Grand Maester’s loyalty.
The queen had better fortune elsewhere. From Winterfell, Cregan Stark wrote to say that he would bring a host south as soon as he could, but warned that it would take some time to gather his men “for my realms are large, and with winter upon us, we must needs bring in our last harvest, or starve when the snows come to stay.” The northman promised the queen ten thousand men, “younger and fiercer than my Winter Wolves.” The Maiden of the Vale promised aid as well, when she replied from her winter castle, the Gates of the Moon…but with the mountain passes closed by snow, her knights would need to come by sea. If House Velaryon would send its ships to Gulltown, Lady Jeyne wrote, she would dispatch an army to Duskendale at once. If not, she must needs hire ships from Braavos and Pentos, and for that she would need coin.
Queen Rhaenyra had neither gold nor ships. When she had sent Lord Corlys to the dungeons she had lost her fleet, and she had fled King’s Landing in terror of her life, without so much as a coin. Despairing and fearful, Her Grace walked the castle battlements of Duskendale weeping, growing ever more grey and haggard. She could not sleep and would not eat. Nor would she suffer to be parted from Prince Aegon, her last living son; day and night, the boy remained by her side, “like a small pale shadow.”
When Lady Meredyth made it plain that the queen had overstayed her welcome, Rhaenyra was forced to sell her crown to raise the coin to buy passage on a Braavosi merchantman, the Violande. Ser Harrold Darke urged her to seek refuge with Lady Arryn in the Vale, whilst Ser Medrick Manderly tried to persuade her to accompany him and his brother Ser Torrhen back to White Harbor, but Her Grace refused them both. She was adamant on returning to Dragonstone. There she would find dragon’s eggs, she told her loyalists; she must have another dragon, or all was lost.
Strong winds pushed the Violande closer to the shores of Driftmark than the queen might have wished, and thrice she passed within hailing distance of the Sea Snake’s warships, but Rhaenyra took care to keep well out of sight. Finally the Braavosi put into the harbor below the Dragonmont on the eventide. The queen had sent a raven from Duskendale to give notice of her coming, and found an escort waiting as she disembarked with her son Aegon, her ladies, and three Queensguard knights (the gold cloaks who had ridden with her from King’s Landing stayed at Duskendale, whilst the Manderlys remained aboard the Violande, bound for White Harbor).
It was raining when the queen’s party came ashore, and hardly a face was to be seen about the port. Even the dockside brothels appeared dark and deserted, but Her Grace took no notice. Sick in body and spirit, broken by betrayal, Rhaenyra Targaryen wanted only to return to her own seat, where she imagined that she and her son would be safe. Little did the queen know that she was about to suffer her last and most grievous treachery.
Her escort, forty strong, was commanded by Ser Alfred Broome, one of the men left behind when Rhaenyra had launched her attack upon King’s Landing. Broome was the most senior of the knights at Dragonstone, having joined the garrison during the reign of the Old King. As such, he had expected to be named as castellan when Rhaenyra went forth to seize the Iron Throne…but Ser Alfred’s sullen disposition and sour manner inspired neither affection nor trust, Mushroom tells us, so the queen had passed him over in favor of the more affable Ser Robert Quince. When Rhaenyra asked why Ser Robert had not come to meet her, Ser Alfred replied that the queen would be seeing “our fat friend” at the castle.
And so she did…though Quince’s charred corpse was burned beyond all recognition when they came upon it. Only by his size did they know him, for Ser Robert had been enormously fat. They found him hanging from the battlements of the gatehouse beside Dragonstone’s steward, captain of the guard, master-at-arms…and the head and upper torso of Grand Maester Gerardys. Everything below his ribs was gone, and the Grand Maester’s entrails dangled down from within his torn belly like so many burned black snakes.
The blood drained from the queen’s cheeks when she beheld the bodies, but young