Джордж Мартин - Fire & Blood

During the first quarter of 135 AC, two momentous events were the occasion of great joy throughout the Seven Kingdoms of Westeros. On the third day of the third moon of that year, the people of King’s Landing woke to a sight that had not been seen since the dark days of the Dance: a dragon in the skies above the city. Lady Rhaena, at the age of nineteen, was flying her dragon, Morning, for the first time. That first day she circled once around the city before returning to the Dragonpit, but every day thereafter she grew bolder and flew farther.

Only once did Rhaena land Morning inside the Red Keep, however, for not even the best efforts of Prince Viserys could persuade his brother the king to come see his sister fly (though Queen Daenaera was so delighted with Morning that she was heard to say that she wanted a dragon of her own). Shortly thereafter, Morning carried Lady Rhaena across Blackwater Bay to Dragonstone where, as she said, “Dragons and those who ride them are more welcome.”

Less than a fortnight later, Larra of Lys gave birth to a son, Prince Viserys’s firstborn child. The mother was twenty years of age, the father only thirteen. Viserys named the child Aegon after his brother, the king, and placed a dragon’s egg inside his cradle, as had become the custom with all trueborn children of House Targaryen. Aegon was anointed with the seven oils by Septon Bernard in the royal sept, and the bells of the city rang in celebration of his birth. Gifts were sent from every corner of the realm, though none so lavish as those bestowed upon the babe by his Lyseni uncles. In Lys, Lysandro the Magnificent declared a day of feasting in honor of his grandson.

Yet even in the midst of joy, whispers of discontent began to be heard. This new son of House Targaryen had been anointed into the Faith, but soon enough the city heard that his mother meant to have him blessed by her own gods as well, and rumors of obscene ceremonies in the Mermaid and blood sacrifice in Maegor’s Holdfast began to be heard on the streets of King’s Landing. The trouble might have ended there, with talk, but soon thereafter a series of disasters befell the realm and royal family, each following hard upon the heels of the other, until even men who mocked the gods, like Mushroom, began to question whether the Seven had turned against House Targaryen and the Seven Kingdoms in their wroth.

The first omen of the dark times to come was seen on Driftmark, when the dragon’s egg presented to Laena Velaryon upon her birth quickened and hatched. Her parents’ pride and pleasure quickly turned to ash, however; the dragon that wriggled from the egg was a monstrosity, a wingless wyrm, maggot-white and blind. Within moments of hatching, the creature turned upon the babe in her cradle and tore a bloody chunk from her arm. As Laena shrieked, Lord Oakenfist ripped the “dragon” off her, flung it to the floor, and hacked it into pieces.

The news of this monstrous dragonbirth and its bloody aftermath were greatly troubling to King Aegon, and soon led to angry words between His Grace and his brother. Prince Viserys still had his own dragon’s egg. Though it had never quickened, the prince had kept it with him throughout his years of exile and captivity, for it held great meaning for him. When Aegon commanded that no dragon’s eggs were to be allowed in his castle, Viserys grew most wroth. Yet the king’s will prevailed, as it must; the egg was sent to Dragonstone, and Prince Viserys refused to speak to King Aegon for a moon’s turn.

His Grace was much dismayed by the quarrel with his brother, Mushroom tells us, but what happened next left him bereft and devastated. King Aegon was enjoying a quiet supper in his solar with his little queen, Daenaera, and his friend Gaemon Palehair and the dwarf was entertaining them with a silly song about a bear that drank too much, when the bastard boy began to complain of a cramping in his gut. “Run fetch Grand Maester Munkun,” the king commanded Mushroom. By the time the fool returned with the Grand Maester, Gaemon had collapsed and Queen Daenaera was moaning, “My belly hurts too.”

Gaemon had long served as King Aegon’s food taster as well as his cupbearer, and Munkun soon declared that both he and the little queen were the victims of poisoning. The Grand Maester gave Daenaera a powerful purgative, which most like saved her life. She retched uncontrollably throughout the night, wailing and writhing in pain, and was too drained and weak to leave her bed the next day, but she was cleansed. Munkun came too late for Gaemon Palehair, however. The boy died within the hour. Born a bastard in a brothel, “King Cunny” had reigned briefly over his kingdom on a hill during the Moon of Madness, seen his mother put to death, and served Aegon III as cupbearer, whipping boy, and friend. He was thought to be but nine years old at his death.

Afterward Grand Maester Munkun fed what remained of the supper to a cage of rats, and determined that the poison had been baked into the crust of the apple tarts. Fortunately, the king had never been especially fond of sweets (nor of any other food, if truth be told). The knights of the Kingsguard at once descended to the Red Keep’s kitchens and took a dozen cooks, bakers, scullions, and serving girls into custody, delivering them to George Graceford, the Lord Confessor. Under torture, seven confessed to attempting to poison the king…but each account differed from the next, there was no agreement on where they got the poison, and none of the captives correctly named the dish that had been poisoned, so Lord Rowan reluctantly dismissed their confessions as “not fit to wipe my arse with.” (The Hand was in a black state even before the poisoning, for he had only recently suffered his own personal tragedy when his young wife, the Lady Floris, died in childbirth.)

Though the king had spent less time with his cupbearer after his brother’s return to Westeros, Gaemon Palehair’s death nonetheless left Aegon inconsolable. One small good came from it, for it helped to heal the rift between the king and his brother Viserys, who broke his stubborn silence to comfort His Grace in his grief, and sat with him by the queen’s bedside. That proved little enough, however. Thereafter it was Aegon who was silent, for his old gloom had settled over him once again, and he seemed to lose all interest in his court and kingdom.

The next blow fell far from King’s Landing, in the Vale of Arryn, when Ser Corwyn Corbray ruled that Lady Jeyne’s will must prevail and declared Ser Joffrey Arryn the rightful Lord of the Eyrie. When the other claimants proved intransigent and refused to accept his ruling, Ser Corwyn imprisoned the Gilded Falcon and his sons and executed Eldric Arryn, yet somehow Ser Eldric’s mad father, Ser Arnold, eluded him and fled to Runestone, where he had served as a squire in his boyhood. Gunthor Royce, known in the Vale as the Bronze Giant, was an old man, as stubborn as he was fearless; when Ser Corwyn arrived to winkle Ser Arnold out of his sanctuary, Lord Gunthor donned his ancient bronze armor and rode out to confront him. Words grew heated, turned to curses, then to threats. When Corbray drew on Lady Forlorn—whether to strike at Royce or merely threaten him will never be known—a crossbowman on Runestone’s battlements loosed a quarrel and pierced him through the breast.

Striking down one of the king’s regents was an act of treason, akin to attacking the king himself. Moreover, Ser Corwyn had been uncle to Quenton Corbray, the powerful and martial Lord of Heart’s Home, as well as the beloved husband to Lady Rhaena the dragonrider, good-brother to her twin, Lady Baela, and thus by marriage kin to Alyn Oakenfist. With his death, the flames of war sprang up anew across the Vale of Arryn. The Corbrays, Hunters, Craynes, and Redforts rallied in support of Lady Jeyne’s chosen heir, Ser Joffrey Arryn, whilst the Royces of Runestone and Ser Arnold, the Mad Heir, were joined by the Templetons, Tolletts, Coldwaters, and Duttons, along with the lords of the Fingers and Three Sisters. Gulltown and House Grafton remained staunch in its support of the Gilded Falcon, despite his captivity.