, and Ser Erwin Lannister commanded the ill-fated crossing. Dalton Greyjoy sent their heads to Casterly Rock afterward, calling it “payment for my uncle, though in truth he was a glutton and a drunkard, and the islands are well rid of him.”

Yet all these were as naught against the tragedy that descended on the court and king. On the twenty-second day of the ninth moon of 133 AC, Jaehaera of House Targaryen, Queen of the Seven Kingdoms and the last surviving child of King Aegon II, perished at the age of ten. The little queen died just as her mother, Queen Helaena, had, throwing herself from a window in Maegor’s Holdfast onto the iron spikes that lined the dry moat below. Impaled through breast and belly, she twisted in agony for half an hour before she could be lifted free, whereupon she passed from this life at once.

King’s Landing grieved, as only King’s Landing could. Jaehaera had been a frightened child, and from the day she donned her crown she had hidden herself away inside the Red Keep, yet the smallfolk of the city remembered her wedding, and how brave and beautiful the little girl had seemed, and so they wept, and wailed, and tore their clothes, and crowded into septs and taverns and brothels, to seek for whatever solace they could find. There the whispers soon were flying, just as they had when Queen Helaena died in similar fashion. Had the little queen truly taken her own life? Even inside the walls of the Red Keep, speculation was rampant.

Jaehaera was a lonely child, prone to weeping and somewhat simpleminded, yet she had seemed content in her own chambers with her maids and ladies, her kittens and her dolls. What could have made her mad enough or sad enough to leap from her window onto those cruel spikes? Some suggested that Lady Rhaena’s miscarriage might have made her so distraught she did not wish to live. Others, of a more cynical bent, countered that it might have been jealousy over the child growing inside of Lady Baela that drove her to the act. “It was the king,” whispered still others. “She loved him with all her heart, yet he paid her no mind, showed her no affection, did not even share his rooms with her.”

And of course there were many who refused to believe that Jaehaera had taken her own life. “She was murdered,” they whispered, “just as her mother was.” But if that were true, who was the murderer?

There was no lack of suspects. By tradition, there was always a knight of the Kingsguard posted at the queen’s door. It would have been a simple thing for him to slip inside and throw the child from her window. If so, surely the king himself had given the command. Aegon had tired of her weeping and wailing and wanted a new wife, men said. Or perhaps he wished to revenge himself on the daughter of the king who killed his mother. The boy was dour and gloomy, no one truly knew his nature. Tales of Maegor the Cruel were freely told.

Others blamed one of the little queen’s companions, Lady Cassandra Baratheon. The eldest of the “Four Storms,” Lady Cassandra had been briefly betrothed to King Aegon II during the last year of his life (and possibly to his brother Aemond One-Eye before that). Disappointment had turned her sour, her detractors said; once her father’s heir at Storm’s End, she found herself of little account in King’s Landing, and bitterly resented having to care for the weepy, feeble-witted child queen whom she blamed for all her woes.

One of the queen’s bedmaids also came under suspicion, when it was found that she had stolen two of Jaehaera’s dolls and a pearl necklace. A serving boy who had spilled soup on the little queen the year before, and been beaten for it, was accused. Both of these were put to question by the Lord Confessor, and finally declared innocent (though the boy died under questioning and the girl lost a hand for theft). Even holy servants of the Seven were not above suspicion. A certain septa in the city had once been heard to say that the little queen ought never to have children, for simpleminded women produced simpleminded sons. The gold cloaks brought her in as well, and she vanished into a dungeon.

Grief makes men mad. With hindsight, we can say for a fair certainty that none of these played any role in the sad death of the little queen. If indeed Jaehaera Targaryen was murdered (and there is no shred of proof of that), it was surely done at the behest of the only truly plausible culprit: Unwin Peake, Lord Regent, Lord of Starpike, Lord of Dunstonbury, Lord of Whitegrove, Protector of the Realm, and Hand of the King.

Lord Peake was known to have shared his predecessor’s concerns about the succession. Aegon III had no children, nor any living siblings (so far as it was known), and any man with eyes could see that the king was not like to get an heir from his little queen. Unless he did, the king’s half-sisters remained his nearest kin, but Lord Peake was not about to allow a woman to ascend the Iron Throne, after having so recently fought and bled to prevent that very thing. If either of the twins produced a son, to be sure, the boy would at once become first in the order of succession…but Lady Rhaena’s pregnancy had ended in miscarriage, which left only the child growing inside Lady Baela on Driftmark. The thought that the crown might pass to “the whelp of a wanton and a bastard” was more than Lord Unwin Peake was prepared to stomach.

Were the king to sire an heir of his own body, that calamity might be averted…but before that could happen, Jaehaera had to be removed so Aegon could remarry. Lord Peake could not have pushed the child from the window himself, to be sure, as he was elsewhere in the city when she died…but the Kingsguard posted at the queen’s door that night was Mervyn Flowers, his bastard brother.

Could he have been the Hand’s catspaw? It is more than possible, particularly in light of later events, which we shall discuss in due course. Bastard born himself, Ser Mervyn was regarded by most a dutiful, if not especially heroic, member of the Kingsguard; neither champion nor hero, but a seasoned soldier and a fair hand with a longsword, a leal man who did as he was told. Not all men are as they seem, however, particularly in King’s Landing. Those who knew Flowers best saw other sides of him. When not on duty, he was fond of wine, says Mushroom, who was known to have drunk with him. Though sworn to chastity, he seldom slept alone save in his cell at White Sword Tower; despite being somewhat ill-favored, he had a rough charm that washerwomen and serving girls responded to, and when in his cups would even boast of having bedded certain highborn ladies. Like many bastards, he was hot of blood and quick to anger, seeing slights where none had been intended.

Yet none of this suggested that Flowers was the sort of monster who could take a sleeping child from her bed and throw her to a grisly death. Even Mushroom, ever ready to think the worst of everyone, says as much. If Ser Mervyn had killed the queen, he would have done it with a pillow, the fool insists…before suggesting a far more sinister and likely possibility. Flowers would never have pushed the queen out that window, the dwarf claims, but he might well have stood aside to allow someone else to enter her room, if that someone were known to him…someone, mayhaps, like Tessario the Thumb, or one of the Fingers. Nor would Flowers have felt the need to ask their business with the little queen, not if they said they came at the Hand’s behest.

So says the fool, but to be sure, all of this is fancy. The true tale of how Jaehaera Targaryen met her end will never be known. Mayhaps she did take her own life in some fit of childish despair. If murder was indeed the cause of her demise, however, for all these reasons, the man behind it could only have been Lord Unwin Peake. Yet without proof, none of this would have been damning…if not for what the Hand did afterward.

Seven days after the body of the little queen was consigned to the flames, Lord Unwin paid a call upon the grieving king, accompanied by Grand Maester Munkun, Septon Bernard, and Marston Waters of the Kingsguard. They had come to inform His Grace that he must put aside his mourning blacks and wed again “for the good of the realm.” Moreover, his new queen had been chosen for him.

Unwin Peake had married thrice and sired seven children. Only one survived. His firstborn son had died in infancy, as had both of his daughters by his second wife. His eldest daughter had lived long enough to marry, only to die in childbirth at the age of twelve. His second son had been fostered on the Arbor, where he served Lord Redwyne as page and squire, but at the age of twelve he had drowned in a sailing mishap. Ser Titus, heir to Starpike, was the only one of Lord Unwin’s sons to grow to manhood. Knighted for valor after the Battle of the Honeywine by Bold Jon Roxton, he had died only six days later in a meaningless skirmish with a band of broken men he stumbled on whilst scouting. The Hand’s last surviving child was a daughter, Myrielle.

Myrielle Peake was to be Aegon III’s new queen. She was the ideal choice, the Hand declared; the same age as the king, “a lovely girl, and courteous,” born of one of the noblest houses in the realm, schooled by septas to read, write, and do sums. Her lady mother had been fertile, so there was no reason to think that Myrielle would not give His Grace strong sons.

“What if I do not like her?” King Aegon said. “You do not need to like her,” Lord Peake replied, “you need only wed her, bed her, and father a son on her.” Then, infamously, he added, “Your Grace does not like turnips, but when your cooks prepare them, you eat them, do you not?” King Aegon nodded sullenly…but the tale got out, as such tales always do, and the unfortunate Lady Myrielle was soon known as Lady Turnips throughout the Seven Kingdoms.

She would never be Queen Turnips.

Unwin Peake had overreached himself. Thaddeus Rowan and Manfryd Mooton were outraged that he had not seen fit to consult them; matters of such import rightly belonged to the council of regents. Lady Arryn sent a waspish note from the Vale. Kermit Tully declared the betrothal “presumptuous.” Ben Blackwood questioned the haste of it; Aegon should have been allowed half a year at least to mourn his little queen. A curt missive arrived from Cregan Stark in Winterfell, suggesting that the North might look with disfavor on such a match. Even Grand Maester Munkun began to waver. “Lady Myrielle is a delightful girl, and I have no doubt that she would make a splendid queen,” he told the Hand, “but we must be concerned with appearances, my lord. We who have the honor of serving with your lordship know that you love His Grace as if he were your own son, and do all you do for him and for the realm, but others may imply that you chose your daughter for more ignoble reasons…for power, or the glory of House Peake.”

Mushroom, our wise fool, observes that there are certain doors best not opened, for “you never know what might come through.” Peake had opened a queen’s door for his daughter, but other lords had daughters too (as well as sisters, nieces, cousins, and even the odd widowed mother or maiden aunt) and before the door could close they all came pushing through, insisting that their own blood would make a better royal consort than Lady Turnips.

To recount all the names put forward would take more pages than we have, but a few are worthy of mention. At Casterly Rock, Lady Johanna Lannister set aside her war with the ironmen long enough to write the Hand and point out that her daughters Cerelle and Tyshara were maidens of noble birth and marriageable age. The twice-widowed Lady of Storm’s End, Elenda Baratheon, put forward her own daughters, Cassandra and Ellyn. Cassandra had once been betrothed to Aegon II and was “well prepared to serve as queen,” she wrote. From White Harbor came a raven from Lord Torrhen, speaking of past marriage pacts between the dragon and the merman “broken by cruel chance,” and suggesting that King Aegon might put things aright by taking a Manderly for his bride. Sharis Footly, widow of Tumbleton, made so bold as to nominate herself.

Perhaps the boldest letter came from the irrepressible Lady Samantha of Oldtown, who declared that her sister Sansara (of House Tarly) “is spirited and strong, and has read more books than half the maesters in the Citadel” whilst her good-sister Bethany (of House Hightower) was “very beautiful, with smooth soft skin and lustrous hair and the sweetest manner,” though also “lazy and somewhat stupid, truth be told, though some men seem to like that in a wife.” She concluded by suggesting that perhaps King Aegon should marry both of them, “one to rule beside him, as Queen Alysanne did King Jaehaerys, and one to bed and breed.” And in the event that both of them were “found wanting, for whatever obscure reason,” Lady Sam helpfully appended the names of thirty-one other nubile maidens from Houses Hightower, Redwyne, Tarly, Ambrose, Florent, Cobb, Costayne, Beesbury, Varner, and Grimm who might be suitable as queens. (Mushroom adds that her ladyship ended with a cheeky postscript that said, “I know some pretty boys as well, should His Grace be so inclined, but I fear they could not give him heirs,” but none of the other chronicles mention this affrontry, and her ladyship’s letter has been lost.)

In the face of so much tumult, Lord Unwin was forced to think again. Though he remained determined to wed his daughter Myrielle to the king, he had to do so in a way that would not provoke the lords whose support he needed. Bowing to the inevitable, he mounted the Iron Throne and said, “For the good of his people, His Grace must take another wife, though no woman will ever replace our beloved Jaehaera in his heart. Many have been put forward for this honor, the fairest flowers of the realm. Whichever girl King Aegon weds shall be the Alysanne to his Jaehaerys, the Jonquil to his Florian. She will sleep by his side, birth his children, share his labors, soothe his brow when he is sick, grow old with him. It is only fitting therefore that we allow the king himself to make this choice. On Maiden’s Day we shall have a ball, the like of which King’s Landing has not seen since the days of King Viserys. Let the maidens come from every corner of the Seven Kingdoms and present themselves before the king, that His Grace may choose the one best suited to share his life and love.”

And so the word went out, and a great excitement took hold of the court and city, and spread out across the realm. From the Dornish Marches to the Wall, doting fathers and proud mothers looked at their nubile daughters and wondered if she might be the one, and every highborn maid in Westeros began to primp and sew and curl her hair, thinking, “Why not me? I might be the queen.”

Yet even before Lord Unwin had ascended the Iron Throne, he had sent a raven to Starpike summoning his daughter to the city. Though Maiden’s Day was yet three moons away, his lordship wanted Myrielle at court, in hopes that she might befriend and beguile the king, and thus be chosen on the night of the ball.

That much is known; what follows now is rumor. For it was said that even as he awaited the arrival of his own daughter, Unwin Peake also set in motion sundry secret plots and plans designed to undermine, defame, distract, and besmirch those damsels he deemed his daughter’s most likely rivals. The suggestion that Cassandra Baratheon had pushed the little queen to her death was heard again, and the misdeeds of certain other young maidens, real or imagined, became common gossip about court. Ysabel Staunton’s fondness for wine was bruited about, the tale of Elinor Massey’s deflowering was told and retold, Rosamund Darry was said to be concealing six nipples under her bodice (supposedly because her mother had lain with a dog), Lyra Hayford was accused of having smothered an infant brother in a fit of jealousy, and it was put about that the “three Jeynes” (Jeyne Smallwood, Jeyne Mooton, and Jeyne Merryweather) liked to dress in squire’s garb and visit the brothels along the Street of Silk, to kiss and fondle the women there as if the three of them were boys.

All these calumnies reached the king’s ears, some from Mushroom’s own lips, for the fool confesses to having been paid “handsomely” to poison Aegon III against these maids and others. The dwarf was much in His Grace’s company following the death of Queen Jaehaera. Though his japes could not dispell the king’s gloom, they delighted Gaemon Palehair, so Aegon oft summoned him for the boy’s sake. In his Testimony, Mushroom says Tessario the Thumb gave him a choice between “silver or steel,” and “to my shame, I bade him sheath his dagger and seized that sweet fat purse.”

Nor were words the only means by which Lord Unwin sought to win his secret war for the king’s heart, if the whispers can be believed. A groom was found abed with Tyshara Lannister not long after the ball had been announced; though Lady Tyshara claimed the lad had climbed in her window uninvited, Grand Maester Munkun’s examination revealed her maidenhead was broken. Lucinda Penrose was set upon by outlaws whilst hawking along Blackwater Bay, not half a day’s ride from the castle. Her hawk was killed, her horse was stolen, and one of the men held her down whilst another slit her nose open. Pretty Falena Stokeworth, a vivacious girl of eight who had sometimes played at dolls with the little queen, took a tumble down the serpentine steps and broke her leg, whilst Lady Buckler and both her daughters drowned when the boat that was carrying them across the Blackwater foundered and sank. Some men began to talk of a “Maiden’s Day curse,” whilst others wiser in the ways of power saw unseen hands at work and held their tongues.

Were the Hand and his minions responsible for these tragedies and misfortunes, or were they happenstance? In the end it would not matter. Not since the reign of King Viserys had there been a ball of any sort in King’s Landing, and this would be a ball like none other. At tourneys, fair maidens and high ladies vied for the honor of being named the queen of love and beauty, but such reigns lasted only for a night. Whichever maid King Aegon chose would reign over Westeros for a lifetime. The highborn descended on King’s Landing from keeps and castles in every part of the Seven Kingdoms. In an effort to limit their numbers, Lord Peake decreed that the contest would be limited to maidens of noble blood under thirty years of age, yet even so, more than a thousand nubile girls crowded into the Red Keep on the appointed day, a tide far too great for the Hand to stem. Even from across the sea they came; the Prince of Pentos sent a daughter, the Archon of Tyrosh a sister, and the daughters of ancient houses set sail from Myr and even Old Volantis (though, sadly, none of the Volantene girls ever arrived at King’s Landing, being carried off by corsairs from the Basilisk Isles on the way).

“Each maid seemed lovelier than the last,” Mushroom says in his Testimony, “sparkling and spinning in their silks and jewels, they made a dazzling sight as they made their way to the throne room. It would be hard to picture anything more beautiful, unless perhaps all of them had arrived naked.” (One did, for all intents and purposes. Myrmadora Haen, daughter of a magister of Lys, turned up in a gown of translucent blue-green silk that matched her eyes, with only a jeweled girdle underneath. Her appearance sent a ripple of shock through the yard, but the Kingsguard barred her from the hall until she changed into less revealing garb.)

No doubt these maidens dreamed sweet dreams of dancing with the king, charming him with their wit, exchanging coy glances over a cup of wine. But there was to be no dancing, no wine, no opportunity for conversation, be it witty or dull. The gathering was not truly a ball in the ordinary sense. King Aegon III sat atop the Iron Throne, clad in black with a golden circlet round his head and a gold chain at his throat, as the maidens paraded beneath him one by one. As the king’s herald announced the name and lineage of each candidate, the girl would curtsy, the king would nod down at them, and then it would be time for the next girl to be presented. “By the time the tenth girl was presented, the king had doubtless forgotten the first five,” Mushroom says. “Their fathers could well have sneaked them back into the queue for another go-round, and some of the more cunning likely did.”

A handful of the braver maidens made so bold as to address the king, in an attempt to make themselves more memorable. Ellyn Baratheon asked His Grace if he liked her gown (her sister later put it about that her question was, “Do you like my breasts?” but there is no truth to that). Alyssa Royce told him she had come all the way from Runestone to be with him today. Patricia Redwyne went her one better by declaring that her party had traveled from the Arbor, and had thrice been forced to beat back attacks by outlaws. “I shot one with an arrow,” she declared proudly. “In the arse.” Lady Anya Weatherwax, aged seven, informed His Grace that her horse’s name was Twinklehoof and she loved him very much, and asked if His Grace had a good horse too. (“His Grace has a hundred horses,” Lord Unwin answered impatiently.) Others ventured compliments about his city, his castle, and his clothes. A northern maid named Barba Bolton, daughter of the Dreadfort, said, “If you send me home, Your Grace, send me home with food, for the snows are deep and your people are starving.”

The boldest tongue belonged to a Dornishwoman, Moriah Qorgyle of Sandstone, who rose from her curtsy smiling and said, “Your Grace, why not climb down from there and kiss me?” Aegon did not answer her. He answered none of them. He gave each maid a nod, to acknowledge that he had heard them. Then Ser Marston and the Kingsguard saw them on their way.

Music wafted over the hall all through the night, but could scarce be heard over the shuffle of footsteps, the din of conversation, and from time to time the faint, soft sound of weeping. The throne room of the Red Keep is a cavernous chamber, larger than any hall in Westeros save Black Harren’s, but with more than a thousand maids on hand, each with her own retinue of parents, siblings, guards, and servants, it soon became too crowded to move, and suffocatingly hot, though outside a winter wind was blowing. The herald charged with announcing the name and lineage of each of the fair maidens lost his voice and had to be replaced. Four of the hopefuls fainted, along with a dozen mothers, several fathers, and a septon. One stout lord collapsed and died.

“The Maiden’s Day Cattle Show,” Mushroom would name the ball afterward. Even the singers who had made so much of it beforehand found little to sing about as the event unfolded, and the king himself appeared ever more restless as the hours passed and the parade of maids continued. “All this,” says Mushroom, “was just as the Hand desired. Each time His Grace frowned, shifted in his seat, or gave another weary nod, the likelihood of his choosing Lady Turnips increased, Lord Unwin reasoned.”

Myrielle Peake had arrived in King’s Landing almost a moon’s turn before the ball, and her father had made certain that she spent part of every day in the king’s company. Brown of hair and eye, with a broad, freckled face and crooked teeth that made her shy with her smiles, Lady Turnips was four-and-ten, one year older than Aegon. “She was no great beauty,” Mushroom says, “but she was fresh and pretty and pleasant, and His Grace did not seem averse to her.” During the fortnight leading up to Maiden’s Day, the dwarf tells us, Lord Unwin had arranged for Myrielle to share half a dozen suppers with the king. Called upon to entertain during those long awkward meals, Mushroom tells us that King Aegon said little as they ate, but “seemed more comfortable with Lady Turnips than he had ever been with Queen Jaehaera. Which is to say, not comfortable at all, but he did not seem to find her presence distasteful. Three days before the ball, he gave her one of the little queen’s dolls. ‘Here,’ he said as he thrust it at her, ‘you can have this.’ Not quite the words that innocent young maidens dream of hearing, perhaps, but Myrielle took the gift as a token of affection, and her father was most pleased.”

Lady Myrielle brought the doll with her when she made her own appearance at the ball, cradling it in her arms as if it were a babe. She was not the first to be presented (that honor went to the daughter of the Prince of Pentos), nor the last (Henrietta Woodhull, daughter of a landed knight from the Paps). Her father had seen to it that she came before the king late in the first hour, far enough back so he could not be accused of giving her pride of place, but far enough forward so King Aegon would still be reasonably fresh. When His Grace greeted Lady Myrielle by name and said not only, “It was good of you to come, my lady,” but also, “I am pleased you like the doll,” her father surely took heart, believing that all his careful scheming had borne fruit.

Yet it would all be undone in a trice by the king’s half-sisters, the very twins whose succession Unwin Peake had been so determined to prevent. Fewer than a dozen maids remained, and the press had thinned considerably, when a sudden trumpet blast heralded the arrival of Baela Velaryon and Rhaena Corbray. The doors to the throne room were thrown open, and the daughters of Prince Daemon entered upon a blast of winter air. Lady Baela was great with child, Lady Rhaena wan and thin from her miscarriage, yet seldom had they seemed more as one. Both were dressed in gowns of soft black velvet with rubies at their throats, and the three-headed dragon of House Targaryen on their cloaks.

Mounted on a pair of coal black chargers, the twins rode the length of the hall side by side. When Ser Marston Waters of the Kingsguard blocked their path and demanded they dismount, Lady Baela slashed him across the cheek with her riding crop. “His Grace my brother can command me. You cannot.” At the foot of the Iron Throne they reined up. Lord Unwin rushed forward, demanding to know the meaning of this. The twins paid him no more heed than they would a serving man. “Brother,” Lady Rhaena said to Aegon, “if it please you, we have brought your new queen.”

Her lord husband, Ser Corwyn Corbray, brought the girl forward. A gasp went through the hall. “Lady Daenaera of House Velaryon,” boomed out the herald, somewhat hoarsely, “daughter of the late and lamented Daeron of that house and his lady wife, Hazel of House Harte, also departed, a ward of Lady Baela of House Targaryen and Alyn the Oakenfist of House Velaryon, Lord Admiral, Master of Driftmark, and Lord of the Tides.”

Daenaera Velaryon was an orphan. Her mother had been carried off by the Winter Fever; her father had died in the Stepstones when his True Heart went down. His own father had been that Ser Vaemond beheaded by Queen Rhaenyra, but Daeron had been reconciled with Lord Alyn and had died fighting for him. As she stood before the king that Maiden’s Day, clad in pale white silk, Myrish lace, and pearls, her long hair shining in the torchlight and her cheeks flush with excitement, Daenaera was but six years old, yet so beautiful she took the breath away. The blood of Old Valyria was strong in her, as is oft seen in the sons and daughters of the seahorse; her hair was silver laced with gold, her eyes as blue as a summer sea, her skin as smooth and pale as winter snow. “She sparkled,” Mushroom says, “and when she smiled, the singers in the galley rejoiced, for they knew that here at last was a maid worthy of a song.” Daenaera’s smile transformed her face, men agreed; it was sweet and bold and mischievious, all at once. Those who saw it could not fail to think, “Here is a bright, sweet, happy little girl, the perfect antidote to the young king’s gloom.”

When Aegon III returned her smile and said, “Thank you for coming, my lady, you look very pretty,” even Lord Unwin Peake surely must have known that the game was lost. The last few maidens were brought forward hurriedly to do their turns, but the king’s desire to put an end to the parade was so palpable that poor Henrietta Woodhull was sobbing as she curtsied. As she was led away, King Aegon summoned his young cupbearer, Gaemon Palehair. To him was given the honor of making the announcement. “His Grace will marry Lady Daenaera of House Velaryon!” Gaemon shouted happily.

Caught in a snare of his own making, Lord Unwin Peake had no choice but to accept the king’s decision with as much grace as he could muster. In a council meeting the next day, however, he gave vent to his wroth. By choosing for his bride a girl of six, “this sulky boy” had thwarted the entire purpose of the marriage. It would be years before the girl was old enough to bed, and even longer until she could hope to produce a trueborn heir. Until such time the succession would remain clouded. The foremost duty of a regency was to guard the king against the follies of youth, he declared, “follies such as this.” For the good of the realm, the king’s choice must be set aside, so that His Grace might marry “a suitable maid of child-bearing age.”

“Such as your daughter?” asked Lord Rowan. “I think not.” Nor were his fellow regents more sympathetic. For once, the council remained adamant, defying the Hand’s wishes. The marriage would proceed. The betrothal was announced the next day, as scores of disappointed maidens streamed out the city gates for home.

King Aegon III Targaryen wed Lady Daenaera on the last day of the 133rd year since Aegon’s Conquest. The crowds that lined the streets to cheer the royal couple were significantly smaller than those who had come out for Aegon and Jaehaera, for the Winter Fever had carried off almost a fifth of the population of King’s Landing, but those who did brave the day’s bitter winds and snow flurries were delighted with their new queen, charmed by her happy waves, flushed cheeks, and shy, sweet smiles. Ladies Baela and Rhaena, riding just behind the royal litter, were greeted with exuberant cheers as well. Only a few took note of the King’s Hand farther back, with “his face as grim as death.”