accept men upon their backs, and when angered or threatened, they attack. Munkun’s True Telling tells us that sixteen men lost their lives during the Sowing. Three times that number were burned or maimed. Steffon Darklyn was burned to death whilst attempting to mount the dragon Seasmoke. Lord Gormon Massey suffered the same fate when approaching Vermithor. A man called Silver Denys, whose hair and eyes lent credence to his claim to be descended from a bastard son of Maegor the Cruel, had an arm torn off by Sheepstealer. As his sons struggled to staunch the wound, the Cannibal descended on them, drove off Sheepstealer, and devoured father and sons alike.
Yet Seasmoke, Vermithor, and Silverwing were accustomed to men and tolerant of their presence. Having once been ridden, they were more accepting of new riders. Vermithor, the Old King’s own dragon, bent his neck to a blacksmith’s bastard, a towering man called Hugh the Hammer or Hard Hugh, whilst a pale-haired man-at-arms named Ulf the White (for his hair) or Ulf the Sot (for his drinking) mounted Silverwing, beloved of Good Queen Alysanne. And Seasmoke, who had once borne Laenor Velaryon, took onto his back a boy of ten-and-five known as Addam of Hull, whose origins remain a matter of dispute amongst historians to this day.
Addam and his brother, Alyn (one year younger), had been born to a woman named Marilda, the pretty young daughter of a shipwright. A familiar sight about her father’s shipyards, the girl was better known as Mouse, for she was “small, quick, and always underfoot.” She was still sixteen when she gave birth to Addam in 114 AC, and barely eighteen when Alyn followed in 115. Small and quick as their mother, these bastards of Hull were both silver of hair and purple of eye, and soon proved to have “sea salt in their blood” as well, growing up in their grandsire’s shipyard and going to sea as ship’s boys before the age of eight. When Addam was ten and Alyn nine, their mother inherited the yards upon her own father’s death, sold them, and used the coin to take to the sea herself as the mistress of a trading cog she named Mouse. A canny trader and daring captain, by 130 AC Marilda of Hull owned seven ships, and her bastard sons were always serving on one or the other.
That Addam and Alyn were dragonseed no man who looked upon them could doubt, though their mother steadfastly refused to name their father. Only when Prince Jacaerys put out the call for new dragonriders did Marilda at last break her silence, claiming both boys were the natural sons of the late Ser Laenor Velaryon.
They had his look, it was true, and Ser Laenor had been known to visit the shipyard in Hull from time to time. Nonetheless, many on Dragonstone and Driftmark were skeptical of Marilda’s claim, for Laenor Velaryon’s disinterest in women was well remembered. None dared name her liar, however…for it was Laenor’s own father, Lord Corlys himself, who brought the boys to Prince Jacaerys for the Sowing. Having outlived all of his children and suffered the betrayal of his nephews and cousins, the Sea Snake seemed more than eager to accept these newfound grandsons. And when Addam of Hull mounted Ser Laenor’s dragon, Seasmoke, it seemed to prove the truth of his mother’s claims.
It should not surprise us, therefore, that Grand Maester Munkun and Septon Eustace both dutifully assert Ser Laenor’s parentage…but Mushroom, as ever, dissents. In his Testimony, the fool puts forth the notion that “the little mice” had been sired not by the Sea Snake’s son, but by the Sea Snake himself. Lord Corlys did not share Ser Laenor’s erotic predispositions, he points out, and the Hull shipyards were like unto a second home to him, whereas his son visited them less frequently. Princess Rhaenys, his wife, had the fiery temperament of many Targaryens, Mushroom says, and would not have taken kindly to her lord husband fathering bastards on a girl half her age, and a shipwright’s daughter besides. Therefore his lordship had prudently ended his “shipyard trysts” with Mouse after Alyn’s birth, commanding her to keep her boys far from court. Only after the death of Princess Rhaenys did Lord Corlys at last feel able to bring his bastards safely forward.
In this instance, it must be said, the tale told by the fool seems more likely than the versions offered by septon and maester. Many and more