to terms. Still weak from her labor, she could not come to the city herself for the coronation, she wrote, but she would send her own lord father to do homage in her stead, and three of her daughters to serve as hostages. They would be accompanied by Ser Willis Fell, together with his “precious charge,” the eight-year-old Princess Jaehaera, the last living child of King Aegon II and the new king’s bride-to-be.
Last to respond was Oldtown. The wealthiest of the great houses that had rallied to King Aegon II, the Hightowers remained in some ways the most dangerous, for they were capable of raising large new armies quickly from the streets of Oldtown, and with their own warships and those of their close kin, the Redwynes of the Arbor, they could float a significant fleet as well. Moreover, one-quarter of the Crown’s gold still rested in deep vaults beneath the Hightower, gold that could easily have been used to buy new alliances and hire sellsword companies. Oldtown had the power to renew the war; all that was lacking was the will.
Lord Ormund had only recently taken a second wife when the Dance began, his first having died some years before in childbed. Upon his death at Tumbleton, his lands and title passed to his eldest son, Lyonel, a youth of fifteen on the cusp of manhood. The second son, Martyn, was a squire to Lord Redwyne on the Arbor; the third was fostering at Highgarden as a companion to Lord Tyrell and cupbearer to his lady mother. All three were children of Lord Ormund’s first marriage. When Lord Velaryon’s terms were put to Lyonel Hightower, it is said, the young lord ripped the parchment from his maester’s hand and tore it into shreds, swearing to write his reply in the Sea Snake’s blood.
His lord father’s young widow had other notions, however. Lady Samantha was the daughter of Lord Donald Tarly of Horn Hill and Lady Jeyne Rowan of Goldengrove, both houses that had taken up arms for the queen during the Dance. Fierce and fiery and beautiful, this strong-willed girl had no intention of giving up her place as the Lady of Oldtown and mistress of the Hightower. Lyonel was but two years her junior, and (Mushroom says) had been infatuated with her since first she came to Oldtown to wed his father. Whereas previously she had fended off the boy’s halting advances, now Lady Sam (as she would be known for many a year) yielded to them, allowing him to seduce her, and afterward promising to marry him…but only if he would make peace, “for I would surely die of grief should I lose another husband.”
Faced with a choice between “a dead father, cold in the ground, and a living woman, warm and willing in his arms, the boy showed surprising sense for one so highborn, and chose love over honor,” says Mushroom. Lyonel Hightower capitulated, agreeing to all the terms put forth by Lord Corlys, including the return of the Crown’s gold (to the fury of his cousin, Ser Myles Hightower, who had stolen a good part of that gold, though that tale need not concern us here). A great scandal ensued when the young lord then announced his intention to marry his father’s widow, and the reigning High Septon ultimately forbade the marriage as a form of incest, but even that could not keep these young lovers apart. Thereafter refusing to wed, the Lord of the Hightower and Defender of Oldtown kept the Lady Sam by his side as his paramour for the next thirteen years, fathering six children on her, and finally taking her as his wife when a new High Septon came to power in the Starry Sept and reversed the ruling of his predecessor.*1
Let us leave the Hightower now and return once more to King’s Landing, where Lord Cregan Stark found all his plans for war undone by the Three Widows. “Other voices were making themselves heard as well, gentler voices that echoed softly through the halls of the Red Keep,” says Mushroom. The Maiden of the Vale had arrived from Gulltown, bringing her own ward, the Lady Rhaena Targaryen, with a dragon on her shoulder. The smallfolk of King’s Landing, who not a year before had slaughtered every dragon in the city, now became rapturous at the sight of one. Lady Rhaena and her twin sister, Baela, became the darlings of the city overnight. Lord Stark could not confine them