High Tide, Chapter 1
Driftmark, 62 AC
Daemon
The Shivers had been a terrible disease. It struck down all, highborn and low. A man could complain of feeling cold one night, and be dead by morning.
Daemon himself had been afflicted by the disease. Somehow he had recovered but others were not so lucky. All across Westeros, countless suffered and died. Word had arrived from King's Landing, that his great-niece, Princess Daenerys had died. Daemon had sympathized with his nephew and niece, King Jaehaerys and Queen Alysanne, and understood their sorrow. For he had lost children as well.
It was a curse he thought, to live when four of his children had died. Sometimes he cursed the Seven, demanded to know why they had taken his children from him. Why they hadn't taken him instead, but they had never answered. Perhaps because they didn't exist at all. He had had to bury a son and three daughters, and for a while, he had thought he would have to bury a grandson as well.
The eldest son of his own eldest, Corwyn. When the Shivers had afflicted him, just as it had afflicted his father and aunts, Daemon had feared the worst. It seemed however, that the Seven had some mercy left in them for they had spared young Corlys.
Ever since the plague, Corlys had been acting… differently, more maturely, with a wisdom beyond his nine namedays. Daemon had put it up to grief, thinking that it was the boy's coping method. He had just lost his father after all, and had also survived a near-death experience.
However, the changes hadn't stopped there. Where previously, Corlys had mostly ignored his younger brothers, now he actively spent time with them, playing with them and in general being a good brother to them. Again, Daemon had put this up to grief. Having lost their father, Corlys was trying to fill his place and be there for his younger brothers.
Yet grief could not explain the most noticeable and frankly amazing change, Corlys's newfound intelligence. The master had come to him a week ago, (the replacement for the one who had died in the plague) and told him that he had never seen a student as talented as young Corlys. Apparently the young boy had been doodling a boat during his lessons and to punish him the master had given him a set of extremely advanced maths questions. To his surprise, Corlys had completed the set in less than fifteen minutes, and using new and never before seen methods as well.
Further testing revealed that it had not been a fluke and the boy performed perfectly in almost all subjects and learned extremely quickly in those he did not. Indeed, Maester Desmond estimated Corlys's incredible knowledge and intelligence to be on par with an advanced alcolyte and was teaching him more and more advanced topics.
"If Corlys continues to progress at this rate, I may no longer have anything to teach him my lord," Maester Desmond had said.
And the drawing of the boat? It was less the childish drawing one would expect from a boy of nine and more an advanced plan by a master shipwright, detailing sail riggings, crew requirements, and cargo capacities, and strange triangular sails.
A 'caravel', young Corlys had called it, claiming that it would be faster than any other ship in the world. "Except perhaps, the Summer Islander's swan ships," the boy had admitted.
Daemon had been amazed. Corlys had always been bright, but he had never possessed an intelligence like this. Lately he had begun wondering if the Seven had blessed Corlys, perhaps as payment for his stolen family members?
He had then ordered a ship built exactly as Corlys's plans had specified to test its capabilities. It had taken a while to train the crew according to how Corlys said they needed to be.
According to Corlys, his caravel was fast because it could sail upwind. Daemon had laughed at him after that. He hadn't been laughing when Corlys had proceeded to give a long and detailed explanation which had actually made a lot of sense.
A complicated process called 'tacking' whereby they would point the bow of the ship into the wind, angling the sails such that it was able to capture the wind and propel the ship forward in the relative direction it needed to go. The ship would end up going in a zig-zag motion, requiring constant manoeuvring and re-rigging of the sails.
Yet Corly's wild claims had proved true. He had taken Corlys on a trip to Pentos using his new ship and true to his word the ship sailed faster. It was not that much faster than a galley on average but made up for it by being entirely sail-powered, and could travel much further in a day, even upwind, by use of its triangular 'lateen' sails and tacking manoeuvre. When the conditions were right, the ship could even travel at an incredible 8 knots! Double the average speed of a galley, and it could do it all without a single man rowing an oar.
Normally it would take 3-5 days to cross the Narrow Sea with fair winds and calm seas. Daemon had been suitably impressed when the Caravel had made it in two. His keen mind already calculating the potential benefits to trade for Driftmark.
Daemon could not have known then, that his grandson had yet to unveil all his plans, nor could he have known that the day he had left Driftmark with the caravel was the day the Westerosi Age of Exploration began.
The year that followed passed exceeding quickly. Oftentimes, it felt like it was only yesterday that his grandson showed him the revolutionary design which had changed Driftmark. Upon their return from Pentos, Daemon had ordered his shipwrights to begin work on constructing more caravels and for work to continue on testing the ship's capabilities and training sailors to handle it.
Daemon himself had taken over all of Corlys's lessons when Maester Desmond had informed him that unless he was willing to send Corlys to the Citadel for continued studies, he had taught him all he could. Every day, Daemon quizzed his young grandson, training him and preparing him for his eventual role as Lord of the Tides. And every day, Daemon grew more and more impressed with Corlys.
The boy is a prodigy. A genius of the likes the world sees rarely.
Perhaps it was grandfatherly bias, but Daemon truly believed Corlys to be one of the smartest people he had ever met. His mind worked in a way that inspired awe. Corlys could think of solutions to problems that Daemon had never imagined.
The problem of accounting for example was that it was difficult to keep track of records at times, and the more cunning clerks could hide evidences of corruption. Corlys had pioneered a system he referred to as 'double-entry bookkeeping' to easily record accounts and balance budgets. Even more importantly, mistakes, intentional or otherwise, were more easily spotted. Daemon had already sent quite a few of his clerks and harbourmasters to the Wall on charges of corruption.
Six months after his caravel was tested, Corlys and Maester Desmond had come to Daemon and presented a strange instrument, a glass covered, circular metal rim with a steel needle suspended on a stand in the middle. Daemon had of course inquired to the purpose of the instrument, and Corlys had answered that the device could be used to tell the direction of north wherever the user may be.
Daemon had been stunned. A device such as that would revolutionize sea travel even more so than Corlys's caravel had. And unlike the caravel, Daemon believed that there was no device similar to the 'compass' his grandson was proposing.
It was incredibly simple in hindsight. Lodestones were a naturally occurring substance in many mines. They had long been treated as curiosities for their ability to attract iron through a phenomenon the Maesters had dubbed 'magnetism'. The Maesters had even discovered that when suspended freely, the lodestones would curiously always point north.
What the Maesters had never discovered however was that magnets could transfer their magnetism onto other objects, specifically the objects they could attract.
His grandson Corlys had inquired and experimented with the Maester on the topic, and together they had discovered that stroking a piece of iron in a certain way with a lodestone appeared to transfer the magnetism of the lodestone to the piece of iron. Disappointingly the experiments appeared to have failed as within a short time, the magnetism of the iron pieces failed and they could no longer attract other iron objects and magnets without further stroking.
However, unwilling to give up, Corlys had suggested trying with other magnetic substances as well. The most successful of their attempts was steel. They had found that a piece of steel once magnetised, easily retained its magnetism when compared to iron.
Maester Desmond and Corlys had then begun designing an instrument Corlys had dubbed the 'compass'. A navigational tool that could tell any sailor their direction at any time and help them find their bearing and location. It was an invaluable innovation.
In this day and age, almost all sailors hugged the coastline when they travelled by sea. Few were foolhardy enough to stray beyond sight of the sea without need. When absolutely necessary, the stars and constellations would be used to navigate across stretches of open sea; the Summer Islanders were the best at navigating by stars in Daemon's own opinion.
Maester Desmond had already written a report on their findings to the Citadel. On Daemon's request, Corlys's role in the experiments was to be downplayed to a curious student asking questions on lodestones and magnetism.
Daemon was very proud of his grandson but… he was not even ten namedays old yet. Daemon would rather not let news of his grandson's genius spread too quickly. Though Daemon himself believed him to be a brilliant child, blessed by the Seven, there were far too many who may believe the opposite for Daemon's comfort. Far too often, bright children who were too smart were feared and thought witches of some kind, granted magical and unholy knowledge by some demons from the Seven Hells.
Such superstitions were quite rare amongst the educated, yet Daemon did not think highly enough of his peers to believe them all to be educated. Quite the opposite actually. Many could not even read and they believed far too much in the dogma of the Faith.
Daemon was devout, to a certain extent, but he also remembered that it was not too long ago that his family had worshipped different gods and that the Faith had tried to kill his sister and her family.
Apart from whatever grand new schemes or inventions he was always dreaming up, Daemon's precocious grandson spent the remainder of his time socializing. There was a certain charisma about the boy that allowed him to attract friends, from all walks of life. His brothers idolized him, and Corlys personally knew the names of many of their servants and guards.
The boy had once told him, "You would be surprised how much loyalty you could earn from the smallfolk simply by knowing their names and inquiring after their wellbeing from time to time, Grandfather."
Daemon personally did not approve very much of his grandson socializing with the commoners overly much but he also knew that even if he forbade it, his grandson would find some way around his restriction anyway. At the very least, his grandson was earning the loyalty of his future subjects.
However, despite his excellence in many diverse fields and subjects, there was one field Corlys did not excel in. His martial training.
That is not to say that he was bad in the training yard, but rather his skill of arms was rather lacking when compared to how far ahead he was in almost every other field. In other words, he was surprisingly average.
It was in the training yard, watching his grandson tire and struggle lifting his sword after a long morning of practice, that Daemon was reminded of how young his grandson was. He was only ten and yet Daemon had already begun to rely upon and treat him as if he was a man grown.
What he lacked in natural skill and strength, his grandson made up for in his unrelenting determination and unwillingness to give up. That unyielding will would serve him well later in life.
Though Daemon doubted Corlys would ever be the finest sword in the Realm, with enough training and practice, he would be more than able to hold his own on the battlefield.
Ever since the Faith Militant Uprising, his nephew's reign had been surprisingly peaceful and looked to remain so for the foreseeable future. Yet Daemon was a believer in the old adage 'When in war, prepare for peace. When in peace, prepare for war.' The Realm may be at peace now, but it had been at peace at the start of Aenys's reign as well briefly. One could never know when war would break out, yet Daemon felt confident in Corlys's ability to weather any storm that may come.
Be it war or peace to come in the days after my time, I have a perfect heir to entrust the legacy of our house to. The tides of our House's fortunes are only rising and under Corlys, I believe that the Seahorse of House Velaryon will ride to its highest tide yet.
Author's Note: Canonically, it was Daemon's second son and not his eldest that died of the Shivers but I decided to make that change to make it easier to explain why Daemon outlived his eldest son.
Reminder that Corlys's grandfather, Daemon Velaryon, is the older brother of Alyssa Velaryon so Jaehaerys and Alysanne are his niece and nephew.
Daemon could perhaps be forgiven for assuming compasses were a new thing in general as no compass existed west of the Bone Mountains at the time though the Yi Tish had been using them for millennia, same as China did for millennia before Europe.
On Earth, the compass was invented in Europe around 1190 AD and in China around 206 BC. As far as I could recall from reading the books and my endless perusal of the wiki, compasses are not used in Westeros and are never even mentioned in the books, so it is a rather low-hanging fruit. ASOIAF is really anachronistic, they have frigging telescopes but no compasses.
Physics 101, steel is a hard magnetic material meaning it is hard to magnetise but retains magnetism easily. Iron is the opposite, a soft magnetic material which is easily magnetised but also easily loses said magnetism.