Wise Women did not hesitate, but stepped between the attackers and their lady. Septa Edyth was slashed across the face, Prudence Celtigar stabbed through the shoulder, whilst Rosamund Ball took a dagger in the belly that, three days later, proved to be the death of her, but none of the murderous blades touched the queen. The shouts and screams of the struggle brought Alysanne’s protectors running, for Ser Joffrey Doggett and Ser Gyles Morrigen had been guarding the entrance to the bathhouse, never dreaming that the danger lurked within.
The Kingsguard made short work of the attackers, slaying two out of hand whilst keeping the third alive for questioning. When encouraged, she revealed that half a dozen others of their order had helped plan the attack, whilst lacking the courage to wield a blade. Lord Mooton hanged the guilty, and might have hanged the innocent as well, save for Queen Alysanne’s intervention.
Jaehaerys was furious. Their visit to the Vale was postponed; instead they returned to the safety of Maegor’s Holdfast. Queen Alysanne would remain within until her child was born, but the experience had shaken her and set her to pondering. “I need a protector of mine own,” she told His Grace. “Your Seven are leal men and valiant, but they are men, and there are places men cannot go.” The king could not disagree. A raven flew to Duskendale that very night, commanding the new Lord Darklyn to send to court his bastard half-sister, Jonquil Darke, who had thrilled the smallfolk during the War for the White Cloaks as the mystery knight known as the Serpent in Scarlet. Still in scarlet, she arrived at King’s Landing a few days later, and gladly accepted appointment as the queen’s own sworn shield. In time, she would be known about the realm as the Scarlet Shadow, so closely did she guard her lady.
Not long after Jaehaerys and Alysanne returned from Maidenpool and the queen took to her bedchamber, tidings of the most wondrous and unexpected sort came forth from Storm’s End. Queen Alyssa was with child. At forty-four years of age, the Dowager Queen had been thought to be well beyond her childbearing years, so her pregnancy was received as a miracle. In Oldtown, the High Septon himself proclaimed it was a blessing from the gods, “a gift from the Mother Above to a mother who had suffered much, and bravely.”
Amidst the joy, there was concern as well. Alyssa was not as strong as she had been; her time as Queen Regent had taken a toll on her, and her second marriage had not brought her the happiness she had once hoped for. The prospect of a child warmed Lord Rogar’s heart, however, and he cast off his anger and repented of his infidelities to stay by his wife’s side. Alyssa herself was fearful, mindful of the last babe she had borne to King Aenys, the little girl Vaella who had died in the cradle. “I cannot suffer that again,” she told her lord husband. “It would rip my heart apart.” But the child, when he came early the following year, would prove to be robust and healthy, a big red-faced boy born with a fuzz of jet-black hair and “a squall that could be heard from Dorne to the Wall.” Lord Rogar, who had long ago put aside any hopes of having children by Alyssa, named his son Boremund.
The gods give grief as well as joy. Long before her mother was brought to term, Queen Alysanne was also delivered of a son, a boy she named Aegon, to honor both the Conqueror and her lost and much lamented brother, the uncrowned prince. All the realm gave thanks, and no one more so than Jaehaerys. But the young prince had come too early. Small and frail, he died three days after birth. So bereft was Queen Alysanne that the maesters feared for her life as well. Forever after, she blamed her son’s death on the women who attacked her at Maidenpool. Had she been allowed to bathe in the healing waters of Jonquil’s Pool, she would say, Prince Aegon would have lived.
Discontent lay heavy upon Dragonstone as well, where Rhaena Targaryen had established her own small court. As they had with Jaehaerys before her, neighboring lords began to seek her out, but the Queen in the East was not her brother. Many of her visitors were received coldly, others turned away without an audience.
Queen Rhaena’s reunion with her daughter Aerea had