Driftwood Throne (a gift from the Merling King, according to legend).
The Sea Snake built ships as well. The royal fleet tripled in size during the years he served the Old King as master of ships. Even after giving up that office, he continued to build, turning out merchantmen and trading galleys in place of warships. Beneath the dark, salt-stained walls of Castle Driftmark three modest fishing villages grew together into a thriving town called Hull, for the rows of ship hulls that could always be seen below the castle. Across the island, near High Tide, another village was transformed into Spicetown, its wharves and piers crowded with ships from the Free Cities and beyond. Sitting athwart the Gullet, Driftmark was closer to the narrow sea than Duskendale or King’s Landing, so Spicetown soon began to usurp much of the shipping that would elsewise have made for those ports, and House Velaryon grew ever richer and more powerful.
Lord Corlys was an ambitious man. During his nine voyages on the Sea Snake, he was forever wanting to press onward, to go where none had gone before and see what lay beyond the maps. Though he had accomplished much and more in life, he was seldom satisfied, the men who knew him best would say. In Rhaenys Targaryen, daughter of the Old King’s eldest son and heir, he had found his perfect match, a woman as spirited and beautiful and proud as any in the realm, and a dragonrider as well. His sons and daughters would soar through the skies, Lord Corlys expected, and one day one of them would sit the Iron Throne.
Unsurprisingly, the Sea Snake was bitterly disappointed when Prince Aemon died and King Jaehaerys bypassed Aemon’s daughter, Rhaenys, in favor of his brother, Baelon the Spring Prince. But now, it seemed, the wheel had turned again, and the wrong could be righted. Thus did Lord Corlys and his wife, the Princess Rhaenys, arrive at Harrenhal in high state, using the wealth and influence of House Velaryon to persuade the lords assembled that their son, Laenor, should be recognized as heir to the Iron Throne. In these efforts they were joined by the Lord of Storm’s End, Boremund Baratheon (great-uncle to Rhaenys and great-great-uncle to the boy Laenor), by Lord Stark of Winterfell, Lord Manderly of White Harbor, Lord Dustin of Barrowton, Lord Blackwood of Raventree, Lord Bar Emmon of Sharp Point, Lord Celtigar of Claw Isle, and others.
They were nowhere near enough. Though Lord and Lady Velaryon were eloquent and open-handed in their efforts on behalf of their son, the decision of the Great Council was never truly in doubt. By a lopsided margin, the lords assembled chose Viserys Targaryen as the rightful heir to the Iron Throne. Though the maesters who tallied the votes never revealed the actual numbers, it was said afterward that the vote had been more than twenty to one.
King Jaehaerys had not attended the council, but when word of their verdict reached him, His Grace thanked the lords for their service and gratefully conferred the style Prince of Dragonstone upon his grandson Viserys. Storm’s End and Driftmark accepted the decision, if grudgingly; the vote had been so overwhelming that even Laenor’s father and mother saw that they could not hope to prevail. In the eyes of many, the Great Council of 101 AC thereby established an iron precedent on matters of succession: regardless of seniority, the Iron Throne of Westeros could not pass to a woman, nor through a woman to her male descendants.
Of the last years in the reign of King Jaehaerys, little and less need be said. Prince Baelon had served his father as Hand of the King as well as Prince of Dragonstone, but after his death His Grace elected to divide those honors. As his new Hand, he called upon Ser Otto Hightower, younger brother to Lord Hightower of Oldtown. Ser Otto brought his wife and children to court with him, and served King Jaehaerys faithfully for the years remaining to him. As the Old King’s strength and wits began to fail, he was oft confined to his bed. Ser Otto’s precocious fifteen-year-old daughter, Alicent, became his constant companion, fetching His Grace his meals, reading to him, helping him to bathe and dress himself. The Old King sometimes mistook her for one of his daughters, calling her by their names; near the end, he grew certain she was his daughter Saera, returned to him from beyond the narrow sea.
In