agreed to pay her father the ransom in ten annual payments, and moved a vastly greater sum of gold from Braavos to Lys.
For Lord Unwin Peake, this seemed yet another humiliating rebuke. Coming so close on the heels of the Maiden’s Day Cattle Show and the king’s repudiation of his daughter, Myrielle, in favor of the child Daenaera, it was more than his pride could endure. Mayhaps his lordship thought he could bend his fellow regents to his will by threatening to resign as King’s Hand. Instead the council accepted his resignation with alacrity, and appointed the bluff, honest, and well-regarded Lord Thaddeus Rowan in his place.
Unwin Peake removed himself to his seat at Starpike to brood upon the wrongs he felt he had suffered, though his aunt the Lady Clarice, his uncle Gedmund Peake the Great-Axe, Gareth Long, Victor Risley, Lucas Leygood, George Graceford, Septon Bernard, and his many other appointments did not follow him, but continued to serve in their respective offices, as did his bastard brother Ser Mervyn Flowers and his nephew Ser Amaury Peake, for Sworn Brothers of the Kingsguard serve for life. Lord Unwin even bequeathed Tessario and his Fingers to his successor; the king had his guards, he declared, and so must the Hand.
Peace reigned over King’s Landing for the remainder of that year, marred only by the death of Manfryd Mooton, Lord of Maidenpool and the last of King Aegon’s original regents. His lordship had been failing for some time, never truly having regained his strength after the Winter Fever, so his passing excited little comment. To take his place upon the council, Lord Rowan turned to Ser Corwyn Corbray, Lady Rhaena’s husband. Her sister, Lady Baela, meanwhile returned to Driftmark with Lord Alyn and their daughter. Not long after, Prince Viserys thrilled the court by announcing that the Lady Larra was with child. All of King’s Landing rejoiced.
Beyond the city, however, 134 AC would not be a year to remember fondly. North of the Neck, winter still held the land in its icy fist. At Barrowton, Lord Dustin closed his gates as hundreds of starving villagers gathered beneath his walls. White Harbor fared better, for its port allowed food to be brought in from the south, but prices rose so high that good men began to sell themselves into bondage to slave traders from across the sea so their wives and children might eat, whilst worse men sold their wives and children. Even in the winter town, beneath the very walls of Winterfell, the northmen fell to eating dogs and horses. Cold and hunger carried off a third of the Night’s Watch, and when thousands of wildlings walked across the frozen sea east of the Wall, hundreds more of the black brothers perished in battle.
In the Iron Islands, a savage struggle for power followed upon the death of the Red Kraken. His three sisters and the men they had married seized Toron Greyjoy, the boy upon the Seastone Chair, and put his mother to death, whilst his cousins joined with the lords of Harlaw and Blacktyde to raise up Toron’s half-brother Rodrik, and the men of Great Wyk rallied to a pretender called Sam Salt, who claimed to be descended of the black line.
Their bloody three-way fight had been raging for half a year when Ser Leo Costayne descended upon them with his fleet, landing thousands of Lannister swords and spears on Pyke, Great Wyk, and Harlaw. Lord Oakenfist had refused to be a part of House Lannister’s vengeance upon the ironmen, but the old Sea Lion proved more amenable to Lady Johanna’s entreaties…swayed, mayhaps, by her promise to marry him if he delivered the Iron Islands to her son’s rule. That proved beyond Ser Leo’s power to achieve, however. Costayne died amidst the stony hills of Great Wyk, cut down by the hand of Arthur Goodbrother, and three-quarters of his ships were seized or sunk in those cold grey seas.
Though Lady Johanna’s wish to put every ironman to the sword was frustrated, no man could doubt that the Lannisters had paid their debt by the time the fight was done. Hundreds of longships and fishing boats were burned, with as many homes and villages. The wives and children of the ironborn who had wreaked such havoc on the westerlands were put to the sword wherever they were found. Amongst the slain were nine of the Red Kraken’s cousins, two of his three sisters and their husbands, Lord Drumm of