Fire & Blood (A Targaryen History #1) - George R.R. Martin Page 0,312

the Farmans, and the other lords of the west could rebuild sufficient warships of their own to defend against any return of the ironmen. Then he raised his sails once more and took the remainder of his fleet back out to sea, returning from whence he’d come.

Of their voyage home, we need say little. Near the mouth of the Mander, the Redwyne fleet was finally sighted, hurrying north, but they turned about after breaking bread with Lord Velaryon on the Lady Baela. His lordship made a brief visit to the Arbor, as Lord Redwyne’s guest, and a longer one at Oldtown, where he renewed his friendships with Lord Lyonel Hightower and Lady Sam, sat with the scribes and maesters of the Citadel so they might set down the details of his voyage, was feted by the masters of the seven guilds, and received yet another blessing from the High Septon. Again he sailed along the parched, dry coasts of Dorne, this time beating eastward. Princess Aliandra was pleased at his return to Sunspear, and insisted on hearing every detail of his adventures, to the fury of her siblings and jealous suitors.

It was from her that Lord Oakenfist learned that Dorne had joined the Daughters’ War, making alliance with Tyrosh and Lys against Racallio Ryndoon…and it was at her court at Sunspear, during the Maiden’s Day feast (the very day that a thousand maidens were parading before Aegon III in King’s Landing), that his lordship was approached by a certain Drazenko Rogare, one of the envoys that Lys had sent to Aliandra’s court, who begged a private word. Curious, Lord Alyn agreed to listen, and the two men stepped out into the yard, where Drazenko leaned so close that his lordship said, “I feared he meant to kiss me.” Instead he whispered something in the admiral’s ear, a secret that changed the course of Westerosi history. The next day, Lord Velaryon returned to Lady Baela and gave the command to raise sail…for Lys.

His reasons, and what befell him in the Free City, we shall reveal in due time, but for the nonce let us turn our gaze back on King’s Landing. Hope and good feeling reigned over the Red Keep as the new year dawned. Though younger than her predecessor, Queen Daenaera was a happier child, and her sunny nature did much to lighten the king’s gloom…for a while, at the least. Aegon III was seen about the court more often than had been his wont, and even left the castle on three occasions to show his bride such sights as the city offered (though he refused to take her to the Dragonpit, where Lady Rhaena’s young dragon, Morning, made her lair). His Grace seemed to take a new interest in his studies, and Mushroom was oft summoned to entertain the king and queen at supper (“The sound of the queen’s laughter was like music to this fool, so sweet that even the king was known to smile”). Even Gareth Long, the Red Keep’s despised master-at-arms, made note of a change. “We no longer have to beat the bastard boy as often as before,” he told the Hand. “The boy has never lacked for strength nor speed. Now at last he is showing some modicum of skill.”

The young king’s new interest in the world even extended to the rule of his kingdom. Aegon III began to attend the council. Though he seldom spoke, his presence heartened Grand Maester Munkun, and seemed to please Lord Mooton and Lord Rowan. Ser Marston Waters of the Kingsguard seemed discomfited by His Grace’s attendance, however, and Lord Peake took it for a rebuke. Whenever Aegon made so bold as to ask a question, Munkun tells us, the Hand would bristle and accuse him of wasting the council’s time, or inform him that such weighty matters were beyond the understanding of a child. Unsurprisingly, before very long His Grace began to absent himself from the meetings, as before.

Sour and suspicious by nature, and possessed of overweening pride, Unwin Peake was a most unhappy man by 134 AC. The Maiden’s Day Ball had been a humiliation, and he took the king’s rejection of his daughter, Myrielle, in favor of Daenaera as a personal affront. Never fond of Lady Baela, he now had reason to mislike her sister Rhaena as well; both of them, he was convinced, were working against him, most like at the behest of Baela’s husband, the insolent and rebellious Oakenfist. The twins had