of six feet tall, Jocelyn would have towered over most of the lords of Westeros, but the Prince of Dragonstone had three inches on her. “There stands the future of the realm,” Ser Gyles Morrigen said when he beheld the two of them side by side, the dark lady and the pale prince.
In 72 AC, a tourney was held at Duskendale in honor of young Lord Darklyn’s wedding to a daughter of Theomore Manderly. Both of the young princes attended, together with their sister Alyssa, and competed in the squire’s melee. Prince Aemon emerged victorious, in part by dint of hammering his brother into submission. Later he distinguished himself in the lists as well, and was awarded his knight’s spurs in recognition of his skills. He was seventeen years of age. With knighthood now achieved, the prince wasted no time becoming a dragonrider as well, ascending into the sky for the first time not long after his return to King’s Landing. His mount was blood-red Caraxes, fiercest of all the young dragons in the Dragonpit. The Dragonkeepers, who knew the denizens of the pit better than anyone, called him the Blood Wyrm.
Elsewhere in the realm, 72 AC also marked the end of an era in the North with the passing of Alaric Stark, Lord of Winterfell. Both of the strong sons he had once boasted of had died before him, so it fell to his grandson Edric to succeed him.
Wherever Prince Aemon went, whatever Prince Aemon did, Prince Baelon would not be far behind, as the wags at court oft observed. The truth of that was proved in 73 AC, when Baelon the Brave followed his brother into knighthood. Aemon had won his spurs at seventeen, so Baelon must needs do the same at sixteen, traveling across the Reach to Old Oak, where Lord Oakheart was celebrating the birth of a son with seven days of jousting. Arrayed as a mystery knight and calling himself the Silver Fool, the young prince overthrew Lord Rowan, Ser Alyn Ashford, both Fossoway twins, and Lord Oakheart’s own heir, Ser Denys, before falling to Ser Rickard Redwyne. After helping him to his feet, Ser Rickard unmasked him, bade him kneel, and knighted him on the spot.
Prince Baelon lingered only long enough to partake of the feast that evening before galloping back to King’s Landing to complete his quest and become a dragonrider. Never one to be overshadowed, he had long since chosen the dragon he wished to mount, and now he claimed her. Unridden since the death of the Dowager Queen Visenya twenty-nine years before, the great she-dragon Vhagar spread her wings, roared, and launched herself once more into the skies, carrying the Spring Prince across Blackwater Bay to Dragonstone to surprise his brother Aemon and Caraxes.
“The Mother Above has been so good to me, to bless me with so many babes, all bright and beautiful,” Queen Alysanne declared in 73 AC, when it was announced that her daughter Maegelle would be joining the Faith as a novice. “It is only fitting that I give one back.” Princess Maegelle was ten years of age, and eager to take the vows. A quiet, studious girl, she was said to read from The Seven-Pointed Star every night before sleep.
Hardly had one child departed the Red Keep than another arrived, however, for it appeared that the Mother Above was not yet done blessing Alysanne Targaryen. In 73 AC, she gave birth to her eleventh child, a son named Gaemon, in honor of Gaemon the Glorious, the greatest of the Targaryen lords who had ruled on Dragonstone before the Conquest. This time, however, the child came early, after a long and difficult labor that exhausted the queen, and made her maesters fear for her life. Gaemon was a scrawny thing as well, barely half the size his brother Vaegon had been at birth ten years earlier. The queen eventually recovered, though sad to say the child did not. Prince Gaemon died a few days into the new year, not quite three moons old.
As ever, the queen took the loss of a child hard, questioning whether or not it had been through some fault of her own that Prince Gaemon had failed. Septa Lyra, her confidant since her days on Dragonstone, assured her that she was not to blame. “The little prince is with the Mother Above now,” Lyra told her, “and she will care for him better than we could ever hope to, here in this