92 AC. King's Landing
The next day, close to midday, five people gathered in the king's private solar in the Red Keep: Jaehaerys himself, Queen Alysanne, their eldest son Aemon, their younger son Baelon, and their granddaughter Rhaenys. Beyond the window the castle went about its usual business - somewhere in the yard servants were still clearing away the remains of the previous night's feast, carrying out tables and benches, while some of the guests who had taken no direct part in the tourney had already begun to head home without waiting for it to end. But in this room, no one cared about the tourney at all.
Since the previous evening, when the Velaryons had left the capital in haste, the queen had not said a single word to her husband. She had spent the rest of the night without sleep, turning the events over in her mind, and more than once had been on the verge of telling her husband exactly what she thought of his conduct, but each time she had held herself back. She had decided that everyone needed to cool down first, and only then sit and calmly discuss what had happened - which was why it was she who had sent word asking them to gather today, close to midday, when most of the court would be occupied with other matters and no one would disturb them.
Once everyone had taken their seats, Alysanne was silent for a while, looking at her husband, and then spoke first, giving him no chance to slip away from the conversation behind his usual excuses.
"Jaehaerys," she said in an even voice, though the barely restrained irritation in it was unmistakable, "do you even understand what you did last night?"
The king leaned back in his chair and looked at his wife without a trace of remorse.
"I did what I judged necessary for the good of our House," he answered, as if that explained and justified everything.
Rhaenys, who usually tried not to contradict her grandfather - she respected his position and his age too much to allow herself any sharpness - could not hold her tongue this time.
"Grandfather, with all respect," she said, looking him straight in the eye, "you did exactly the opposite. You did the worst possible thing for our family. You split it apart. You turned our most reliable ally against House Targaryen, and you did it with your own hands, with no necessity for it whatsoever. Everything we gained through Viserra and Corlys's marriage was undone in a single evening."
The king's face darkened. He straightened in his chair and looked at his granddaughter with open menace.
"Do not presume to lecture me, girl," he said coldly, biting off each word. "I ruled this kingdom successfully before your father was even born, and I will not tolerate a green, inexperienced chit daring to reproach me for wrong decisions!"
Prince Aemon rose at once from his seat, putting his shoulder between his father and his daughter and standing to defend her without hesitation. He looked at his father with unconcealed dismay and firmness.
"Rhaenys speaks the absolute truth, Father, and you would do well to heed her," he said firmly, though without defiance in his voice. "We have irrevocably ruined our relations with House Velaryon, and I very much doubt these deep wounds can be healed by any means now. We have lost their trust, and winning it back will be next to impossible."
Prince Baelon sighed heavily, rubbing the bridge of his nose, and tried to put in a word to ease at least some of the tension hanging in the air.
"We should at least be glad we avoided an open duel between Corlys and Boremund," he remarked, shrugging. "In the blind fury Corlys was in after your words, he would not have hesitated for a moment to cut our uncle down right in the middle of the hall. And had we ended up with Lord Baratheon's corpse, we would have had two irreconcilable families on our hands, both thirsting for each other's blood and ready to plunge us into a war between houses."
The queen exhaled shortly, as if the thought brought her at least a little comfort.
"Thank the Seven we had the sense to avoid at least that bloody catastrophe. Had the blood of the Lord of Storm's End been spilled on the floor of the Red Keep, we would already be tallying the losses from an uprising by now."
The king merely waved his hand, showing that he did not consider what had happened to be a great problem.
"It matters little that Corlys now hates me," he said with feigned indifference. "There is nothing he can do about it, and let it be a lesson to him. He rose to the height of wealth and influence too quickly, and it seems to have gone to his head - he apparently believes the king owes him an accounting and an explanation."
Such reasoning from her husband finally exhausted Alysanne's patience. She rose sharply from her chair and looked down at him.
"You had no right to humiliate him in front of the other guests," she said, not bothering to hide the anger in her voice. "With your rash act you did not merely wound the pride of the Lord of Driftmark - you directly insulted our own grandchildren and our own daughter! Did you even think of that before opening your mouth?"
Aemon, seizing the pause, decided to add another argument that seemed no less important to him.
"Father, by this morning word had already spread through the whole city that the Targaryens have fallen out with the Velaryons," he said gravely. "Everyone is talking about it, from the great lords down to the smallfolk. And that is very bad for us. Our enemies now know that the Crown has lost the support of the largest and strongest fleet in all of Westeros, and quarreled at the same time with a family that holds three dragons - one of which already exceeds Vermithor in size, the very dragon that until recently was considered the second largest after Vhagar. This is a wretched situation, Father, no matter how you try to dress it up."
The king frowned, but was in no hurry to admit he was wrong.
"With a single dragon, however large, the Velaryons cannot seriously harm us," he objected. "And Daemon and Victor's dragons are still too small to pose any real threat. Besides, we will raise Daemon here, in the capital, and we will be able to soften his resentment over what happened. Then it will no longer matter what Corlys himself thinks of it. And after my death, Aemon will be free to mend relations with the Velaryons without being bound by my decisions."
Rhaenys shook her head, her whole bearing showing how naive such a plan seemed to her.
"I doubt Corlys will give us Daemon to foster at all after last night," she said.
"We have already come to an agreement on that," the king countered. "As soon as Daemon turns eight, he will be sent to the capital and raised among the Targaryens, as befits the son of a princess of the blood."
"That was before you publicly dragged Corlys through the mud and trampled his dignity in front of everyone," Rhaenys reminded him. "Now he will never, under any circumstances, give us his own son, because he will see it as nothing but an attempt to take the child hostage as a guarantee of his own good behavior!"
The king struck the table with his palm in outrage, making the metal cups on the tray clink plaintively.
"I never have and never will intend to use my own grandson as a hostage! What wild fantasies are you conjuring up?!" he exclaimed.
"That is exactly how the Velaryons themselves will now see it," Rhaenys answered firmly, not flinching under her grandfather's heavy gaze. "And you, Grandfather, with your own hands stripped yourself of the right to call Daemon and Victor your grandsons. They will be raised to hate you, and every Targaryen without exception. And worst of all, both of them are already dragonriders, and their dragons are growing at an abnormal rate - just as their mother's dragon, Dreamfyre, is growing. Only think: in a mere three years, a dragon that started out the size of Silverwing has now surpassed Vermithor in size and is now only a fifth behind Vhagar. And the dragons hatched from her eggs are growing no slower. Daemon's dragon reached the size of a large elephant in a single year, and only the Seven know how fast Victor's dragon will grow."
Rhaenys paused briefly, letting those present take in the full weight of the threat she had just laid out, then addressed the silent king directly.
"Do you even understand, Grandfather, what problems you have created for future generations of our family, entirely without need? If you never meant to give the Stepstones to the Velaryons, all you had to do was refuse Corlys politely in private, rather than humiliate him before witnesses at the high table."
Jaehaerys, visibly irritated by his granddaughter's flawless logic and irrefutable arguments, sank into a heavy, sullen silence. A shadow of deep reflection flickered in his eyes - he had clearly not expected the situation to turn against him in such an unflattering light. Taking advantage of the lengthening pause, the queen spoke again.
"We must do everything in our power to bring the Velaryons back into the fold of the family," she said firmly. "Otherwise, I fear all this may end very badly."
Jaehaerys turned his gaze to her, a hint of mistrust in it.
"Do you truly believe that Corlys, with nothing but his wife's single dragon at his disposal, would dare go to war against us?" he asked with open skepticism.
It was Rhaenys, rather than the queen, who took up the answer.
"In all the time I spent at Driftmark among the Velaryons, and from many long private conversations with Viserra, I have come to know Corlys very well, and the way his family understands the world," she said. "Tell me, Uncle Baelon, what is House Lannister's official words?"
Baelon frowned, genuinely at a loss as to where his niece was leading.
"What do the Lannisters and their words have to do with anything? What bearing does that have on our situation?" he asked.
"Please, just answer me, Uncle," Rhaenys pressed firmly. "What are their words?"
"'Hear Me Roar!'" Baelon answered, shrugging.
"Correct," the princess nodded. "And what phrase is associated with the Lannisters even more strongly than their official words?" Rhaenys went on, now looking at her father.
Aemon answered almost at once, guessing where his daughter was headed.
"'A Lannister always pays his debts,'" he said.
"Correct," Rhaenys nodded. "And the Velaryons have something very similar. I learned it from Daeron, when we spoke one evening. Corlys has raised his brothers from childhood in this very way of thinking. 'A Velaryon forgets nothing, a Velaryon forgives nothing!' They live by that creed in the most literal sense, Grandfather. They never forget a kindness shown to them, nor a wrong done to them. For a kindness, they will repay tenfold - but for harm done to them, they will avenge themselves tenfold just the same. And that is exactly what Corlys will teach his sons, no matter what we decide now."
Jaehaerys fell into deep thought over what he had heard, stroking his chin with his fingers, and then answered hoarsely:
"If that is truly how matters stand, then it is all the more necessary that we take Daemon, and Victor as well if possible, to be fostered in the capital, to knock this foolishness out of their heads."
The queen's patience finally ran out.
"And how exactly do you intend to do that?" she asked sharply. "If Corlys and Viserra refuse to give up their sons, what will you do? Take the children by force and make our own grandchildren hate us even more? Make our sons mount their dragons and go to war against Viserra and our own grandchildren? Which of them are you prepared to sacrifice for your own pride, Jaehaerys?"
The king said nothing, and Alysanne, receiving no answer from him, went on, more gently now but no less resolute.
"I will not let matters come to that," she said. "My children will not fight each other on dragonback - I will not allow it. There is only one solution that will satisfy everyone. Rhaenys is our bridge between the two families. Viserra will never refuse to see her, whatever happens between our houses. And once you and I are gone, Jaehaerys, Aemon will be far freer to mend relations with the Velaryons. And the surest way to seal that peace is, one day, to make one of the daughters born to Corlys and Viserra a queen, by wedding her to the future heir of Rhaenys and Viserys."
The king frowned even more deeply than before.
"It was to keep the Velaryons from growing too powerful, now that they have dragons of their own, that I refused to give them the Stepstones," he said, poorly concealing his irritation. "And now you propose I make Corlys's daughter a future queen?"
Queen Alysanne fixed her husband with a stern look.
"I propose to make queen not merely Corlys's daughter," Alysanne countered, "but our own granddaughter - yours and mine. I beg you, do not let your pride make you forget that Corlys's children are just as much our grandchildren, Jaehaerys."
"I still do not like this scheme," the king said, crossing his arms over his chest.
Aemon, who had been standing somewhat apart until now, spoke again.
"Fortunately, this will not be a matter for you to settle in the future, Father, but for me. For it is I who will take the Iron Throne after you, and the burden of keeping peace in the realm will fall upon my shoulders."
"That is the soundest and safest of all possible solutions," the queen said, backing her son. "In that case, future generations of Velaryons and Targaryens will never be at odds with one another, and old grievances will fade from memory in time."
Baelon, who had been silent until now, decided to steer the conversation onto more practical ground.
"And what are we to do about the office of Master of Ships, which Corlys resigned yesterday?" he asked. "We still need someone to see to the fleet."
"Losing so capable an admiral is a heavy loss in itself, especially on the eve of a war for the Stepstones," Aemon answered with a sigh. "We will have to discuss possible candidates in the Small Council once the tourney is over."
"It will be hard to find a man who even comes close to Corlys," Alysanne remarked, shaking her head, "but I fear we have no choice left."
Baelon, unable to help himself, added another concern that had long troubled him.
"There is another problem," he said, addressing his father more than the others. "Even if we find a new Master of Ships, he will match Corlys neither in his knowledge of the sea lanes, nor in his connections with the captains, nor above all in his knowledge of the pirates infesting the Stepstones. Corlys spent years gathering intelligence on who operates in those waters and how, and all of that work is now lost to the Crown."
"Then we will have to start almost from nothing," Aemon said dryly. "And at the very moment we need a clear picture of what is happening at the Stepstones more than ever."
The king grimaced, but did not argue - he had nothing to say against it. The queen swept her gaze over her sons and granddaughter and spoke, making clear the conversation was drawing to a close.
"Go and try to speak with the remaining guests. Persuade them that the quarrel with the Velaryons is not as serious as it may appear from the outside. As for your father," she added, glancing at her husband, "I will speak with him myself."
Princess Rhaenys, Prince Baelon, and Prince Aemon bowed silently to the king and queen, and then unhurriedly left the solar.
Meanwhile, at High Tide, in Corlys's solar, nearly all of his kin had gathered: Corlys himself, his brothers Daeron and Veylor, their mother Lady Alice, and the Velaryon brothers' wives - Viserra, Thea, and Elise. The ship on which the family had returned from the capital had made landfall that very afternoon, and an unfamiliar hush had hung over the castle ever since - the servants took care not to cross their lords' path any more than necessary, sensing the tension that had hung in the air since the family's return. Beyond the window it had long since grown dark, and only a few candles burned in the room, casting uneven shadows on the walls.
Corlys sat in his chair at the head of the table, fingers laced before him, and swept his gaze over everyone present before he spoke.
"What happened yesterday in the capital," he said in an even but strained voice, "was not merely a slight against me personally. It was a spit in the face of the one thing that matters most to us - our name. The king publicly insulted the name of Velaryon, and that is a thing that can be neither forgotten nor forgiven. The Targaryens have made it plain that they consider us nothing more than servants, whose feet may be wiped on whenever it suits them."
Viserra, sitting beside her husband, lowered her eyes in embarrassment before speaking.
"I do not, of course, excuse what my father did," she said quietly but firmly. "I myself am very angry and hurt by him over what happened. But I ask you, do not blame every single Targaryen for it without distinction. Most of my family does not approve of his actions, and you saw that yourself yesterday, when Aemon, my mother, and Rhaenys tried to calm both sides and prevent the worst."
"That changes nothing of the plain truth, Viserra," Corlys answered, shaking his head. "The king insulted us, and that is a fact there is no getting around."
He fell silent for a moment, as if gathering his thoughts, then went on, addressing everyone at once.
"I served the Targaryens faithfully and truly from the very first day," he said. "And the only thing in which I truly played the crown false was in helping Viserra bond with Dreamfyre, and then giving dragons to my own children. But that is our birthright, for I am a dragonrider myself, and I do not intend to ask permission for it from a king who, by all appearances, feels slighted merely because the Targaryens are no longer the only house of dragonriders in this realm. Such a thing simply does not sit well with his bloated sense of his own exceptionality."
He turned to Viserra and spoke, more gently now but no less firmly.
"I am sorry to disappoint you, but even in Valyria, by status and strength, your ancestors were not something fundamentally superior to the Freys, if one were to draw such a comparison against the realities of Westeros. So I do not intend to indulge Jaehaerys merely because he wears a crown. Position aside, all men are the same - smallfolk, lord, prince, or king. Open a vein in any of them, and they will bleed the very same color, whatever their titles and honors. Your father took it into his head that, sitting upon the Iron Throne, he had the right to drag me and my family through the mud before everyone's eyes. He will pay for that yet."
Viserra paled slightly, dreading what answer she might hear.
"Do you mean to kill the Targaryens?" she asked cautiously.
"If you were not my wife," Corlys answered plainly, "I would already have killed all of them, save for the women of your family."
"Then what do you mean to do?" Viserra asked, trying to hide the anxiety in her voice.
"If I killed Jaehaerys," Corlys said, "that would be far too easy an end for him. No - I will strike at what truly matters to him: his pride, his bloated sense of his own exceptionality. I will make him doubt his own supremacy, make him understand that everything Corlys Velaryon calls his own, he will have sooner or later, and even the great Jaehaerys Targaryen will not be able to take it from him. For you truly control something only when you are able to destroy it. And your father does not have the strength to destroy me."
Daeron, who had been listening to his brother in silence until now, leaned forward.
"What have you in mind?" he asked directly.
"Before we turn to the matter of the Stepstones," Corlys answered, "I want you, Daeron, to see to it that the Velaryons no longer purchase timber from the Stormlands. Boremund Baratheon allowed himself far too much at the feast yesterday, and since he kept his head on his shoulders despite what happened, let him pay for it in another way. We are ending all timber purchases from his vassals, and at the same time, spread word along the coast as to exactly why his lands will no longer be receiving coin from us, as they have for many years. Let Boremund explain to his own lords himself why their income has suddenly dried up."
Veylor, who had been silent all this while, spoke up.
"And from whom shall we buy the portion of timber we used to take from the Stormlands?" he asked.
"We will increase our orders from the Riverlands and the North," Corlys answered without hesitation. "The cost does not concern me, even if the distance means we must pay well over the ordinary price. Let it be the price we pay for principle."
He fell silent for a moment, then turned to the main matter of the evening's conversation.
"As for the Stepstones themselves," he said, more slowly now, choosing his words with care, "until yesterday I served the good of the realm and House Targaryen faithfully and truly. I built no plots against the king, made no attempt to undermine his rule behind his back. In return, I wanted only one thing - the Stepstones. A legacy I could pass on to the future generations of our family. But the king refused me, and refused me in a manner that was tantamount to spitting in my face before all the guests."
He rose from his chair, went to the massive cabinet against the wall, and drew out a rolled map. Unrolling it upon the table before the others, he weighted the corners with a pair of candlesticks so it would not roll itself back up. It was a detailed map of the Stepstones archipelago, with all the known islands, bays, and shoals marked upon it.
"Ten major islands in all," Corlys began, tracing a finger along the chain of islands on the map. "And whoever holds them holds all the trade in this region. That is why, and because of their closeness to our own island, I wanted to win the Stepstones for our family. I brought the king a detailed plan - it was from me, for the first time, that he learned who truly stood behind the pirates terrorizing the trade routes. And what did we get in return? The Stepstones handed to other lords, so long as they did not go to us."
He clenched his fists for a moment, then mastered himself and went on more calmly.
"Well then. I asked for the Crown's leave so that all this could be done peacefully and lawfully. But since I was refused, we no longer require the king's approval. We will take these islands - one," he took a small figure of a seahorse from the table and set it upon the image of Grey Gallows, "then another," he set a second figure a little further south, "until we have taken every last one of them" - and he went on setting the figures down one after another, until the last came to rest upon Bloodstone. "And then let Jaehaerys try to take even one of them back from me."
Veylor looked closely at his brother.
"That could mean open war with the Crown," he remarked, without much enthusiasm in his voice.
"If Jaehaerys wants war," Corlys answered calmly, "he shall have it. But we will leave the question of the king's likely reaction for later. What we must decide now is exactly how we are to take the Stepstones."
He bent over the map once more.
"When I proposed this bargain to the king, I told him I would take the islands within three months. But as matters now stand, we cannot afford to drag out the conquest that long. We need to take every island within two weeks at the most, and we must do it all at once, not by stages as originally planned."
Daeron frowned, weighing what he had heard and quickly running the numbers.
"How do we mean to manage that?" he asked. "We simply do not have enough men to take all ten major islands at once."
"You are right," Corlys agreed. "Our present strength is not enough to take all the islands at once, as the current situation demands. To carry out what I have in mind, I need far more fighting men than we now have."
Viserra, who had been silent until now, spoke, unmistakable unease in her voice.
"Is there truly no way to avoid war?" she asked.
"That depends entirely on your father," Corlys answered, looking at her without anger, but without a shadow of doubt in his voice either. "I will not be the one to start a war. But if the king does not yield, I will see this through to the very end, whatever the cost. And you, Viserra, will have to decide for yourself what you are, first and foremost - a Targaryen, or a Velaryon. But before you make that choice, remember that our sons, Daemon and Victor, and every child that is born to us hereafter, are Velaryons too. And everything that harms our House harms them, and their future, in equal measure. Everything I am doing, I do for the legacy of House Velaryon - for your children and mine, for our nephews and nieces, for every generation of our family yet to come."
"Such a choice will not be an easy one for Viserra to make, my son," Lady Alice said quietly, having watched the conversation in silence until now.
"I understand that full well, Mother," Corlys answered. "But whatever the difficulty, she must still make her choice. We cannot afford to have doubts."
Viserra sank into a heavy, agonized silence. The room fell quiet. Several long minutes passed before the king's daughter raised her eyes, full of tears and unshakable resolve.
"Promise me," she said quietly but firmly, "that until the very last moment, you will try to avoid armed conflict with the Crown."
Corlys looked at her and nodded briefly.
"If I am not provoked," he said, "I will not be the one to start the war. That much I can promise you."
"Then promise me one thing more," Viserra went on. "If everything goes truly wrong, promise me that no harm will come to Rhaenys and Gael, whatever happens between our families."
"Rhaenys and Gael are dearer to me than anyone else in your family," Corlys answered without hesitation, "and I will not harm them, nor any of the rest of your kin, unless they themselves take up arms against us."
Viserra closed her eyes for a moment, then spoke, as though finally settling her choice.
"Then I choose my children. I am with you, Corlys - and with House Velaryon."
Daeron, who had been following the conversation, returned to a more pressing matter.
"Where are we to find enough men to take the Stepstones?" he asked. "Surely we don't mean to hire rabble from the free companies somewhere in Essos?"
"Sellswords cannot be trusted," Corlys dismissed the thought at once. "They will sell themselves to whoever pays more, at the worst possible moment, and that option is out of the question."
"Then where?" Veylor asked, spreading his hands.
"There is a far more fitting option," Corlys answered, and for the first time that evening something like amusement appeared on his face. "Strong, disciplined, and skilled fighters who will never falter and never betray us at the worst possible moment."
Viserra looked at her husband, uncomprehending.
"Who do you mean?" she asked.
Corlys rolled up the map, put it back in the cabinet, and, turning to the others, spoke with a faint, almost imperceptible smile.
"My brothers and I should pay a visit to Astapor. They say it's especially hot there this time of year."
================================================================
A/N
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