deliberately and with malice aforethought wrecked his own plans to secure the succession, he told his own loyalists, and by seeing to it that the king took to wife a six-year-old they had ensured that the child Baela carried would be next in line to the Iron Throne.
“If the child is a boy, His Grace will never live long enough to sire an heir of his own body,” Peake said to Marston Waters once, in Mushroom’s presence. Shortly thereafter, Baela Velaryon was brought to childbed and delivered of a healthy baby girl. She named the child Laena after her mother. Yet even this did not long mollify the King’s Hand, for less than a fortnight later, the leading elements of the Velaryon fleet returned to King’s Landing bearing a cryptic message: Oakenfist had sent them on ahead whilst he set sail for Lys to secure “a treasure beyond price.”
These words inflamed Lord Peake’s suspicions. What was this treasure? How did Lord Velaryon mean to “secure” it? With a sword? Was he about to start a war with Lys, as he had with Braavos? The Hand had sent the rash young admiral around the whole of Westeros to rid the court of him, yet here he was about to descend on them once more, “dripping with undeserved acclaim” and mayhaps vast wealth as well. (Gold was ever a sore point for Unwin Peake, whose own house was land poor, rich in stone and soil and pride, yet chronically short of coin.) The smallfolk saw Oakenfist as a hero, his lordship knew, the man who had humbled the proud Sealord of Braavos and the Red Kraken of Pyke, whilst he himself was resented and reviled. Even within the Red Keep, there were many who hoped that the regents might remove Lord Peake as King’s Hand, and replace him with Alyn Velaryon.
The excitement occasioned by Oakenfist’s return was palpable, however, so all the Hand could do was seethe. When Lady Baela’s sails were first seen across the waters of Blackwater Bay, with the rest of the Velaryon fleet appearing from the morning mists behind her, every bell in King’s Landing commenced to toll. Thousands crowded onto the city walls to cheer the hero, just as they had at Lannisport half a year before, whilst thousands more rushed out the River Gate to line the shores. But when the king expressed the wish to go to the docks “to thank my good-brother for his service,” the Hand forbade it, insisting it would not be fitting for His Grace to go to Lord Velaryon, that the admiral must come to the Red Keep to abase himself before the Iron Throne.
In this, as in the matter of Aegon’s betrothal to Myrielle Peake, Lord Unwin found himself overruled by the other regents. Over his strenuous objections, King Aegon and Queen Daenera descended from the castle in their litter, accompanied by Lady Baela and her newborn daughter; her sister Lady Rhaena with her lord husband, Corwyn Corbray; Grand Maester Munkun; Septon Bernard; the regents Manfryd Mooton and Thaddeus Rowan; the knights of the Kingsguard; and many other notables eager to meet Lady Baela at the docks.
The morning was bright and cold, the chronicles tell us. There, before the eyes of tens of thousands, Lord Alyn Oakenfist beheld his daughter, Laena, for the first time. After kissing his lady wife, he took the child from her and held her high for all the crowd to see, as the cheers fell like thunder. Only then did he return the girl to her mother’s arms and bend his knee before the king and queen. Queen Daenaera, blushing prettily and stammering just a little, hung about his neck a heavy golden chain studded with sapphires, “b-blue as the sea where my lord has won his victories.” Then King Aegon III bade the admiral rise with the words, “We are glad to have you safe home, my brother.”
Mushroom says that Oakenfist was laughing as he climbed back to his feet. “Sire,” he replied, “you have honored me with your sister’s hand, and I am proud to be your brother by marriage. Yet I can never be your brother by blood. But there is one who is.” Then with a flamboyant gesture, Lord Alyn summoned forth the treasure he had brought from Lys. Down from the Lady Baela emerged a pale young woman of surpassing beauty, arm in arm with a richly clad boy near the king’s own age, his features hidden