The Book of Swords

by Gardner Dozois (ed)

  Rather than face his fires, the Eyrie’s garrison seized the pretender and delivered him to Lord Royce, opening the Moon Door once again and serving Jonos the kinslayer as he had served his brother. Surrender saved the pretender’s followers from burning, but not from death. After taking possession of the Eyrie, Prince Maegor executed them to a man. Even the highest born amongst them were denied the honor of dying by sword; traitors deserved only a rope, Maegor decreed, so the captured knights were hanged naked from the walls of the Eyrie, kicking as they strangled slowly. Hubert Arryn, a cousin to the dead brothers, was installed as Lord of the Vale. As he had already sired six sons by his lady wife, a Royce of Runestone, the Arryn succession was seen to be secure.

  In the Iron Islands, Goren Greyjoy, Lord Reaper of Pyke, brought “King” Lodos (Second of That Name) to a similar swift end, marshaling a hundred longships to descend on Old Wyk and Great Wyk, where the pretender’s followers were most numerous, and putting thousands of them to the sword. Afterward he had the head of the priest-king pickled in brine and sent to King’s Landing. King Aenys was so pleased by the gift that he offered Greyjoy any boon he might desire. This proved unwise. Lord Goren, wishing to prove himself a true son of the Drowned God, asked the king for the right to expel all the septons and septas who had come to the Iron Islands after the Conquest to convert the ironborn to the worship of the Seven. King Aenys had no choice but to agree.

  The largest and most threatening rebellion remained that of the Vulture King along the Dornish marches. Though Princess Deria continued to issue denunciations from Sunspear, there were many who suspected that she was playing a double game, for she did not take the field against the rebels and was rumored to be sending them men, money, and supplies. Whether that was true or not, hundreds of Dornish knights and several thousand seasoned spearmen had joined the Vulture King’s rabble, and the rabble itself had swelled enormously, to more than thirty thousand men. So large had his host become that the Vulture King made an ill-considered decision and divided his strength. Whilst he marched west against Nightsong and Horn Hill with half the Dornish power, the other half went east to besiege Stonehelm, seat of House Swann, under the command of Lord Walter Wyl, the son of the Widow-lover.

  Both hosts met with disaster. Orys Baratheon, known now as Orys One-Hand, rode forth from Storm’s End one last time, to smash the Dornish beneath the walls of Stonehelm. When Walter Wyl was delivered into his hands, wounded but alive, Lord Orys said, “Your father took my hand. I claim yours as repayment.” So saying, he hacked off Lord Walter’s sword hand. Then he took his other hand, and both his feet as well, calling them his “usury.” Strange to say, Lord Baratheon died on the march back to Storm’s End, of the wounds he himself had taken during the battle, but his son Davos always said he died content, smiling at the rotting hands and feet that dangled in his tent like a string of onions.

  The Vulture King himself fared little better. Unable to capture Nightsong, he abandoned the siege and marched west, only to have Lady Caron sally forth behind him, to join up with a strong force of marchmen led by Harmon Dondarrion, the mutilated Lord of Blackhaven. Meanwhile Lord Samwell Tarly of Horn Hill suddenly appeared athwart the Dornish line of march with several thousand knights and archers. “Savage Sam,” that lord was called, and so he proved in the bloody battle that ensued, cutting down dozens of Dornishmen with his great Valyrian steel blade, Heartsbane. The Vulture King had twice as many men as his three foes combined, but most were untrained and undisciplined, and when faced with armored knights at front and rear, their ranks shattered. Throwing down their spears and shields, the Dornish broke and ran, making for the distant mountains, but the marcher lords rode after them and cut them down, in what became known after as “the Vulture Hunt.”

  As for the rebel king himself, the man who called himself the Vulture King was taken alive, and tied naked between two posts by Savage Sam Tarly. The singers like to say that he was torn to pieces by the very vultures from whom he took his style, but in truth he perished of thirst and exposure, and the birds did not descend on him until well after he was dead. (In later centuries, several other men would take the title “Vulture King,” but whether they were of the same blood as the first, no man can say).

  The first of the rebels proved to be the last as well, but Harren the Red was at last brought to bay in a village west of the Gods Eye. The outlaw king did not die meekly. In his last fight, he slew the King’s Hand, Lord Alyn Stokeworth, before being cut down by Stokeworth’s squire, Bernarr Brune. A grateful King Aenys conferred knighthood on Brune, and rewarded Davos Baratheon, Samwell Tarly, No-Nose Dondarrion, Ellyn Caron, Allard Royce, and Goren Greyjoy with gold, offices, and honors. The greatest plaudits he bestowed on his own brother. On his return to King’s Landing, Prince Maegor was hailed as a hero. King Aenys embraced him before a cheering throng, and named him Hand of the King. And when two young dragons hatched amidst the firepits of Dragonstone at the end of that year, it was taken for a sign.

  But the amity between the Dragon’s sons did not long endure.

  It may be that conflict was inevitable, for the two brothers had very different natures. Kindhearted and soft-spoken, it was said of King Aenys that he loved his wife, his children, and his people, and wished only to be loved in turn. Sword and lance had long ago lost whatever appeal they ever had for him. Instead His Grace dabbled in alchemy, astronomy, and astrology, delighted in music and dance, wore the finest silks, samites, and velvets, and enjoyed the company of maesters, septons, and wits.

  His brother Maegor, taller, broader, and fearsomely strong, had no patience for any of that, but lived for war, tourneys, and battle. He was rightly regarded as one of the finest knights in Westeros, though his savagery in the field and his harshness toward defeated foes was oft remarked upon as well. King Aenys sought always to please; when faced with difficulties, he would answer with soft words, whereas Maegor’s reply was ever steel and fire. Grand Maester Gawen wrote that Aenys trusted everyone, Maegor no one. The king was easily influenced, Gawen observed, swaying this way and that like a reed into the wind, like as not to heed whichever councillor last had his ear. Prince Maegor, on the other hand, was rigid as an iron rod, unyielding, unbending.

  Despite such differences, the sons of the Dragon continued to rule together amicably for the best part of two years. But in 39 AC, Queen Alyssa gave King Aenys yet another heir, a girl she named Vaella, who sadly died in the cradle not long after. Perhaps it was this continued proof of the queen’s fertility that drove Prince Maegor to do what he did. Whatever the reason, the prince shocked the realm and the king both when he suddenly announced that Lady Ceryse was barren, and he had therefore taken a second wife in Alys Harroway, daughter of the new Lord of Harrenhal. The wedding was performed on Dragonstone, under the aegis of the Dowager Queen Visenya. As the castle septon refused to officiate, Maegor and his new bride were wed in a Valyrian rite, “wed by blood and fire.”

  The marriage took place without the leave, knowledge, or presence of King Aenys. When it became known, the two half brothers quarreled bitterly. Nor was His Grace alone in his wroth. Lord Hightower, father of Lady Ceryse, made protest to the king, demanding that Lady Alys be put aside. And in the Starry Sept at Oldtown, the High Septon went even further, denouncing Maegor’s marriage as sin and fornication, and calling the prince’s new bride “this whore of Harroway.” No true son or daughter of the Seven would ever bow to such, he thundered. Prince Maegor remained defiant. His father had taken both of his sisters to wife, he pointed out; the strictures of the Faith might rule lesser men, but not the blood of the Dragon. No words of King Aenys could heal the wound his brother’s words thus opened, and many pious lords throughout the Seven Kingdoms condemned the marriage, and began to speak openly of “Maegor’s Whore.”

  Vexed and angry, King Aenys gave his brother a choice: put Alys Harroway aside and return to Lady Ceryse, or suffer five years of exile. Prince Maegor chose exile. In 40 AC he departed for Pentos, taking Lady Aly
s, Balerion his dragon, and the sword Blackfyre (it is said that Aenys requested that his brother return Blackfyre, to which request Prince Maegor replied, “Your Grace is welcome to try and take her from me”). Lady Ceryse was left abandoned in King’s Landing.

  To replace his brother as Hand, King Aenys turned to Septon Murmison, a pious cleric said to be able to heal the sick by the laying on of hands. (The king had him lay hands on Lady Ceryse’s belly every night, in the hopes that his brother might repent his folly if his lawful wife could be made fertile, but the lady soon grew weary of the nightly ritual and departed King’s Landing for Oldtown, where she rejoined her father in the Hightower.) No doubt His Grace hoped the choice would appease the Faith. If so, he was wrong. Septon Murmison could no more heal the realm than he could make Ceryse Hightower fecund. The High Septon continued to thunder, and all through the realm the lords in their halls spoke of the king’s weakness. “How can he rule the Seven Kingdoms when he cannot even rule his brother?” it was said.

  Yet the king remained strangely oblivious to the discontent in the realm. Peace had returned, his troublesome brother was safely out of sight across the narrow sea, and a great new castle had begun to rise atop Aegon’s High Hill: built all in pale red stone, the king’s new seat would be larger and more lavish than Dragonstone, more beautiful than Harrenhal, with massive walls and barbicans and towers capable of withstanding any enemy. The Red Keep, the people of King’s Landing named it. Its building had become the king’s obsession. “My descendants shall rule from here for a thousand years,” His Grace declared. And thinking of those descendants, in 41 AC Aenys Targaryen made a disastrous blunder, and gave the hand of his daughter Rhaena in marriage to her brother Aegon, heir to the Iron Throne.

  The princess was eighteen, the prince fifteen. A royal wedding is a joyous event, the occasion for celebration, but this was the sort of incestuous union that the High Septon had warned against, and the Starry Sept condemned it as an obscenity and warned that children born of it would be “abominations in the sight of gods and men.” On the day of the wedding, the streets outside the Sept of Remembrance—built by a previous High Septon atop the Hill of Rhaenys, and named in honor of the fallen queen—were lined with Warrior’s Sons in gleaming silver armor, scowling at the wedding guests as they passed by, afoot, ahorse, or in litters. The wiser lords, perhaps expecting that, had stayed away.

  Those who did come to bear witness saw more than a wedding. At the feast afterward, King Aenys compounded his misjudgment by granting the title Prince of Dragonstone to his heir Aegon. A hush fell over the hall at those words, for all present knew that title had hitherto belonged to Prince Maegor. At the high table, Queen Visenya rose and stalked from the hall without the king’s leave. That night she mounted Vhagar and returned to Dragonstone, and it is written that when her dragon passed before the moon, that orb turned as red as blood.

  Aenys Targaryen did not seem to comprehend the extent to which he had roused the realm against him. Thinking to win back the favor of the smallfolk, he sent Aegon and Rhaena on a royal progress, only to find that they were jeered wherever they went. Septon Murmison, his Hand, was expelled from the Faith in punishment for performing the nuptials, whereupon the king wrote to the High Septon, asking that His High Holiness restore “my good Murmison,” and explaining the long history of brother/sister marriages in old Valyria. The High Septon’s reply was so blistering that His Grace went pale when he read it. Far from relenting, the Shepherd of the Faithful addressed Aenys as “King Abomination,” declared him a pretender and a tyrant, with no right to rule the Seven Kingdoms.

  The Faithful were listening. Less than a fortnight later, as Septon Murmison was crossing the city in his litter, a group of Poor Fellows came swarming from an alley and hacked him to pieces with their axes. The Warrior’s Sons began to fortify the Hill of Rhaenys, turning the Sept of Remembrance into their citadel. With the Red Keep still years away from completion, the king decided that his manse atop Visenya’s Hill was too vulnerable and made plans to remove himself to Dragonstone with Queen Alyssa and their younger children. It was a wise precaution. Three days before they were to sail, two Poor Fellows scaled the manse’s walls and broke into the king’s bedchamber. Only the timely intervention of Ser Raymont Baratheon of the Kingsguard saved Aenys from death.

  His Grace was trading Visenya’s Hill for Visenya herself. On Dragonstone the Queen Dowager famously greeted him with, “You are a fool and a weakling, nephew. Do you think any man would ever have dared speak so to your father? You have a dragon. Use him. Fly to Oldtown and make this Starry Sept another Harrenhal. Or give me leave, and let me roast this pious fool for you. Vhagar grows old, but her fires still burn hot.” Aenys would not hear of it. Instead he sent the Queen Dowager to her chambers in Sea Dragon Tower, and ordered her to remain there.

  By the end of 41 AC, much of the realm was deep in the throes of a full-fledged rebellion against House Targaryen. The four false kings who had arisen on the death of Aegon the Conqueror now seemed like so many posturing fools against the threat posed by this new rising, for these rebels believed themselves soldiers of the Seven, fighting a holy war against godless tyranny.

  Dozens of pious lords throughout the Seven Kingdoms took up the cry, pulling down the king’s banners and declaring for the Starry Sept. The Warrior’s Sons seized the gates of King’s Landing, giving them control over who might enter and leave the city, and drove the workmen from the unfinished Red Keep. Thousands of Poor Fellows took to the roads, forcing travelers to declare whether they stood with “the gods or the abomination,” and remonstrating outside castle gates until their lords came forth to denounce the Targaryen king. Prince Aegon and his wife were forced to abandon their progress, and take shelter in Crakehall castle. An envoy from the Iron Bank of Braavos, sent to Oldtown to treat with Lord Hightower, wrote to the bank to say that the High Septon was “the true king of Westeros, in all but name.”

  The corning of the new year found King Aenys still on Dragonstone, sick with fear and indecision. His Grace was but thirty-five years of age, but it was said that he looked like a man of sixty, and Grand Maester Gawen reported that he oft took to his bed with loose bowels and stomach cramps. When none of the Grand Maester’s cures proved efficacious, the Dowager Queen took charge of the king’s care, and Aenys seemed to improve for a time…only to suffer a sudden collapse when word reached him that thousands of Poor Fellows had surrounded Crakehall, where his son and daughter were reluctant “guests.” Three days later, the king was dead.

  Like his father, Aenys Targaryen, the First of His Name, was given over to the flames in the yard at Dragonstone. His funeral was attended by his sons Viserys and Jaehaerys, twelve and seven years of age respectively, and his daughter Alysanne, five. Queen Alyssa sang a dirge for him. The Dowager Queen Visenya was not present. Within an hour of the king’s death, she had mounted Vhagar and flown east, across the narrow sea.

  When she returned, Prince Maegor was with her, on Balerion.

  Maegor descended on Dragonstone only long enough to claim the crown; not the ornate golden crown Aenys had favored, with its images of the Seven, but the iron crown of their father set with its blood-red rubies. His mother placed it on his head, and the lords and knights gathered there knelt as he proclaimed himself Maegor of House Targaryen, First of His Name, King of the Andals, the Rhoynar, and the First Men, and Protector of the Realm.

  Only Grand Maester Gawen dared object. By all the laws of inheritance, laws that the Conqueror himself had affirmed after the Conquest, the Iron Throne should pass to King Aenys’s son Aegon, the aged maester said. “The Iron Throne will go to the man who has the strength to seize it,” Maegor replied. Whereupon he decreed the immediate execution of the Grand Maester, taking off Gawen’s old grey head himself with a single swing of Blackfyre. Queen Alyssa and her children were not on hand to witness King Maegor’s coronation. She had taken them from Dragonstone within hours of her husband’s funeral, crossing to her lord fath
er’s castle on nearby Driftmark. When told, Maegor gave a shrug…then retired to the Chamber of the Painted Table with a maester, to dictate letters to lords great and small throughout the realm.

  A hundred ravens flew within the day. The next day, Maegor flew as well. Mounting Balerion, he crossed Blackwater Bay to King’s Landing, accompanied by the Dowager Queen Visenya upon Vhagar. The return of the dragons set off riots in the city, as hundreds tried to flee, only to find the gates closed and barred. The Warrior’s Sons held the city walls, the chaos that would be the Red Keep, and the Hill of Rhaenys, where they had made the Sept of Remembrance their own fortress. The Targaryens raised their standards atop Visenya’s Hill and called for leal men to gather to them. Thousands did. Visenya Targaryen proclaimed that her son Maegor had come to be their king. “A true king, blood of Aegon the Conqueror, who was my brother, my husband, and my love. If any man questions my son’s right to the Iron Throne, let him prove his claim with his body.”

  The Warrior’s Sons were not slow to accept her challenge. Down from the Hill of Rhaenys they rode, seven hundred knights in silvered steel led by their grand captain, Ser Damon Morrigen, called Damon the Devout. “Let us not bandy words,” Maegor told him. “Swords will decide this matter.” Ser Damon agreed; the gods would grant victory to him whose cause was just, he said. “Let each side have seven champions, as it was done in Andalos of old. Can you find six men to stand beside you?” For Aenys had taken the Kingsguard to Dragonstone, and Maegor stood alone.