Alysanne was at the table, calmly sipping a glass of juice; her eyes stared at Gael with a touch of teasing. Since she had returned, her daughter had been shyer than usual, looking down and blushing even more intensely.
She didn’t need to be a genius to know that something had happened between her grandson and her daughter. Alysanne wasn’t surprised by this. Ever since she saw Maekar, she knew what kind of man he was. Extremely confident, charismatic to the extreme, and, above all, dominant.
Her daughter was like an innocent white rabbit before a greedy dragon.
Raising the glass of juice to her lips, Alysanne spoke in a gentle and teasing tone. "Did you enjoy yourself with Maekar, dear?"
Gael, still thinking about what had happened, blushed even more at her mother’s words. She didn’t dare look at her mother and ate the bread in her hand with small bites, almost like an adorable squirrel.
"Mama likes to tease me too," Gael murmured with a touch of helplessness in her voice. She didn’t understand why the people around her always liked to intimidate her.
Despite her age, Alysanne heard her daughter’s murmur and let out a cheerful laugh. She looked at her daughter and commented in a happy tone, "Who asked you to be so cute and have such varied reactions?"
Gael huffed but didn’t refute Alysanne’s words. She was the perfect target for people like Maekar and Alysanne.
Resting her head on her hands, Alysanne looked at her daughter and said with a smile, "However, it seems you enjoyed being teased by Maekar."
Gael’s ears turned red at her mother’s words. However, she didn’t deny them. Just as Alysanne said, she truly had enjoyed it. He was totally different from any man she had seen before.
He was so confident, so handsome, so charming, that it was practically impossible for her not to be attracted to him. Gael wondered why the gods created someone so irresistible.
Just as Gael was ready to respond, the door opened and Maekar entered wearing more comfortable clothes.
"Sorry for the delay," Maekar said, looking first at Gael and then at Alysanne. He approached the table and sat in the chair across from Gael and to Alysanne’s right.
"I’m starving," Maekar said, taking a piece of bread, buttering it, and then eating.
Alysanne didn’t mind the lack of manners; she just looked at him with a gentler gaze. She liked it that way; family shouldn’t be so formal.
"I heard you spoke with your father," Alysanne said, also eating a slice of bread. Her eyes stared at Maekar with a smiling look.
"Yes, we complained together about the paranoid old man," Maekar said with a laugh, catching the attention of Alysanne and Gael.
Alysanne let out a sigh and remembered when she was still a young princess. She looked at Maekar and said in a calm tone, "He was the one most affected during our time as hostages with our grandmother, Queen Visenya. He blamed himself for the death of Viserys (son of Aenys I) and hated Maegor even more."
Maekar listened to her words in silence. Aegon had died too early; had he lived longer, the dynasty would have been better. Unfortunately, the Conqueror’s successors were either weak or too rigid, which led to all the events and, subsequently, successive wars.
However, Maekar still admired Jaehaerys; the boy had been fourteen and managed to become king and govern a fragmented kingdom full of hostility. To understand how terrible the situation of House Targaryen was at that moment, all the kingdoms were against Maegor.
The Faith of the Seven had turned the entire continent against House Targaryen and made the situation even worse. Countless times they tried to kill House Targaryen during Jaehaerys’s reign. So, even while detesting Jaehaerys, he admired the old king.
"He is truly incredible for staying on the throne at such a young age," Maekar said with a genuine tone of admiration. Then, he looked at Alysanne and added, "Of course, he also had a great woman behind him to help and guide him. Who doesn’t know that Alysanne, the Good Queen, did as much as Jaehaerys for the prosperity of nearly six decades?"
A smile appeared on Alysanne’s lips; although there was some temptation of flattery, she could notice the genuine respect for her in his voice. The boy truly admired her, just as he did her husband. This made her look at Maekar in a different light.
In this world, not all men could accept a woman being much more successful than a man.
"Jaehaerys and I fought many battles, be they physical or political, but we always emerged victorious against our enemies," Alysanne said in a calm but somewhat nostalgic tone.
Setting that nostalgia aside, Alysanne asked with a smile, "However, let’s not talk about my life, but about what you asked of your father."
"Me?" Maekar showed a smile and replied casually, as if he had asked for a cake.
"I asked for the throne."
A silence reigned over the table. Gael’s eyes widened as she looked at Maekar with an incredulous look on her beautiful face. She couldn’t believe what she had just heard.
"He accepted, but obviously, the paranoid old man won’t," Maekar concluded, taking another bite of his bread.
"You are truly just like your father, bold," Alysanne spoke after a sigh. She had thought of many things, but she never thought Maekar would actually dare to ask for the throne. From the boy’s tone, it sounded as if he were asking for something trivial and not the greatest power on the continent.
"Perhaps it’s in the blood," Maekar replied with a confident smile. Since he was prepared to be king, he had to be confident. If he weren’t confident, who would follow him? Who would follow a man who didn’t even have confidence in himself?
"Honestly, if I get support, my chances are better than Daemon’s or even Viserys’s," Maekar said in a calm tone. "The former is an idiot of catastrophic proportions; the latter is easily manipulated and indecisive."
Alysanne listened in silence to her grandson’s words about her other grandsons. She agreed with Maekar’s conclusion. But she knew the chances weren’t as high as Maekar’s confidence suggested. She knew her husband better than anyone in this world.
"It’s not so easy to change my husband’s mind, Maekar," Alysanne said, taking a sip of juice. "Besides, you are the third son. The lords will not accept you because of that."
"Those stupid lords and their equally stupid traditions." Maekar mocked the lords of Westeros who clung to a stupid tradition of primogeniture.
"The system of primogeniture is inherently flawed. The firstborn may not be the best; they also exclude women from the line of succession. As if what’s between one’s legs were an indicator of who is exemplary or not." Maekar deeply despised these stupid traditions, especially the idea that women were not as good as men.
As someone who wants to be king, the idea of having a large part of his population inactive because they have a vagina was completely unacceptable. When they have money and raw materials, wouldn’t these women do what they want if they had opportunities?
Alysanne’s eyes practically sparkled when she heard the last part of Maekar’s sentence. She could see it wasn’t flattery; Maekar truly believed that women could achieve something much more significant and that their destiny wouldn’t just be to be wives and mothers.
"Your words are bold, my grandson," Alysanne spoke in an emotional tone. Not even her husband supported her in some suggestions she had made years ago, such as placing a woman on the Small Council.
"Don’t think I want to change the world, grandmother." Maekar shook his head. "I just think it’s a complete waste for women to have to remain only as mothers and wives; it’s a force that could bring money and great advances to the realm."
"I know, but this small advance is enough to subtly change the destiny of all the women in the realm." Alysanne certainly knew that Maekar couldn’t be too radical or those changes would do more harm than good, but just the thought of Maekar wanting to change was enough to surpass Viserys, whom her husband had chosen as successor after Baelon.
"Let’s not talk about such serious matters at breakfast anymore." Alysanne changed the subject. She looked at Gael and then at Maekar and said with a smile:
"Tonight there will be a feast in the Great Hall."
"A celebration to celebrate another dragonrider in House Targaryen."
Maekar was surprised; he couldn’t imagine that Jaehaerys would accept something like that, but he soon understood the reasoning behind this decision.
Jaehaerys didn’t want House Targaryen to appear disunited, so he ordered a feast to celebrate the newest dragonrider of House Targaryen.
"What a shrewd old man," Maekar murmured with a tone of admiration.
Read the advanced Chapters on my Patreon!
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Read my other books:
House of The Dragon: The Pale Prince
Game Of Thrones: The God-Emperor of Planetos (500,000 words written).
Percy Jackson: Godwyn the Golden.
Game Of Thrones: The King’s Court Wizard