who had charmed all at the wedding with her wit, her flirtatious manner, and her blue-green hair.
In this, however, his lordship found himself opposed by his own wife, Queen Alyssa. The smallfolk of Westeros would never accept a foreign girl with dyed tresses as their queen, she argued, no matter how delightful her accent. And the pious would oppose the girl bitterly, for it was known that the Tyroshi kept not the Seven, but worshipped Red R’hllor, the Patternmaker, three-headed Trios, and other queer gods. Her own preference was to look to the houses who had risen in support of Aegon the Uncrowned in the Battle Beneath the Gods Eye. Let Jaehaerys wed a Vance, a Corbray, a Westerling, or a Piper, she urged. Loyalty should be rewarded, and by making such a match the king would honor Aegon’s memory, and the valor of those who fought and died for him.
It was Grand Maester Benifer who spoke loudest against such a course, pointing out that the sincerity of their commitment to peace and reconciliation might be doubted if they were seen to favor those who had fought for Aegon over those who had remained with Maegor. A better choice, he felt, would be a daughter of one of the great houses that had taken little or no part in the battles between uncle and nephew; a Tyrell, a Hightower, an Arryn.
With the King’s Hand, the Queen Regent, and the Grand Maester so divided, other councillors felt emboldened to put forward candidates of their own. Prentys Tully, the royal justiciar, nominated a younger sister of his own wife, Lucinda, famed for her piety. Such a choice would surely please the Faith. Daemon Velaryon, the lord admiral, suggested that Jaehaerys might marry the widowed Queen Elinor, of House Costayne. How better to show that Maegor’s supporters had been forgiven than by taking one of his Black Brides to queen, mayhaps even adopting her three sons by her first marriage. Queen Elinor’s proven fertility was another point in her favor, he argued. Lord Celtigar had two unwed daughters, and had famously offered Maegor his choice of them; now he offered the same girls again for Jaehaerys. Lord Baratheon was having none of it. “I have seen your daughters,” Rogar said to Celtigar. “They have no chins, no teats, and no sense.”
The Queen Regent and her councillors discussed the question of the king’s marriage time and time again over most of a moon’s turn, but came no closer to reaching a consensus. Jaehaerys himself was not privy to these debates. On this Queen Alyssa and Lord Rogar agreed. Though Jaehaerys might well be wise beyond his years, he was still a boy, and ruled by a boy’s desires, desires that on no account could be allowed to overrule the good of the realm. Queen Alyssa in particular had no doubt whatsoever about whom her son would choose to marry were the choice left to him: her youngest daughter, his sister the Princess Alysanne.
The Targaryens had been marrying brother to sister for centuries, of course, and Jaehaerys and Alysanne had grown up expecting to wed, just as their elder siblings Aegon and Rhaena had. Morever, Alysanne was only two years younger than her brother, and the two children had always been close and strong in their affection and regard for one another. Their father, King Aenys, would certainly have wished for them to marry, and once that would have been their mother’s wish as well…but the horrors she had witnessed since her husband’s death had persuaded Queen Alyssa to think elsewise. Though the Warrior’s Sons and Poor Fellows had been disbanded and outlawed, many former members of both orders remained at large in the realm and might well take up their swords again if provoked. The Queen Regent feared their wroth, for she had vivid memories of all that had befallen her son Aegon and her daughter Rhaena when their marriage was announced. “We dare not ride that road again,” she is reported to have said, more than once.
In this resolve she was supported by the newest member of the court, Septon Mattheus of the Most Devout, who had remained in King’s Landing when the High Septon and the rest of his brethren returned to Oldtown. A great whale of a man, as famed for his corpulence as for the magnificence of his robes, Mattheus claimed descent from the Gardener kings of old, who had once ruled the Reach from their seat at