George Martin - Rogues

Ser Criston Cole turned to Queen Alicent instead. Her Grace was pleased to grant him her favor. Wearing her token, the young Lord Commander of the Kingsguard defeated all challengers, fighting in a black fury. He left Breakbones with a broken collarbone and a shattered elbow (prompting Mushroom to name him Brokenbones thereafter), but it was the Knight of Kisses who felt the fullest measure of his wroth. Cole’s favorite weapon was the morningstar, and the blows he rained down on Ser Laenor’s champion cracked his helm and left him senseless in the mud. Borne bloody from the field, Ser Joffrey died without recovering consciousness six days later. Mushroom tells us that Ser Laenor spent every hour of those days at his bedside and wept bitterly when he died.

King Viserys was most wroth as well; a joyous celebration had become the occasion of grief and recrimination. It was said that Queen Alicent did not share his displeasure, however; soon after, she asked that Ser Criston Cole be made her personal protector. The coolness between the king’s wife and the king’s daughter was plain for all to see; even envoys from the Free Cities made note of it, in letters sent back to Pentos, Braavos, and Old Volantis.

Ser Laenor returned to Driftmark thereafter, leaving many to wonder if his marriage had ever been consummated. The princess remained at court, surrounded by her friends and admirers. Ser Criston Cole was not amongst them, having gone over entirely to the queen’s party, the greens, but the massive and redoubtable Breakbones (or Brokenbones, as Mushroom had it) filled his place, becoming the foremost of the blacks, ever at Rhaenyra’s side at feast and ball and hunt. Her husband raised no objections. Ser Laenor preferred the comforts of High Tide, where he soon found a new favorite in a household knight named Ser Qarl Correy.

Thereafter, though he joined his wife for important court events where his presence was expected, Ser Laenor spent most of his days apart from the princess. Septon Eustace says they shared a bed no more than a dozen times. Mushroom concurs, but adds that Qarl Correy oft shared that bed as well; it aroused the princess to watch the men disporting with one another, he tells us, and from time to time the two would include her in their pleasures. Yet Mushroom contradicts himself, for elsewhere he claims that the princess would leave her husband with his lover on such nights and seek her own solace in the arms of Harwin Strong.

Whatever the truth of these tales, it was soon announced that the princess was with child. Born in the waning days of 114 AC, the boy was a large, strapping lad, with brown hair, brown eyes, and a pug nose (Ser Laenor had the aquiline nose, silver-white hair, and purple eyes that bespoke his Valyrian blood). Laenor’s wish to name the child Joffrey was overruled by his father, Lord Corlys. Instead the child was given a traditional Velaryon name: Jacaerys (friends and brothers would call him Jace).

The court was still rejoicing over the birth of the princess’s child when her stepmother, Queen Alicent, also went into labor, delivering Viserys his third son, Daeron … whose coloring, unlike that of Jace, testified to his dragon blood. By royal command, the infants Jacaerys Velaryon and Daeron Targaryen shared a wet nurse until weaned. It was said that the king hoped to prevent any enmity between the two boys by raising them as milk brothers.

If so, his hopes proved to be sadly forlorn.

A year later, in 115 AC, there came a tragic mishap, of the sort that shapes the destiny of kingdoms: the “bronze bitch” of Runestone, Lady Rhea Royce, fell from her horse whilst hawking and cracked her skull upon a stone. She lingered for nine days before finally feeling well enough to leave her bed … only to collapse and die within an hour of rising. A raven was duly sent to Storm’s End, and Lord Baratheon dispatched a messenger by ship to Bloodstone, where Prince Daemon was still struggling to defend his meager kingdom against the men of the Triarchy and their Dornish allies. Daemon flew at once for the Vale. “To put my wife to rest,” he said, though more like it was in the hopes of laying claim to her lands, castles, and incomes. In that he failed; Runestone passed instead to Lady Rhea’s nephew, and when Daemon made appeal to the Eyrie, not only was his claim dismissed, but Lady Jeyne warned him that his presence in the Vale was unwelcome.

Flying back to the Stepstones afterward, Prince Daemon landed at Driftmark to make a courtesy call upon his erstwhile partner in conquest, the Sea Snake, and the Princess Rhaenys. High Tide was one of the few places in the Seven Kingdoms where the king’s brother could be confident he would not be turned away. There his eye fell upon Lord Corlys’s daughter Laena, a maid of two-and-twenty, tall, slender, and surpassingly lovely (even Mushroom was taken with her beauty, writing that she “was almost as pretty as her brother”), with a great mane of silver-gold ringlets that fell down past her waist. Laena had been betrothed from the age of twelve to a son of the Sealord of Braavos … but the father had died before they could be wed, and the son soon proved a wastrel and a fool, squandering his family’s wealth and power before turning up on Driftmark. Lacking a graceful means to rid himself of the embarrassment, but unwilling to proceed with the marriage, Lord Corlys had repeatedly postponed the wedding.

Prince Daemon fell in love with Laena, the singers would have us believe. Men of a more cynical bent believe the prince saw her as a way to check his own descent. Once seen as his brother’s heir, he had fallen far down in the line of succession, and neither the greens nor the blacks had a place for him … but House Velaryon was powerful enough to defy both parties with impunity. Weary of the Stepstones, and free at last of his “bronze bitch,” Daemon Targaryen asked Lord Corlys for his daughter’s hand in marriage.

The exiled Braavosi betrothed remained an impediment, but not for long; Daemon mocked him to his face so savagely the boy had no choice but to call him to defend his words with steel. Armed with Dark Sister, the prince made short work of his rival, and wed Lady Laena Velaryon a fortnight later, abandoning his hardscrabble kingdom on the Stepstones. (Five other men followed him as Kings of the Narrow Sea, until the brief and bloody history of that savage sellsword “kingdom” ended for good and all).

Prince Daemon knew that his brother would not be pleased when he heard of his new marriage. Prudently, the prince and his new bride took themselves far from Westeros soon after the wedding, crossing the narrow sea on their dragons. Some said they flew to Valyria, in defiance of the curse that hung over that smoking wasteland, to search out the secrets of the dragonlords of the old Freehold. The truth was less romantic. Prince Daemon and Lady Laena flew first to Pentos, where they were feted by the city’s prince. The Pentoshi feared the growing power of the Triarchy to the south and saw Daemon as a valuable ally against the Three Daughters. From there, the prince and his bride crossed to Old Volantis, where they enjoyed a similar warm welcome. Then they flew up the Rhoyne, to Qohor and Norvos. In those cities, far removed from the woes of Westeros and the power of the Triarchy, their welcome was less rapturous. Everywhere they went, however, huge crowds turned out for a glimpse of Vhagar and Caraxes.

The dragonriders were once again in Pentos when Lady Laena learned she was with child. Eschewing further flight, Prince Daemon and his wife settled in a manse outside the city walls as a guest of a Pentoshi magister, until such time as the babe was born.

Meanwhile, back in Westeros, Princess Rhaenyra had given birth to a second son late in the year 115 AC. The child was named Lucerys (Luke for short). Septon Eustace tells us that both Ser Laenor and Ser Harwin were at Rhaenyra’s bedside for his birth. Like his brother Jace, Luke had brown eyes and a healthy head of brown hair, rather than the silver-gilt hair of Targaryen princelings, but he was a large and lusty lad, and King Viserys was delighted with him when the child was presented at court. These feelings were not shared by his queen. “Do keep trying,” Queen Alicent told Ser Laenor. “Soon or late, you may get one who looks like you.” And the rivalry between the greens and blacks grew deeper, finally reaching the point where the queen and the princess could scarce suffer each other’s presence. Thereafter Queen Alicent kept to the Red Keep of King’s Landing, whilst the princess spent her days on Dragonstone with her champion, Ser Harwin Strong. Her husband, Ser Laenor, was said to visit “frequently.”