were wed before year’s end. It was a small ceremony in the sept at Dragonstone, attended only by close friends and kin; larger crowds made the princess desperately uncomfortable. Nor was there a bedding. “Oh, I could not bear that, I should die of shame,” the princess had told her husband to be, and Lord Rodrik had acceded to her wishes.
Afterward, Lord Arryn took his princess back to the Eyrie. “My children need to meet their new mother, and I want to show the Vale to Daella. Life is slower there, and quieter. She will like that. I swear to you, Your Grace, she will be safe and happy.”
And so she was, for a time. The eldest of Lord Rodrik’s four children from his first wife was a daughter, Elys, three years older than her new stepmother. The two of them clashed from the first. Daella doted on the three younger children, however, and they seemed to adore her in turn. Lord Rodrik, true to his word, was a kind and caring husband who never failed to pamper and protect the bride he called “my precious princess.” Such letters as Daella sent her mother (letters largely written for her by Lord Rodrik’s younger daughter, Amanda) spoke glowingly of how happy she was, how beautiful the Vale, how much she loved her lord’s sweet sons, how everyone in the Eyrie was so kind to her.
Prince Aemon reached his twenty-sixth nameday in 81 AC, and had proved himself more than able in both war and peace. As the heir apparent to the Iron Throne, it was felt desirable that he take a greater role in the governance of the realm as a member of the king’s council. Accordingly, King Jaehaerys named the prince his justiciar and master of laws in place of Rodrik Arryn.
“I will leave the making of law to you, brother,” Prince Baelon declared, whilst drinking to Prince Aemon’s appointment. “I would sooner make sons.” And that was just what he did, for later that same year Princess Alyssa bore her Spring Prince a second son, who was given the name Daemon. His mother, irrepressible as ever, took the babe into the sky on Meleys within a fortnight of his birth, just as she had done with his brother, Viserys.
In the Vale, however, her sister Daella was not doing near as well. After a year and a half of marriage, a different sort of message arrived at the Red Keep by raven. It was very short, and written in Daella’s own uncertain hand. “I am with child,” it said. “Mother, please come. I am frightened.”
Queen Alysanne was frightened too, once she read those words. She mounted Silverwing within days and flew swiftly to the Vale, alighting first in Gulltown before proceeding on to the Gates of the Moon, and then skyward to the Eyrie. It was 82 AC, and Her Grace arrived three moons before Daella was due to give birth.
Though the princess professed delight that her mother had come, and apologized for sending her such a “silly” letter, her fear was palpable. She burst into tears for the slightest reason, and sometimes for no reason at all, Lord Rodrik said. His daughter Elys was dismissive, telling Her Grace, “You would think she was the first woman ever to have a baby,” but Alysanne was concerned. Daella was so delicate, and she was carrying very heavy. “She is such a small girl for such a big belly,” she wrote the king. “I would be frightened too, if I were her.”
Queen Alysanne stayed beside the princess for the rest of her confinement, sitting by her bedside, reading her to sleep at night, and comforting her fears. “It will be fine,” she told her daughter, half a hundred times. “She will be a girl, wait and see. A daughter. I know it. Everything will be fine.”
She was half right. Aemma Arryn, the daughter of Lord Rodrik and Princess Daella, came into the world a fortnight early, after a long and troubled labor. “It hurts,” the princess screamed through half the night. “It hurts so much.” But it is said she smiled when her daughter was laid against her breast.
Everything was far from fine, however. Childbed fever set in soon after birth. Though Princess Daella desperately wished to nurse her child, she had no milk, and a wet nurse was sent for. As her fever rose, the maester decreed that she might not even hold her babe, which set the princess