Four-and-forty years had passed since Jaehaerys Targaryen, the Conciliator, was crowned in Oldtown at the age of fourteen.
No.
These days, perhaps it was more fitting to call him the Old King.
As a wise king grown old in service to the realm, Jaehaerys had spent much of his reign healing the wounds left upon the Seven Kingdoms by the war between his brothers and uncle, and by the bloody struggle his uncle had waged to crush the Faith Militant.
Or should that be the Six Kingdoms?
Dorne, after all, had yet to bend the knee to the Iron Throne.
His grandsire, Aegon Targaryen, had once launched a war to conquer Dorne, only for the campaign to cost him the life of his beloved Rhaenys Targaryen.
After his coronation, Jaehaerys had reconciled the Crown with the Faith, persuading the Faith to tolerate the marriages of close kin practiced by the royal house.
He had overseen the construction of the kingsroad, allowing grain to flow more readily northward.
During his progress to the Wall, he had provided coin to rebuild and repair castles of the Night’s Watch and granted the black brothers additional lands for cultivation.
He had always enjoyed royal progresses.
He took pleasure in arbitrating disputes between lords and settling quarrels before they could become wars.
Highborn and smallfolk alike had come to cherish Jaehaerys’s rule, while singers carried tales of the love between him and his wife, Good Queen Alysanne Targaryen, to every corner of the Seven Kingdoms.
His family was not perfect.
Yet it was still enough to inspire envy in the greatest houses of the realm.
He had a kind, beautiful, and clever queen.
Their union had produced a great many children.
True, there was that one unfilial daughter.
Saera Targaryen.
Ever since she fled the motherhouse in Oldtown and escaped to Lys, she had earned her living by selling her body.
Jaehaerys had even heard that she had made enough coin from the trade to purchase a brothel of her own.
At the thought, the Old King ground his teeth.
Alysanne had been a fertile queen.
She had borne Jaehaerys many sons and daughters, yet only two of their sons had survived healthy into adulthood: Aemon and Baelon.
Ah, and Vaegon.
Vaegon was an archmaester at the Citadel now.
In accordance with the customs of the maesters, he had laid aside his family name.
Yet he remained Jaehaerys’s son.
Aemon had grown into a handsome and clever man.
Baelon was bold, brave, and formidable.
Barth, we have both grown old.
The thought made Jaehaerys suddenly chuckle.
He knew that age was steadily claiming him.
Perhaps the Stranger was no longer so far away.
After Jaehaerys’s death, his eldest son Aemon would be anointed with the seven holy oils and crowned.
He would become a king every bit as wise as his father.
And if old Barth should unfortunately precede Jaehaerys into the grave, there could be no man better suited to serve as Hand of the King than Baelon.
Jaehaerys trusted his sons.
They would govern the Seven Kingdoms well.
Perhaps they might even summon Vaegon back from the Citadel and name him Grand Maester of the Red Keep?
The Old King hummed smugly to himself.
It was a little tune he had heard the smallfolk singing during one of his progresses through the North.
The words were crude beyond measure, but the melody itself was cheerful and light.
Jaehaerys no longer possessed the energy of his youth.
Most matters of state were now left to Barth and Aemon.
The king concerned himself chiefly with final judgments and decisions.
That, after all, had always been his old trade.
An arbiter.
The rest of his dwindling strength he devoted to accompanying and helping raise his two beloved grandsons, Viserys and Daemon, the sons of his second son Baelon and his daughter Alyssa.
Alyssa…
“You were born for battle, and I was born for birthing.
Viserys, Daemon, and Aegon—I have already given you three sons.
Once I recover, we shall do it again.
I mean to give you twenty sons, an army all your own!”
You were wrong, my daughter.
After Aegon’s birth, Alyssa had suffered complications from the childbed.
She endured in pain for less than a year before death finally claimed her.
Little Aegon had not survived to see his first nameday either.
Baelon had fallen into a deep melancholy after losing his beloved wife.
For years, grief shadowed him from dawn until dusk.
Only recently had he begun to emerge from that pain.
Even now, he showed no desire to take another wife.
A tear fell upon Jaehaerys’s robe.
The Old King returned to himself and looked toward the two boys sparring with wooden swords before him.
“Ha!”
Daemon shouted and brought his wooden blade down with savage force.
Viserys tried to block.
He failed.
He could barely withstand the speed and ferocity of Daemon’s assault, much less find an opportunity to strike back.
Blow after blow forced Viserys backward until, at last, Daemon knocked him sprawling to the ground.
Jaehaerys frowned.
Daemon was Viserys’s younger brother and only eleven years of age, yet he had already displayed an extraordinary gift for arms.
None of his companions of the same age could match him.
Viserys was four years older and possessed the advantage in size.
Even so, he remained no match for his younger brother.
Perhaps Daemon could become a knight of the Kingsguard?
The thought appeared suddenly in Jaehaerys’s mind.
The small council and Kingsguard had both grown rather old and weary of late.
Much like their king.
Fortunately, Aemon and Corlys had brought some welcome vigor to the governance of the realm.
Viserys, meanwhile, was nearing manhood.
As the fourth in the theoretical line of succession to the Iron Throne, the prince naturally attracted the attention of countless noble houses with daughters of marriageable age.
Even if such a girl never became queen, marriage into the house of the dragon was no small prize.
A possible dragonrider for a goodson could provide a noble house with countless advantages, many of them never spoken aloud.
True, Viserys had yet to win the favor of a dragon.
Perhaps he simply had no desire to do so.
He had never once spoken to Jaehaerys about claiming a dragon.
In that regard, he was utterly unlike his father.
Jaehaerys had already made his decision regarding Viserys’s marriage.
He had discussed the matter with Alysanne.
Their late daughter Daella had wed Lord Rodrik Arryn, Warden of the East.
Together, they had produced one daughter—Aemma Arryn.
It had not been Rodrik’s first marriage.
He already had two sons and two daughters by his previous wife.
Viserys and Aemma were close in age.
Whether one considered the need to bring the blood of the dragon back into the royal line or the political value of drawing the lords of the Vale closer to the Crown, the match seemed almost perfect.
Jaehaerys had decided.
Before the year was out, he would announce Prince Viserys’s betrothal.
As for Daemon…
That could wait.
Daemon reached down and pulled his elder brother from the ground.
He gave Viserys a playful pat on the arse, then tossed his wooden sword aside.
“Grandfather, when can I claim a dragon?”
Jaehaerys drew Daemon onto his knee and allowed his grandson to play with his exceedingly long beard.
“You are still too young, Daemon,” Jaehaerys said sternly.
Then he smiled.
In a few years, when you are older, I shall accompany you to the Dragonpit and help you find a suitable dragon.”
What dragon would suit our “Brave” Daemon?
Among the riderless dragons presently housed by House Targaryen, only Dreamfyre and Balerion remained.
Jaehaerys did not consider Syrax.
He knew his grandson.
Daemon was a warrior born.
The boy would have little interest in a young dragon.
Yet in the end, it was not the rider who chose the dragon.
The dragon chose its companion.
Jaehaerys believed that once Daemon claimed Dreamfyre and became a dragonrider, he would stand beside his father and become another sword in the hand of his uncle Aemon.
Balerion…
You and I are alike now.
Two old creatures.
The battle-scarred dragon had ceased growing years ago.
Balerion remained the largest dragon in the known world and the only living dragon born before the Doom.
From head to tail, he measured more than one hundred and forty yards.
When he spread his wings and flew across the sky, the shadow he cast was large enough to swallow a thriving town whole.
Yet ever since he had returned with Princess Aerea upon his back, a horrifying wound had scarred the left side of Balerion’s body.
It had taken the Black Dread years to recover from those terrible injuries.
Now Balerion was ancient.
He spent most of his days in deep slumber.
Daemon would likely never attempt to claim him.
As for Vermithor…
Jaehaerys would leave his own dragon for Aemon’s eldest grandson.
Silverwing…
No.
Jaehaerys forced the thought from his mind.
He could not bear to imagine his beloved Alysanne going before him.
By his reckoning, his granddaughter Rhaenys ought to be with child soon.
Yet whenever Jaehaerys thought of that possibility, a faint unease stirred within him.
The succession.
In the end, Jaehaerys had only been able to gather the support of the great lords and press his own claim because he was the sole surviving son of Aenys.
Otherwise, it should have been his elder sister Rhaena who inherited the throne.
Not him.
When Aemon was born, Jaehaerys named his son as his chosen heir, passing over the rights of their elder daughter Daenerys.
The decision had led to bitter quarrels between Jaehaerys and his wife.
Aemon and Jocelyn had now been wed for many years.
They had only one daughter.
Rhaenys.
Rhaenys had married Corlys Velaryon.
Their eldest son would take the Targaryen name and inherit the Iron Throne, while a second son would inherit Driftmark.
It was a reasonable arrangement.
A clean arrangement.
Yet one question remained.
Would the lords of the realm accept a queen?
Jaehaerys smiled and kissed each of his grandsons upon the brow.
Daemon flushed with embarrassment and tried to twist away.
Viserys, by contrast, laughed merrily and wrapped his arms tightly around his grandfather.
Jaehaerys, you are old.
Leave such troubles for Aemon to worry about.
Today, all was quiet in King’s Landing.