Fire & Blood (A Targaryen History #1) - George R.R. Martin Page 0,134

knew the realm would never accept another Pentoshi. “It must needs be a lord,” he concluded gloomily. Familiar names were bandied once again: Lannister, Velaryon, Hightower, houses built on gold as much as steel. “They are all too proud,” Jaehaerys said.

It was Septon Barth who first proposed a different name. “The Tyrells of Highgarden are descended from stewards,” he reminded the king, “but the Reach is broader than the westerlands, with a different sort of wealth, and young Martyn Tyrell might prove a useful addition to this council.”

Lord Redwyne was incredulous. “The Tyrells are dolts,” he said. “I am sorry, Your Grace, they are my liege lords, but…the Tyrells are dolts, and Lord Bertrand was a sot as well.”

“That is as it may be,” Septon Barth admitted. “Lord Bertrand is in his grave now, however, and I am speaking of his son. Martyn is young and eager, but I will not vouch for the quality of his wits. His wife, however, is a Fossoway girl, the Lady Florence, who has been counting apples since she learned to walk. She has been keeping all the accounts at Highgarden since her marriage, and it is said she has increased House Tyrell’s incomes by a third. Should we appoint her husband, she would come to court as well, I do not doubt.”

“Alysanne would like that,” the king said. “She enjoys the company of clever women.” The queen had not been attending council since the death of Princess Daenerys. Mayhaps Jaehaerys hoped that this would help bring her back to him again. “Our good septon has never led us wrong. Let us try the dolt with the clever wife, and hope that my leal smallfolk do not beat his head in with a cobblestone.”

The Seven take and the Seven give. Mayhaps the Mother Above looked down on Queen Alysanne in her grief and took pity on her broken heart. The moon had not turned twice since Princess Daenerys’s death when Her Grace learned that she was once again carrying a child. With winter holding the realm in its icy grip, the queen once again chose caution and retired to Dragonstone for her lying in. Late that year, 60 AC, she was delivered of her fifth child, a daughter she named Alyssa after her mother. “An honor Her Grace would have appreciated more had she been alive,” observed the new Grand Maester, Elysar…though not in the king’s hearing.

Winter broke not long after the queen gave birth, and Alyssa proved to be a lively, healthy child. As a babe she was so like her late sister, Daenerys, that the queen oft wept to behold her, remembering the child she had lost. The likeness faded as the princess grew older, however; long-faced and skinny, Alyssa had little of her sister’s beauty. Her hair was a dirty blond tangle with no hint of silver to evoke the dragonlords of old, and she had been born with mismatched eyes, one violet, the other a startling green. Her ears were too big and her smile lopsided, and when she was six playing in the yard a whack across the face from a wooden sword broke her nose. It healed crooked, but Alyssa did not seem to care. By that age, her mother had come to realize that it was not Daenerys that she took after, but Baelon.

Just as Baelon had once followed Aemon everywhere, Alyssa trailed after Baelon. “Like a puppy,” the Spring Prince complained. Baelon was two years younger than Aemon, Alyssa nearly four years younger than him…“and a girl,” which made it far worse in his eyes. The princess did not act like a girl, however. She wore boy’s clothes when she could, shunned the company of other girls, preferred riding and climbing and dueling with wooden swords to sewing and reading and singing, and refused to eat porridge.

An old friend, and old adversary, returned to King’s Landing in 61 AC, when Lord Rogar Baratheon rode up from Storm’s End to deliver three young girls to court. Two were the daughters of his brother Ronnal, who had died shivering together with his wife and sons. The third was Lady Jocelyn, his lordship’s own daughter by Queen Alyssa. The small frail babe who had come into the world during that terrible Year of the Stranger had grown into a tall young girl of solemn mien, with large dark eyes and hair black as sin.

Rogar Baratheon’s own hair had gone grey, however, and the years had taken their