"Was the Sword of the Morning Prince Rhaegar's closest friend at the time?" Gendry asked Ser Barristan.
"It was indeed Ser Arthur, though Rhaegar had several close friends," Barristan said seriously. "At court, Ser Myles Mooton of Maidenpool and Ser Richard Lonmouth were Rhaegar's squires. Even after he knighted them with his own hand, they remained close companions. Lord Jon Connington was also Rhaegar's friend, but his closest and longest-standing friend was Ser Arthur Dayne of the Kingsguard, the Sword of the Morning."
The past seemed to move before Ser Barristan's eyes, vivid as life. Around the Silver Prince had been young nobles eager to show themselves off and compete for favor, though their houses were not especially powerful. The most self-important and energetic among them had been the red-haired griffin, Jon Connington, whose tastes seemed to lean toward men. Gendry understood well enough. The Prince of Dragonstone had never trusted Ser Barristan, that seasoned and loyal knight, the way he had trusted the Sword of the Morning.
Robar Royce said, "I heard from my father that Aerys humiliated Tywin, Jaime, and the Lannisters terribly over the matter of squires."
"King Aerys refused to let Tywin's son, Jaime Lannister, serve as Rhaegar's squire. Instead, he gave the honor to the sons of his own favored courtiers, men who were enemies of House Lannister and the Hand of the King. Prince Rhaegar, however, never cared for flatterers," Ser Barristan recalled. "The worst of it was that it was not the first insult."
"My father Robert was never among those squires either," Gendry said.
"Yes, and that was likely for the best, Prince. Prince Rhaegar's temperament was wholly unlike your father's. One was a melancholy, gifted prince. The other was a rough, laughing warrior. The shadow of Summerhall always clung to Rhaegar. Summerhall was also the place he loved best. At times he would return there with his harp, without any knight of the Kingsguard following him. He liked to sleep beneath the stars and moon in those ruined halls, and each time he came back, he would have written a new song. When we heard him play that old silver-stringed harp and sing of dawn, tears, and dead kings, we could not help but feel that he was singing of himself and those he loved. The late King Robert preferred songs that made him laugh, the cruder the better, and he only sang them when drunk. Songs like 'A Cask of Ale,' 'Fifty-Four Tuns,' or 'The Bear and the Maiden Fair,'" Ser Barristan said.
Gendry listened carefully. No wonder they called him Gossip Barristan, and a living fossil besides. Robert and Rhaegar truly were like mirrored opposites: one vulgar, one refined; one passionate as fire, the other melancholy as ice; one rough and roaring with laughter, the other elegant, composing songs and playing the harp. Robert chased joy and laughter, so he ran toward women, wine, and the tourney field. Rhaegar turned inward, preferred solitude, and would rather linger among the ruins of Summerhall.
Then Barristan changed the subject. "But Aerys did not dare offend your grandfather, Great Lord Steffon. He only feared and humiliated Tywin. They were cousins, after all. The Mad King trusted your grandfather, and Great Lord Steffon was not as forceful and overbearing as Tywin. After the Defiance of Duskendale, King Aerys became especially afraid of Tywin. He sent Great Lord Steffon to Volantis to find Prince Rhaegar a bride of ancient and noble blood. It was rumored that the king planned to name Great Lord Steffon Hand of the King once he completed the mission, while Tywin would be arrested and tried for treason."
"Later my grandfather Steffon died in a shipwreck, and the mission was never completed. The Mad King grew even more suspicious." Gendry sighed. The sea was merciless, hiding who knew how many dangers.
"That shipwreck was a tragedy, and it worsened the king's paranoia. He became madder still," Ser Barristan said sorrowfully. Those years had been troubled indeed.
"That was Aerys's usual brilliance. Arrogant, selfish, vain, and fickle. The man was vile enough to deserve death long before it came," Gendry thought. At the time, the people around Rhaegar were all young, yet there was no Barristan among them, nor sons of great lords like the Stag, the Falcon, or the Direwolf. It could only be called a relatively weak, unimpressive circle, and the Targaryens no longer had dragons. By contrast, the Wild Wolf Brandon kept company with heirs of House Arryn and the Stormlands. His circle was more impressive than the crown prince's.
Take the Lannisters, for instance. Jaime had originally had a chance to enter court with honor as a squire, and Tywin had pushed hard for it. But the Mad King personally offended Tywin. Not by making Jaime a squire, but by making him a White Knight, trampling the pride of Tywin and House Lannister. And that was not even counting the Mad King's jokes about Tywin's wife, or his rejection of Tywin's proposal that Cersei become Rhaegar's bride, mocking him with the words, "Tywin may be capable, but how can a servant's child marry his master's?"
"King Robert rarely entered court. After the shipwreck, perhaps so he could learn the art of rule, he was sent to the Eyrie to be fostered by Great Lord Jon Arryn," Ser Barristan recalled.
"They say it was decided after my father's great-uncle, Ser Harbert Baratheon, discussed it with the maester," Gendry said after a moment's thought. Everything about it felt strange. Had his grandfather, Great Lord Steffon, lived, Robert might naturally have entered the Red Keep's court, just as Steffon and Tywin had in their youth. But after the shipwreck, seeing the Mad King grow increasingly deranged, Storm's End had sensed danger and decisively jumped ship, joining with the northern alliance of wolf, stag, fish, and falcon.
"Prince Rhaegar may have been charming, but he stole King Robert's betrothed, Lady Lyanna, and then he and his mad father ruined the whole realm," Anguy reminded them. As a man of the Marches, and a young man besides, he had little affection for Rhaegar.
"That is true, or so it seems," Ser Barristan said with a nod. "It all began at the tourney at Harrenhal, in the year of the False Spring. I never imagined so much would come of it."
"The tourney at Harrenhal. There probably aren't many people left who saw it with their own eyes," Gendry said. If Rhaegar had truly plotted at Harrenhal, it had little to do with Ser Barristan. Rhaegar had not been close to Barristan, and Barristan had not understood the prince's mind.
"Yes. Even the king came with his flatterers, Lord Chelsted, Lord Staunton, and the rest. Aerys had not set foot outside the Red Keep since the Defiance of Duskendale, yet he announced that he would accompany Prince Rhaegar to Harrenhal. After that, everything went out of control. Princess Elia was there with her lady-in-waiting, Ashara." Barristan's memories were thick with bitterness that would not dissolve. The great chaos of the Seven Kingdoms had begun with that tourney at Harrenhal. "Only later did I hear that King Aerys had listened to Varys's slander. He believed his son was plotting to usurp him, and that House Whent's tourney was a conspiracy where Rhaegar would gather the lords."
The Mad King had gone to Harrenhal to show his face, only to shame himself before half the realm. Many lords were stunned by his appearance: long yellow nails, a tangled beard, rope-like hair that had not been washed or combed. His very appearance proclaimed his madness to the world. The king's behavior was just as unlike that of a sane man. In the blink of an eye he could turn from laughter to sorrow, and the records of Harrenhal were full of Aerys laughing hysterically, falling into long silences, weeping in melancholy, and erupting in fury.
"At that tourney, Rhaegar defeated everyone. You were the last, Ser Barristan. Then he crowned Lyanna Stark Queen of Love and Beauty!" Robar said. Everyone knew what came afterward.
"But why would he do that?" Anguy asked in confusion. "He offended the Martells, the Baratheons, and the Starks all at once."
Ser Barristan shook his head. "That is a mystery. I do not know what was in Rhaegar's heart. Princess Elia was a virtuous and noble lady, but her body had always been frail."
Gendry had a bold answer: superstition. House Targaryen had many madmen, and no shortage of believers in omens. Many had been obsessed with Dragon Dreams and prophecies. Rhaegar Targaryen believed in the Prince That Was Promised, in A Song of Ice and Fire, in the dragon having three heads, and his wife Elia could not bear a third child. Moreover, Rhaegar could not have been unconcerned about the Starks building alliances in the south. But throwing himself into the game like that was truly terrifying. Could the prince of prophecy really matter more than the survival of House Targaryen?
"That father and son truly were something. One madman, one believer in prophecy," Gendry concluded. Yet the coincidences of the past were too striking, and he could not help suspecting a conspiracy.
"The Mad King truly was the destroyer." From what Gendry had learned, after the loss of their dragons, the realm had been held together by alliances, marriages, and squires. House Targaryen had already offended the great lords during the reign of the common-born king, and the triangle of lion, stag, and dragon had once held a chance to break the deadlock. Dorne was too far away. The Mad King was the opportunity conspirators had been waiting for. As Aerys aged, he became more jealous, more suspicious, more cruel, and far more prone to outbursts.
In the Mad King's time, House Targaryen was also thin in numbers. There were not even enough children for marriage alliances. For a long while, Rhaegar was the only heir. Whoever he married, he would offend another house, and there were no spare children to build friendships with. Before Viserys, there had been many miscarriages and stillbirths. By the time Daenerys was born, the realm was already near collapse.
Great Lord Rickard Stark in the North, meanwhile, had many children, quite a number by Stark standards. The Old Wolf had also been ambitious for the future power of his house, and his eyes were fixed on the south. That was why he arranged the marriages of Brandon to Catelyn Tully and Lyanna to Robert Baratheon, while sending Eddard to the Eyrie as Jon Arryn's foster son. Rickard the fool had actually been caught in someone else's trap. His ambition was too great and too obvious. Those marriage plans came from his maester, Walys, who spoke nothing but honeyed words. And Maester Walys was the bastard son of an archmaester of the Citadel and a woman of House Hightower.
The Mad King was mad, but he likely sensed the danger. He was simply helpless and not clear-headed enough to deal with it. With no children for alliances, the Targaryens had been pushed out of the marriage web. Their friends grew fewer and fewer. Even a cornerstone like House Baratheon had left them, while House Lannister had been offended from top to bottom.
"Hightower. Hightower again. Even if the Lord of Hightower knew nothing, he at least went along with the current. And the Lord of Hightower then was Leyton," Gendry thought. "Hightower and the Citadel never liked magic, and they never abandoned their hostility. The White Bull may not have known of these matters. A White Knight must set aside his house, and Leyton and the others may not have trusted their uncle either."
"What do you think of the White Bull, Gerold?" Gendry asked Barristan.
"A man who gave his all to his duty. My captain," Ser Barristan said. "He left behind the beauty and grace of Oldtown, left behind House Hightower, to become a White Knight."
"Yes, wealthy, comfortable Oldtown, with fleets from every corner of the world." Gendry's eyes brightened. The masters of the Hightower were powerful and extremely rich, but they had always preferred trade over war and rarely joined the civil wars of Westeros. It was precisely because of such comfort that they disliked powerful kings like the Targaryens.
"But the Hightowers never became Kings of the Reach," Anguy said.
"They once were kings. In the Dawn Age, they ruled Oldtown and the lands nearby. When the Andals invaded, they helped from the side and offered no resistance. Later they submitted to the successive Kings of the Reach, surrendering their crowns in exchange for keeping their ancient privileges," Ser Barristan said. As one of the oldest and proudest noble houses in Westeros, House Hightower could trace its bloodline back to the First Men.
"It is simple enough why they did not stay kings. The Hightowers were not warriors descended from the gods," Gendry thought. The Hightowers were wealthy, and had once controlled the Citadel and the Faith. But the soldiers of a city were not necessarily able fighters. Like the people of King's Landing, those townsmen would not fight a losing battle, and sellswords could never be fully trusted. Besides, few Hightowers through the generations had been great leaders with the force to swallow mountains and rivers. They had grown soft in culture and war alike, nearly indistinguishable from the merchants of the Free Cities. The Dance of the Dragons had exposed them completely. With that sort of ragged ability and that kind of record, what knight from the Reach, the Vale, or the Stormlands would ever truly submit to them?
For the merchant-like, wealthy Hightower, the chaos of the Seven Kingdoms was the normal state of history and their greatest stage. Perhaps that was why the Hightowers hid behind the curtain instead of stepping forward to make trouble themselves.
The logic had formed a rough circle. Hightower was one of the greatest suspects. On the surface, they were loyal to the king, yet they never offered large-scale support of their own accord. As for what they did in secret, who could hate magic and dragons more than the Citadel? Gendry wanted to see the truth brought to light.
"You could even write a memoir," Gendry said. Ser Barristan had been present across almost the entire history of Westeros in his age. He had seen the Defiance of Duskendale, the Battle of the Trident, and served too many kings.
"Silence is also a virtue of the White Knights, Prince. I may speak of my own glory, but I may not touch upon the king's private affairs," Ser Barristan said with a bow.
"That is part of your nobility," Gendry said, nodding.
"I find myself thinking of my brothers. I have lived longer than all of them, and seen more than all of them. I doubt they would believe the Seven Kingdoms could have such a wanton queen, or such long summers and winters."
The past was like strong wine. Each time it came to mind, it left a man dizzy and heavy-headed.
Fortunately, Dragonstone had arrived.
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