to move, but soon enough they too began to throw their lots in with the queen. From the Twins rode Ser Forrest Frey, the very same “Fool Frey” who had once begged for Rhaenyra’s hand, now grown into a most puissant knight. Lord Samwell Blackwood, who had once lost a duel for her favor, raised her banners over Raventree. (Ser Amos Bracken, who had won that duel, followed his lord father when House Bracken declared for Aegon.) The Mootons of Maidenpool, the Pipers of Pinkmaiden Castle, the Rootes of Harroway, the Darrys of Darry, the Mallisters of Seagard, and the Vances of Wayfarer’s Rest all announced their support for Rhaenyra. (The Vances of Atranta took the other path, and trumpeted their allegiance to the young king.) Petyr Piper, the grizzled Lord of Pinkmaiden, spoke for many when he said, “I swore her my sword. I’m older now, but not so old that I’ve forgotten the words I said, and it happens I still have the sword.”
The Lord Paramount of the Trident, Grover Tully, had been an old man even at the Great Council of 101, where he spoke for Prince Viserys; though now failing, he was no less stubborn. He had favored the rights of the male claimant in 101, and the years had not changed his views. Lord Grover insisted that Riverrun would fight for young King Aegon. Yet no such word went forth. The old lord was bedridden and would not live much longer, Riverrun’s maester had declared. “I would sooner the rest of us did not die with him,” declared Ser Elmo Tully, his grandson. Riverrun had no defense against dragonfire, he pointed out to his own sons, and both sides in this fight rode dragons. And so whilst Lord Grover thundered and fulminated from his deathbed, Riverrun barred its gates, manned its walls, and held its silence.
Meanwhile, a very different story was playing out to the east, where Jacaerys Velaryon descended upon the Eyrie on his young dragon, Vermax, to win the Vale of Arryn for his mother. The Maiden of the Vale, Lady Jeyne Arryn, was five-and-thirty, twenty years his senior. Never wed, Lady Jeyne had reigned over the Vale since the death of her father and elder brothers at the hands of the Stone Crows of the hills when she was three.
Mushroom tells us that this famous maiden was in truth a highborn harlot with a voracious appetite for men, and gives us a salacious tale of how she offered Prince Jacaerys the allegiance of the Vale only if he could bring her to her climax with his tongue. Septon Eustace repeats the widespread rumor that Jeyne Arryn preferred the intimate companionship of other women, then goes on to say it was not true. In this instance, we must be grateful for Grand Maester Munkun’s True Telling, for he alone confines himself to the High Hall of the Eyrie, rather than its bedchambers.
“Thrice have mine own kin sought to replace me,” Lady Jeyne told Prince Jacaerys. “My cousin Ser Arnold is wont to say that women are too soft to rule. I have him in one of my sky cells, if you would like to ask him. Your Prince Daemon used his first wife most cruelly, it is true…but notwithstanding your mother’s poor taste in consorts, she remains our rightful queen, and mine own blood besides, an Arryn on her mother’s side. In this world of men, we women must band together. The Vale and its knights shall stand with her…if Her Grace will grant me one request.” When the prince asked what that might be, she answered, “Dragons. I have no fear of armies. Many and more have broken themselves against my Bloody Gate, and the Eyrie is known to be impregnable. But you have descended on us from the sky, as Queen Visenya once did during the Conquest, and I was powerless to halt you. I mislike feeling powerless. Send me dragonriders.”
And so the prince agreed, and Lady Jeyne knelt before him, and bade her warriors to kneel, and all swore him their swords.
Then on Jacaerys soared, north across the Fingers and the waters of the Bite. He lighted briefly at Sisterton, where Lord Borrell and Lord Sunderland did obeisance to him and pledged him the support of the Three Sisters, then flew on to White Harbor, where Lord Desmond Manderly met with him in his Merman’s Court.
Here the prince faced a shrewder bargainer. “White Harbor is not unsympathetic to your