“you need only wed her, bed her, and father a son on her.” Then, infamously, he added, “Your Grace does not like turnips, but when your cooks prepare them, you eat them, do you not?” King Aegon nodded sullenly…but the tale got out, as such tales always do, and the unfortunate Lady Myrielle was soon known as Lady Turnips throughout the Seven Kingdoms.
She would never be Queen Turnips.
Unwin Peake had overreached himself. Thaddeus Rowan and Manfryd Mooton were outraged that he had not seen fit to consult them; matters of such import rightly belonged to the council of regents. Lady Arryn sent a waspish note from the Vale. Kermit Tully declared the betrothal “presumptuous.” Ben Blackwood questioned the haste of it; Aegon should have been allowed half a year at least to mourn his little queen. A curt missive arrived from Cregan Stark in Winterfell, suggesting that the North might look with disfavor on such a match. Even Grand Maester Munkun began to waver. “Lady Myrielle is a delightful girl, and I have no doubt that she would make a splendid queen,” he told the Hand, “but we must be concerned with appearances, my lord. We who have the honor of serving with your lordship know that you love His Grace as if he were your own son, and do all you do for him and for the realm, but others may imply that you chose your daughter for more ignoble reasons…for power, or the glory of House Peake.”
Mushroom, our wise fool, observes that there are certain doors best not opened, for “you never know what might come through.” Peake had opened a queen’s door for his daughter, but other lords had daughters too (as well as sisters, nieces, cousins, and even the odd widowed mother or maiden aunt) and before the door could close they all came pushing through, insisting that their own blood would make a better royal consort than Lady Turnips.
To recount all the names put forward would take more pages than we have, but a few are worthy of mention. At Casterly Rock, Lady Johanna Lannister set aside her war with the ironmen long enough to write the Hand and point out that her daughters Cerelle and Tyshara were maidens of noble birth and marriageable age. The twice-widowed Lady of Storm’s End, Elenda Baratheon, put forward her own daughters, Cassandra and Ellyn. Cassandra had once been betrothed to Aegon II and was “well prepared to serve as queen,” she wrote. From White Harbor came a raven from Lord Torrhen, speaking of past marriage pacts between the dragon and the merman “broken by cruel chance,” and suggesting that King Aegon might put things aright by taking a Manderly for his bride. Sharis Footly, widow of Tumbleton, made so bold as to nominate herself.
Perhaps the boldest letter came from the irrepressible Lady Samantha of Oldtown, who declared that her sister Sansara (of House Tarly) “is spirited and strong, and has read more books than half the maesters in the Citadel” whilst her good-sister Bethany (of House Hightower) was “very beautiful, with smooth soft skin and lustrous hair and the sweetest manner,” though also “lazy and somewhat stupid, truth be told, though some men seem to like that in a wife.” She concluded by suggesting that perhaps King Aegon should marry both of them, “one to rule beside him, as Queen Alysanne did King Jaehaerys, and one to bed and breed.” And in the event that both of them were “found wanting, for whatever obscure reason,” Lady Sam helpfully appended the names of thirty-one other nubile maidens from Houses Hightower, Redwyne, Tarly, Ambrose, Florent, Cobb, Costayne, Beesbury, Varner, and Grimm who might be suitable as queens. (Mushroom adds that her ladyship ended with a cheeky postscript that said, “I know some pretty boys as well, should His Grace be so inclined, but I fear they could not give him heirs,” but none of the other chronicles mention this affrontry, and her ladyship’s letter has been lost.)
In the face of so much tumult, Lord Unwin was forced to think again. Though he remained determined to wed his daughter Myrielle to the king, he had to do so in a way that would not provoke the lords whose support he needed. Bowing to the inevitable, he mounted the Iron Throne and said, “For the good of his people, His Grace must take another wife, though no woman will ever replace our beloved Jaehaera in his heart. Many have been