be a worse king than his father was. Thank the gods that it is not too late. We must act now and put him aside.”
A hush fell over the chamber at those words. The Queen Regent stared at her lord husband in horror and then, as if to prove that he had spoken truly, began to weep, her tears running silent down her cheeks. Only then did the other lords find their tongues. “Have you taken leave of your senses?” asked Lord Velaryon. Lord Corbray, Commander of the City Watch, shook his head and said, “My men will never stand for it.” Grand Maester Benifer exchanged a glance with Prentys Tully, the master of laws. Lord Tully said, “Do you mean to claim the Iron Throne for yourself, then?”
This Lord Rogar denied vehemently. “Never. Do you take me for a usurper? I want only what is best for the Seven Kingdoms. No harm need come to Jaehaerys. We can send him to Oldtown, to the Citadel. He is a bookish boy, a maester’s chain will suit him.”
“Then who shall sit the Iron Throne?” demanded Lord Celtigar.
“Princess Aerea,” Lord Rogar answered at once. “There is a fire in her Jaehaerys does not have. She is young, but I can continue as her Hand, shape her, guide her, teach her all she must know. She has the stronger claim, her mother and father were King Aenys’s first and secondborn, Jaehaerys was fourth.” His fist slammed against the table then, Benifer tells us. “Her mother will support her. Queen Rhaena. And Rhaena has a dragon.”
Grand Maester Benifer recorded what followed. “A silence fell, though the same words were on the lips of us all: ‘Jaehaerys and Alysanne have dragons too.’ Qarl Corbray had fought in the Battle Beneath the Gods Eye, had witnessed the terrible sight of dragon fighting dragon. For the rest of us, the Hand’s words conjured visions of Old Valyria before the Doom, when dragonlord contended with dragonlord for supremacy. It was an awful vision.”
It was Queen Alyssa who broke the spell, through her tears. “I am the Queen Regent,” she reminded them. “Until my son shall come of age, all of you serve at my pleasure. Including the Hand of the King.” When she turned to her lord husband, Benifer tells us that her eyes looked as hard and dark as obsidian. “Your service no longer pleases me, Lord Rogar. Leave us and return to Storm’s End, and we need never speak again of your treason.”
Rogar Baratheon looked at her incredulously. “Woman. You think you can dismiss me? No.” He laughed. “No.”
That was when Lord Corbray rose to his feet and drew his sword, the Valyrian steel blade called Lady Forlorn that was the pride of his house. “Yes,” he said, and laid the blade upon the table, its point toward Lord Rogar. Then and only then did his lordship realize that he had gone too far, that he stood alone against every man in the room. Or so Benifer tells us.
His lordship said no further word. His face pale, he stood and removed the golden brooch that Queen Alyssa had given him as a token of his office, flung it at her contemptuously, and strode from the room. He took his leave of King’s Landing that very night, crossing the Blackwater Rush with his brother Orryn. There he lingered for six days, whilst his brother Ronnal assembled their knights and men-at-arms for the march home.
Legend tells us that Lord Rogar awaited their coming in the selfsame inn beside the ferry where he, or his brother Borys, had met with Coryanne Wylde. When the Baratheon brothers and their levies finally set out for Storm’s End, they had barely half as many men as had marched with them two years before to topple Maegor. The rest, it would seem, preferred the alleys and inns and temptations of the great city to the rainy woods, green hills, and moss-covered cottages of the stormlands. “I never lost so many men in battle as I did to the fleshpots and alehouses of King’s Landing,” Lord Rogar would say bitterly.
One of those lost was Aerea Targaryen. On the night of Lord Rogar’s dismissal, Ser Ronnal Baratheon and a dozen of his men forced their way into her chambers in the Red Keep, intending to take her with them…only to find that Queen Alyssa had stolen a march on them. The girl was already gone, and her servants knew not where. It would