"No doubt Prince Maekar had some good reason for allowing his son to squire for a hedge knight," [Bloodraven] said, "though I cannot imagine it included delivering him to a castle full of traitors plotting rebellion. How is it that I come to find my cousin in this nest of adders, ser? Lord Butterbutt would have me believe that Prince Maekar sent you here, to sniff out this rebellion in the guise of a mystery knight. Is that the truth of it?" (The Mystery Knight)
"There have always been Targaryens who dreamed of things to come, since long before the Conquest," Bloodraven said, "so we should not be surprised if from time to time a Blackfyre displays the gift as well. Daemon dreamed that a dragon would be born at Whitewalls, and it was. The fool just got the color wrong." Dunk looked at Egg. The ring, he saw. His father's ring. It's on his finger, not stuffed up inside his boot. (The Mystery Knight)
The letter was delivered by a messenger who claimed to have ridden straight from Whitewalls without any detour along the way, by command of Lord Brynden Rivers, the Hand of the King. The messenger brought word of a second Blackfyre rebellion, a most treacherous plot that was swiftly and conclusively put down by the valiant effort of a host led by Lord Rivers himself.
Maekar was too proud – and too furious – to ask out loud the question he was bellowing in silence. Why was I not summoned by my kingly brother to lead this host? Or even to be a part of it?
The letter bore the seal of that man, their late father's half-brother whom Aerys trusted to be his Hand more than he trusted his own brother, just as Aerys trusted that man to lead a host against another Blackfyre pretender more than he trusted his own brother. Maekar was seized by the urge to tear the parchment into a thousand little pieces, before feeding those cursed pieces into the blazing fire in his solar.
Dyanna's still-lingering voice in his head stayed his hand. Read it, if only to satisfy your own curiosity.
I have no curiosity when it comes to that man. I already know all there is to know, he argued, too vehemently to be entirely convincing.
Dyanna would have given him that look, the look he could read all too well, the look that said, You can conceal the truth from others, but not from me, and certainly not from yourself.
Maekar broke the seal and began reading. The letter began with Bloodraven's customary insincere query, asking when Maekar would be well enough to return to King's Landing to take his place in the small council.
You want me serving in my brother's council as much as you want Bittersteel back in the Seven Kingdoms, Maekar scoffed in reply. Maekar was fully aware that the only reason Bloodraven wanted his presence in King's Landing was so that he could control Maekar, could have Maekar under his watchful gaze at all times.
And Maekar himself had never once promoted or encouraged the illusion that his prolonged absence from King's Landing had anything to do with ill-health. His health was excellent. Most excellent! It was Bloodraven who persisted in bringing up the matter of Maekar's health in almost every letter. To taunt him, Maekar suspected.
You have my brother's complete trust and almost total dependence on you. Is that not enough for you? What more do you seek from me? My trust and respect? My compliance and obedience? You will never have it. Never! vowed Maekar.
"Whispers abound that your continuing seclusion in Summerhall is a form of sulking," the letter continued, "but the king and I both trust and believe that our good and valiant prince is not as childish and as self-indulgent as that."
Maekar's hands gripped the edges of the table tightly, to stop himself from crumpling and destroying the letter.
Damn the man! Damn his presumptuous presumptions and his sly insinuations.
A different kind of man, the kind Maekar would have respected, would have brought up his accusation directly, rather than ascribing it to the unscrupulous words of others.
And would you have reacted differently, brother, if he had accused you of sulking in a more direct manner?
It was strange, thought Maekar, that Baelor's voice in his head always sounded like a faraway spirit from a distant land, but Dyanna's voice could reach him as clearly as if she were still sitting in this room, right by his side. He did not know which was more comforting and which was more disturbing.
Of course, the banal and prosaic truth was simply this: they were all his own voices, or at least, they were his imaginings of what his dead wife and his dead brother would have said to him. It was not the ghosts of the dead that were haunting him, but the ghosts of his past, present and future regret.
Knowing, understanding and accepting that banal and prosaic truth was the indisputable evidence that he was not mad, but that knowledge, understanding and acceptance did very little to alleviate his grief and his sorrow.
Or his guilt and his regret, for that matter.
He pushed the thought aside, violently. To wallow in grief, sorrow, guilt or regret was an indulgence, and it was an undeserved indulgence that he could not and would not allow himself.
Bloodraven's letter continued, "The father of a dragon must be an example to us all. It is time for you to return to King's Landing."
Maekar frowned. The father of a dragon? What in the seven hells was that man talking about? Was Bloodraven making a point about Aerys' lack of children? If so, then Maekar was not the only one of the king's surviving brother who had fathered children. Rhaegel was also the father of dragons, albeit only three to Maekar's six.
The next paragraph of the letter dealt with what transpired at Whitewalls. Word of Ambrose Butterwell's true intention for staging a tourney first reached him through "a certain source whose identity I must keep secret to protect him … or her," Bloodraven wrote, infuriatingly elusive as always, and his spies across the Narrow Sea later confirmed that the late Daemon Blackfyre's eldest surviving son, also named Daemon, had sailed to Westeros in the guise of a hedge knight.
Bloodraven's letter continued, "This Daemon made a truly unconvincing hedge knight, I was told, by another hedge knight that you are very well acquainted with."
Maekar's heart was beating twice as fast as it normally did. Surely Bloodraven was not referring to thatparticular hedge knight?
No, it could not be. That particular hedge knight would not be such a reckless fool as to enter another tourney, infamous as his name already was throughout the realm after the tourney at Ashford Meadow.
But how well did Maekar know Ser Duncan the Tall, truly, other than his belated recognition that the man had behaved like a true knight at Ashford when so many, including Maekar himself, had not?
What kind of father would entrust the care and safety of his youngest son, a boy of only nine at the time, to a hedge knight of uncertain provenance?
The princely kind, thought Maekar, who had failed to fashion his two older sons to become good men, let alone true knights, who had convinced himself that his youngest son needed to experience a certain amount of hardships and challenges that he would never have encountered as a prince at Summerhall, so that this boy could become a very different kind of man from his older brothers.
So you are abdicating your responsibility towards our youngest son, after failing with Daeron and Aerion?
I am taking responsibility, not abdicating it.
Would Dyanna, the real Dyanna, not the Dyanna in his imagination, the ghostly ghost in his head, have been convinced by this argument?
Your rationalization, Maekar, not your argument. Argument seeks to convince, but rationalization merely seeks to justify and to excuse. These were Dyanna's own words, said to her husband in a different setting, but he could see her resorting to them in this situation.
I did my best! he protested. I was trying to repair the damage –
And what did that lead to? Had he wrought more damage, in his attempt to repair an earlier damage?
His eyes shifted back to the letter, to have his worst fear confirmed.
"I met a certain modest boy, who, alongside this knight you are well acquainted with, had a modest contribution to make in foiling this treachery at Whitewalls," Bloodraven wrote.
A modest boy, Bloodraven had said about Aegon, sardonically, when the boy had accompanied his father to court in the past.
"This boy," continued Bloodraven's letter, "told a strange tale about a prince of the blood who reputedly sent him and the hedge knight to Whitewalls to act as spies, to sniff out the plan of the plotters and schemers. This tale cowed Ambrose Butterwell sufficiently to reconsider his plan to crown Daemon the Pretender. Though, it might have surprised Butterwell and his fellow conspirators that no sight of this particular prince of the blood was seen among the host attacking Whitewalls. But no doubt, they believed that this prince was content to rely on the ability of his redoubtable kinsman to put down the rebellion once and for all."
Of course I was not there! I was never told that there was a rebellion brewing in Whitewalls.
How was Aegon able to convince Ambrose Butterwell? Maekar wondered.
The ring, Maekar thought. Aegon must have shown Butterwell his father's ring, the one Maekar had told him to hide in his boot, only to be used in the direst of emergencies.
A rebellion would certainly count as one. Though, why had Aegon not tried to send a message to Summerhall?
Perhaps he did, and it was intercepted.
That reckless, brave fool of a boy! Why didn't he and Ser Duncan escape from Whitewalls, and try to get word about the rebellion to Summerhall, so Maekar could assemble a host?
Because Summerhall was too far, and there would not have been enough time to stop the rebellion, Maekar answered for his son.
"To honor his contribution," the letter continued, "I invited this modest boy to be a guest of mine in King's Landing."
Maekar's blood boiled. If Bloodraven had taken Aegon as a hostage to force Maekar's compliance –
He would not dare! He knows full well what the consequences would be. I would not stand for it!
"Alas," Bloodraven wrote, "this boy chose to continue his training as a squire with his hedge knight, and they have resumed their journey together. To where, they did not see fit to confide to me."
But you could find out, I'm sure, with your thousand eyes and one across the realm, thought Maekar, with trepidation.