Fire & Blood (A Targaryen History #1) - George R.R. Martin Page 0,143

not been entirely wrong about the butterflies. As the years passed and Vaegon matured, young ladies at the court began to pay him some attention. Age, and some uncomfortable discussions with his father and his brothers, had taught the prince the rudiments of courtesy, and he did not squash any of the girls, to the queen’s relief. But he took no special notice of any of them either. Books remained his only passion: history, cartography, mathematics, languages. Grand Maester Elysar, never a slave to propriety, confessed to having given the prince a volume of erotic drawings, thinking mayhaps that pictures of naked maidens comporting with men and beasts and one another might kindle Vaegon’s interest in the charms of women. The prince kept the book, but showed no change in behavior.

It was on Prince Vaegon’s fifteenth nameday in 78 AC, a year short of his manhood, that Jaehaerys and Alysanne broached the obvious solution to the Grand Maester. “Do you think mayhaps Vaegon might have the makings of a maester?”

“No,” Elysar replied bluntly. “Can you see him instructing some lord’s children how to read and write and do simple sums? Does he keep a raven in his chamber, or any sort of bird? Can you imagine him removing a man’s crushed leg, or delivering a baby? All these are required of a maester.” The Grand Maester paused, then said, “Vaegon is no maester…but he could well have the makings of an archmaester in him. The Citadel is the greatest repository of knowledge in the known world. Send him there. Mayhaps he will find himself in the library. That, or he’ll get so lost amongst the books that you never need to concern yourselves with him again.”

His words struck home. Three days later, King Jaehaerys summoned Prince Vaegon to his solar to tell him that he would be taking ship for Oldtown in a fortnight. “The Citadel will take charge of you,” His Grace said. “It is for you to determine what becomes of you.” The prince responded curtly, as was his wont. “Yes, Father. Good.” Afterward Jaehaerys told the queen that he thought Vaegon had almost smiled.

Prince Baelon had not ceased smiling since his marriage. When not aloft, Baelon and Alyssa spent every hour together, most oft in their bedchamber. Prince Baelon was a lusty lad, for those same shrieks of pleasure that had echoed through the halls of the Red Keep on the night of their bedding were heard many another night in the years that followed. And soon enough, the much-hoped-for result appeared, and Alyssa Targaryen grew great with child. In 77 AC she gave her brave prince a son they named Viserys. Septon Barth described the boy as a “plump and pleasant lad, who laughed more than any babe I’ve ever known, and nursed so lustily he drank his wet nurse dry.” Against all advice, his mother clapped the boy in swaddling clothes, strapped him to her chest, and took him aloft on Meleys when he was nine days old. Afterward she claimed Viserys giggled the whole while.

Bearing and delivering a child may be a joy for a young woman of ten-and-seven, like the Princess Alyssa, but it is quite another matter for one of forty, like her mother, Queen Alysanne. The joy was therefore not entirely unalloyed when Her Grace was found to be pregnant once again. Prince Valerion was born in 77 AC, after another troubled labor that saw Alysanne confined to her bed for half a year. Like his brother Gaemon four years earlier, he was a small and sickly babe, and never thrived. Half a dozen wet nurses came and went to no avail. In 78 AC, Valerion died, a fortnight short of his first nameday. The queen took his passing with resignation. “I am forty-two years old,” she told the king. “You must be content with the children I have given you. I am more suited to be a grandmother than a mother now, I fear.”

King Jaehaerys did not share her certainty. “Our mother, Queen Alyssa, was forty-six when she gave birth to Jocelyn,” he pointed out to Grand Maester Elysar. “The gods may not be done with us.”

He was not wrong. The very next year, the Grand Maester informed Queen Alysanne that she was once more with child, to her surprise and dismay. Princess Gael was born in 80 AC, when the queen was forty-four. Called “the Winter Child” for the season of her birth (and because the queen