Though he’d braced himself for it, when Quentyn actually laid eyes on the old king who bore that whole string of honored names, “the Old King,” “the Conciliator,” “the Peacemaker,” and more, he still couldn’t help feeling struck by the sheer mercilessness of time.
Jaehaerys was sixty years old this year.
In Westeros, a man of sixty had already earned the right to be called venerable.
In his mother’s telling, Jaehaerys had been a handsome, strapping young man, a brother she always described as dazzling as the sun itself.
In his grandmother’s telling, he’d been a clever, sharp-witted, well-mannered young man.
But now he was an old man, all youthful rawness worn away by time and settled into something far more weathered.
The years had carved line after line into his face, bleached his silver hair and long beard pale, bent the back that had once stood tall and strong, and stripped away both his once-powerful muscles and the clarity of his violet eyes.
The old man seated upon the Iron Throne remained noble and wise, without question, yet what Quentyn saw before him was an old man worn down to exhaustion by politics, and by his own family.
Below the Iron Throne, the assembled courtiers and guests exchanged uncertain glances.
Under normal circumstances, no court session was ever called on the Day of Prayer, and one by one, their eyes turned toward Prince Baelon and Quentyn.
“Is that the heir to the Lord of Harrenhal?” A noblewoman in court dress hid her mouth behind a feathered fan, whispering the question to Lord Bar Emmon beside her.
“That’s right.
Princess Valera’s son.” Lord Bar Emmon, sporting a handsome little mustache and dressed in a well-tailored velvet robe, answered.
“I hear he was betrothed to Princess Gael from the day he was born.”
“What a beautiful young man…” Lady Harte, a plump and comfortable woman, sighed under her breath.
“If I were still a young girl, I’d be dreaming of receiving his crown of flowers at a tourney.”
“You’re getting ahead of yourself.
Even if my lord Quentyn ever rides in a tourney, his crown of flowers will go to Princess Gael and no one else.” A cool, clear voice cut through Lady Harte’s little fantasy, and the lady turned, mildly put out, toward whoever had spoken.
A dark-haired girl in riding clothes stared back at her with open impatience.
The girl looked no older than twelve or thirteen, long-faced, freckled all over, her dark hair braided and falling down her back.
The ancient runes and pebble sigil worked into her orange garments announced exactly who she was.
The daughter of House Royce, the most powerful lords of the Vale.
Lady Harte withdrew her gaze at once, pretending nothing at all had happened.
Rhea Royce hadn’t expected the king to summon Quentyn so suddenly.
She’d promised Lyza and Gael she’d keep them informed of his movements right away, but now…
This won’t do, the girl thought to herself.
She glanced around and saw that the courtiers, put off by how she’d just talked back to Lady Harte, had already drifted quietly away from her.
Rhea seized the opportunity and slipped quietly into the shadows.
She needed to get word to Gael at once.
“Your Grace, I bring my mother’s greetings.”
Following the established custom, Quentyn stepped forward, knelt on one knee, and bowed his head as he spoke.
“She prays for your health, and asks that you drink less wine, and especially that you stay away from spirits altogether.”
“Lift your head, Quentyn.
Let your uncle have a proper look at you.”
The old king’s voice reached Quentyn’s ears only after a small delay.
Quentyn lifted his head, and saw Jaehaerys’s face at last.
He wore the golden crown ringed with seven gems of different colors, his long beard hanging down to his belly, and he was clearly straining to make out Quentyn’s features.
“You’ve grown so much…”
That was the king’s first line.
Then came the familiar one that always followed: “Your eyes.
They’re exactly like Valera’s…”
Quentyn’s heart, at that, finally eased.
It meant that, in the eyes of an aging Jaehaerys, family had grown only more precious with time, and his sister, who had so nearly died in infancy, had by now come to embody something larger still in his mind: a symbol woven together from his own dead daughters, and from his lost sister and niece besides.
“Your Grace, I’m thirteen now, no longer some fledgling who knows nothing of the world.” Quentyn clenched his left fist and struck it against his chest.
“I’m ready to bear whatever responsibilities fall to me, and to make my mother proud.”
“Ha, ha, ha, ha.” Jaehaerys threw his head back and laughed.
“Look at him, everyone.
This is my nephew.”
He presented Quentyn to the assembled courtiers with evident pride.
“Good boy, good boy. Enjoying the story? Read on at g.com.
Promise your uncle you’ll remember those words forever.”
“Of course.” Quentyn answered loudly.
“It’s my duty.”
Jaehaerys rose to his feet, a slight tremor in his movements, and declared loudly, “My nephew, Quentyn Qoherys, is not only his mother’s pride and protector, he has also safeguarded the blood of the crown prince, restoring Prince Daemon to health as though by miracle.
He is a hero of this realm.”
The king descended the Iron Throne step by step, and helped Quentyn to his feet.
Quentyn now stood a little taller than Jaehaerys himself.
The old king patted his shoulder warmly, smiling, and straightened the drape of his mantle for him.
“Tell your uncle, your king, what reward you’d like.”
“Your Grace, Daemon is my own kin, my friend, my brother in all but blood.
Treating him was simply what I owed him.” Quentyn shook his head.
“If I asked you for a reward over something like this, what would that make of family?
What would it make of friendship?”
The king’s smile grew wider still, until Quentyn could hardly make out his eyes at all beneath it.
The courtiers stood stunned for a moment, then Lady Harte began to applaud first, followed by Lord Bar Emmon, and more and more courtiers joined in, until the applause swelled into something like a river, washing over the throne room and, it seemed, the entire Red Keep besides.
“Good boy, good boy…”
King Jaehaerys kept repeating, praising him again and again.
But wariness had already flared up again in Quentyn’s mind, right up until the king’s next words shattered it entirely.
“I’m sorry about your mother’s dragon egg.
It’s only right that it should go back where it belongs.”
The king said this quietly, gave Quentyn’s shoulder an encouraging pat, and returned to the Iron Throne.
Quentyn stepped back to the side, turning Jaehaerys’s words over and over in his mind.
What exactly did Jaehaerys mean by that?
On the surface, it looked as though he’d accepted the opening Alysanne had offered him, tacitly allowing Quentyn to keep his mother’s egg.
But was that really all there was to it?
He had little interest in the rest of the court session that followed.
All he really absorbed was that Tarth had sent a raven, reporting that Myrish pirate ships had been spotted once again in the waters around the island.
Baelon flew into a rage at once and decided on the spot to fly out himself and clear the pirates out.
Jaehaerys granted his permission.
Ever since Prince Aemon had died in a sneak attack by Myrish crossbowmen, the Myrish pirates had suffered no end of bad luck.
Nearly every time they showed their faces, what awaited them was not only House Velaryon’s fleet, but the dragonfire of Vhagar as well.
“My lord Quentyn, please come with me.
His Grace has more he wishes to say to you.”
Ser Robin Shaw of the Kingsguard broke into Quentyn’s thoughts, gesturing for him to follow.
Quentyn hurried after the knight in white, whose pure white cloak billowed in the breeze, casting a wash of clean brightness before Quentyn’s eyes.
Out in the gallery, Quentyn found Jaehaerys waiting.
Ser Robin, tactfully, didn’t follow any further, leaving the gallery to the sixty-year-old man and the thirteen-year-old boy alone.
Compared to the wise, dignified old man who had presided over court just moments before, this Jaehaerys looked far more like an ordinary man of sixty: worn, exhausted, even a little drowsy.
He took a sip from a cup of clear liquid.
Quentyn caught the scent of medicine in it.
“Bitter mint wine.
Elysar mixes it for me.” Jaehaerys’s voice was somewhat hoarse.
“A man has to admit he’s getting old eventually.
I’m not a young man anymore.”
“Your Grace, you remain the wisest king in all Seven Kingdoms.”
“Six kingdoms.” Jaehaerys corrected him.
“You little flatterer.
It’s just the two of us here.
No spiders or rats hiding behind the walls.
You don’t need to keep sweet-talking your uncle.”
Of course, it also suited the man he’d once been, a fresh-faced college student in his past life.
“Tell me.
Alysanne gave your mother’s egg back to you.
What do you make of that?” Jaehaerys asked, straight to the point, without any preamble at all.
“The egg’s gone cold, yes, but it hasn’t turned entirely to stone yet.
No one can say for certain whether it might still hatch a dragon someday.”
“It’s my mother’s egg.” Quentyn answered just as directly, without hesitation.
“Only she has the right to decide what’s done with it.”
“A clever answer.”
Jaehaerys nodded.
“Valera was never quite as sharp as you are.
In that, you take after your grandmother, Lady Agatha.” At this, Jaehaerys let out a long sigh.
“Whether you believe it or not, I love every one of my children.
Aemon, Baelon, Vaegon, Daella…
even Saera…”
At the mention of Saera, Quentyn could actually hear the old king’s teeth grind together.
Whether it was anger, or some other, more complicated feeling entirely, something had gotten the better of the old king’s composure for that one instant.
“But dragons are different, Quenny.
Dragons are the most dangerous weapon in this whole world.”
Jaehaerys used Quentyn’s own pet name too.
“In the days of old Valyria, we never had to worry about such things.
But now, the Forty Dragonlords of old have all withered away, and only House Targaryen remains.
House Qoherys is our own cadet branch, and you are my own blood.
I shouldn’t have to turn a suspicious eye on my own kin.
But I am responsible for what the Conqueror built.”
Exhaustion filled the old king’s voice.
“By the time I realized things had already slipped out of my control, it was too late for it to matter.
Rhaenys married Corlys, and took Meleys along with her…
Corlys is a fine young man.
The sea itself bends to him.
But he isn’t a Targaryen, all the same…”
Quentyn listened quietly, steadying the old king with an arm so he might rest a little more easily.
The old king accepted the small kindness without a second thought.
“My apologies, child.
Forgive an old man his rambling, when he’s lost his sense of proportion.”
Jaehaerys said with a sigh.
“Quenny, I know exactly what Alysanne wants.
She wants dragons to become sword and shield for my sisters, my daughters, my granddaughters, so they might prove their own worth, the way it was in old Valyria, where a dragonqueen could still hold her own place in the world…
but that isn’t realistic here in Westeros…”
Quentyn decided, for now, to simply be a good listener, and let the old man ramble on.
Perhaps it was only in moments like this that the wise Old King ever showed his true, unguarded self.
“Alysanne’s too stubborn about this.
She never stops to think what it would actually mean for dragons to slip outside Targaryen control, or what Daenerys, or Rhaenys, would actually have faced if I’d made either of them my heir.
But she’s right about one thing.
In this age of ours, every drop of our blood deserves to be treasured.
So your mother’s egg will go back to where it belongs regardless, whether it ever hatches or not.
But…”
After all that rambling, Jaehaerys finally arrived at what he actually wanted.
“I want a promise from you, Quenny.”