Джордж Мартин - Fire & Blood

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).