AEMON THE DRAGONWOLF
Part 2 - The Son's Song
Jon V
The next morning, Jon woke with a mild but irritating headache. He knew he'd had too much ale, but thinking of Arya roaming the Riverlands alone had worried him more than he could say. It was better than being dead, of course, but at least the dead needn't worry about bandits, rapers, starvation, exposure, and any other dangers of the road.
Before he could go too deep into his disturbing thoughts, Sansa knocked gently on his door and let herself in.
"Brooding again, Jon?" she asked, giving him a smile.
She sat next to him on the edge of the bed, and nudged his bare shoulder with hers. After all the time they'd spent together, she no longer flinched at the sight of his stab wounds. She also knew when to speak, and when to leave him to his thoughts. Their recent trials had brought them closer than a shared childhood ever had.
"Just thinking," Jon answered, running a hand through his hair. "I'm afraid of what Lord Reed will tell me. Why would anyone want to kill Ned Stark's bastard? The Tullys were certainly offended by my existence," he said quietly, making Sansa frown. "But they wouldn't care about my mother's identity, would they? And they never tried to kill me."
"I don't know, Jon," Sansa murmured. "But whatever he says won't change a thing. You're the King in the North and a Stark of Winterfell. The North knows you're as honorable as Father, and they will follow you."
"You know I never wanted this," the king said painfully. "I'd give up the crown in a second if it brought Robb back to us, and if you want to be queen, you need only say so."
"That is why it must be you," his sister answered, kissing him on the cheek. "Haven't you noticed that people who want power are usually terrible rulers?"
She stood, dusting an invisible speck of dirt off her blue dress. "Come, Jon. Get dressed, and we'll face Howland Reed together."
Jon obeyed, pulling on the clothes she handed him. He knew better than to show up to his council room in his old Night's Watch leathers, but Sansa considered every article of clothing carefully before giving it to him. She knew when to dress him like a northern lord, and when to make him a King of Winter. Every stitch was hers, of course, and she beamed with pride when Jon stepped out wearing the sigil she'd created for him, a crowned white direwolf with red eyes.
The Hall was quiet, with many already at their duties. Most of the council sat at the high table, and Jaime Lannister peered at Jon with bleary eyes. There was an odd, calculating gleam in his green gaze, but he said nothing beyond a simple good morning.
Jon ate lightly. There was a knot of tension in his stomach that he couldn't shake, despite Sansa's kindness. Lord Howland was not in the hall; Lord Manderly informed Jon that the smaller man was in the godswood, and would join him in his solar as soon as the king had finished his breakfast.
All too soon, Jon and Sansa sat in Ned Stark's solar, watching the snow falling outside the window as Lord Reed entered. The crannogman's cheeks were pink with cold, making him look younger than his years. He carried an old wooden box, finely carved with racing direwolves. To Jon's untrained eye, it looked like the hope chest that had once held Arya's sorry attempts at embroidery.
"Your grace," he said, bowing after he'd shut the door. "I thank you for seeing me."
"Have a seat, Lord Reed," Jon replied. "You have the answer to a question that has haunted me for years, though I'm afraid to hear it."
The crannogman smiled, easing himself into a chair. "It is understandable, your grace. I never believed Ned would keep your origins hidden for so long, at least not among us Northmen. But he saw things in King's Landing that scared him. They scared both of us, and risking your safety was not a chance he was willing to take."
Lord Reed tapped the lid of the box absently, a rhythm Jon recognized from the night before.
"There is no easy way to say this," the man said at last. "But you have been deceived about your parents, your grace. They are not what history makes of them. I must start before your birth, however. What do you know of the Tourney at Harrenhal?"
Sansa blinked in surprise. Jon was no less shocked, though now that he thought of it, he'd heard vague rumors about Father and a beautiful lady at a tourney. Ashara Dayne, according to Jaime Lannister's comments from last night.
"Father, Uncle Brandon, Uncle Benjen, and Aunt Lyanna went to the tourney," Sansa answered finally. "She was already betrothed to Robert Baratheon, and Uncle Brandon was betrothed to Mother. Rhaegar Targaryen won the joust, and crowned Aunt Lyanna Queen of Love and Beauty."
Lord Howland looked disappointed. "Is that all?"
"Father never spoke much of those days," Jon told him.
The crannogman shook his head. "I was nearby and fell into a spot of bother," he related. "A group of squires thought it would be funny to beat on a crannogman, small as I am. A beautiful young woman broke into the clearing and scared them away, waving a sword and screaming that I was her father's bannerman and under his protection. She introduced herself as Lyanna Stark."
"Father always said Arya was like Aunt Lyanna," Sansa murmured, making Jon smile.
"She was kinder to me than anyone I've met outside the Neck," Lord Reed continued, smiling sadly. "She helped me stand, and took me to the Stark tents, where I met my liege lord's children. They sent for a maester, fed me, bandaged me, and cheered me up. I was invited to the feast as their guest, wearing borrowed Stark garments."
He paused for breath, and Jon and Sansa looked at each other curiously. Jon could tell that Sansa was just as confused about the relevance of the tourney, but they did not interrupt.
"Prince Rhaegar Targaryen was there, of course. There were rumors that the tourney was a front, and that the Silver Prince intended to dethrone his mad father and take his place, using the tourney to gather allies and make secret plans. I know naught of that, but I heard him perform that night. He sang, and played his harp, and all the maidens in the room wept, even Lyanna."
"During the joust, a small knight appeared, with a laughing weirwood on his shield. His armor was mismatched and fitted him ill, and he never showed his face. When he unseated the squires that had come upon me, he asked only that their knight-masters teach them honor."
"Uncle Benjen?" asked Jon, not sure how this related to his parentage. "He was only a boy at the time."
Lord Reed shook his head. "It was Lady Lyanna, of course. She'd always been an excellent horsewoman, and she was skilled enough with the lance to unhorse some overconfident squires. She meant for me to avenge the honor of House Reed, but I'm no knight. She rode as my champion instead."
Jon smiled. "She really was like Arya, then."
"What happened then?" asked Sansa. Though she no longer believed in fairy tales, there was a sparkle in her eyes that Jon hadn't seen in some time.
"The king commanded the mysterious knight to remove his helm, but he would not. Lyanna had never intended to make a spectacle of herself, only to teach those boys a lesson. Only Benjen and I knew it was she at the time, and the last thing Lya wanted was to draw Aerys' attention to House Stark. So she disobeyed the king and rode away."
Jon winced. Running away from the Mad King? Had his Aunt Lyanna been mad, or was it what Father had called the wolf blood?
"Aerys was incensed. He ordered his knights and his son to hunt the knight down and bring him to the king, where I'm sure a pyromancer or three would have been waiting. They found only the weirwood shield, abandoned under a tree. But there was one who saw the mystery knight's face, and it was none other than Prince Rhaegar."
Jon's stomach dropped to the floor. "That was how he caught her?"
"You mistake me," Lord Reed said quickly, seeing the dark look on Jon's face. "He did not threaten her or harm her in any way. Lady Lyanna said he was impressed and touched by her loyalty to me, and he reassured her that he would not give her away to his father. Rhaegar knew better than most what awaited those who displeased Aerys. She returned to her tent quite relieved, and more than a bit smitten."
"He was a married man!" cried Sansa, aghast. "How could she be smitten?"
"The heart wants what it wants," the crannogman told her, apologetic. "Lyanna was betrothed to a man who spent the tourney chasing servant girls and drinking himself stupid, except when fighting in the melee. Prince Rhaegar was handsome, educated, and an impressive tourney knight, though he had a political marriage to a sickly, if gentle, lady that he had not chosen. Is it so strange that he would admire a woman like Lyanna, or that she would admire him in return?"
"It's no excuse to steal her away from her family!" Jon protested.
"There was no stealing, your grace," Lord Reed explained patiently. "They met in secret, in the woods, many times until the tourney broke up and the court returned to King's Landing. Lady Lyanna was in love, and I believe Prince Rhaegar was, too. I needn't remind you that the lady was handy with a sword; had anyone tried to steal her, she would have given him quite the scratch!"
"So she ran away with Prince Rhaegar?" Jon's sister asked, sounding more than a bit skeptical. "With no note, nothing to tell her family what had happened?"
"There was a note," Howland Reed said. "Lyanna was traveling to Riverrun with Brandon, for his wedding to Catelyn Tully. She sent a raven to Winterfell before she disappeared. Benjen Stark received it, and he raised the alarm."
The crannogman sighed. "Ned suspected that Lord Rickard had used the word abduction deliberately, to protect Lyanna's reputation, but he died before anyone could ask him. In the madness that followed that raven, an elopement became a kidnapping, and Brandon rode south in a rage. Robert Baratheon believed what he wished to believe; his betrothed was gone, and Rhaegar with her. It was enough to condemn the son of a madman as a madman in turn. Once King Aerys had murdered your grandfather, war was inevitable. After all, if a Lord Paramount could get no justice, who could?"
While Jon and Sansa absorbed this unpleasant story, Lord Reed reached into the box he'd brought, pulling out a folded black garment with a golden band at the hem.
"You are no bastard, your grace. This is the wedding cloak your father gave your mother," he said, unfolding what turned out to be a cloak: a black wedding cloak, with a scarlet, three-headed dragon studded with gems. It was a cloak meant for a princess.
Jon had gone numb. He could hear nothing, see nothing except the hateful cloak. He'd listened to Lord Reed's tale curiously and a bit impatiently, wondering what in the seven hells it had to do with him. The answer was too simple, too awful to accept.
The King in the North sank into his chair, breathless.
"They married on the Isle of Faces, in the sight of the weirwoods and the green men," the crannogman told them. "The Faith would never have allowed it, but they weren't to know. Prince Rhaegar was sure that a war was coming, a war that would decide the fate of the world, and his children would have much to do in fighting it. He wanted a child of ice and fire—a prince or princess of Stark and Targaryen blood."
"Jon," breathed Sansa, looking at him with wide blue eyes.
Jon hated it. This morning he'd been her last brother, a Stark at heart if not in name. Now she looked at him as though he were a knight from a song, and a stranger.
"Don't look at me like that, Sansa, please," he begged. "You said I'd be a Stark of Winterfell no matter what, remember?"
"You are Lyanna Stark's son, your grace, just as you are the heir of House Targaryen" Lord Reed said gently. "She was young, and without a maester or a trained midwife to help her; Ned and I came upon her as she lay dying in her bed. Your half-brother and sister were already dead, and Lyanna knew you would meet the same fate if Robert Baratheon knew of your existence. This is why Ned hid you as his bastard. He loved you, and he would not allow the new king to kill you."
Jon's head sank into his shaking hands. All his life, he'd wanted to know his mother's name. It seemed like the wish of a stupid summer child now. He'd give anything, anything at all, to be Ned Stark's motherless bastard again. His eyes burned, but he could not even weep.
"From the Tower of Joy where you were born, we brought Lyanna's bones, Arthur Dayne's sword, and this box," Howland Reed said, interrupting Jon's thoughts. "In it, you will find letters your father and mother wrote, and your father's harp. Lyanna's maidencloak is in here, as well."
Jon dared not touch any of it, but Sansa reached for one of the faded letters. She unfolded it to reveal Prince Rhaegar's elegant, bold handwriting, and read,
Dear Uncle,
I am deeply indebted to you for the book you recommended. I have reviewed the chapters you specified and am in full agreement. The survival of House Targaryen is indeed related to this prophecy, and I am working on fulfilling it at this very moment.
I am pleased to announce that my new wife, Princess Lyanna, is carrying a child of Targaryen and Stark blood. I have been summoned to lead the King's armies against the rebels, but Lyanna will remain in Dorne, protected by three of the Kingsguard. Should the war end soon, I will take her to Dragonstone for the duration of her confinement, and announce our marriage to the court. The Martells will be displeased, but this is the only way to guarantee the survival of our kingdom, and it is Aegon, a half-Martell, who will rule after me in any case.
I suspect that this child will be a girl, the Visenya to counsel and fight alongside my Aegon and Rhaenys. There is power in the blood of the First Men, and the babe will have it along with the blood of Valyria. Should the babe be a boy, however, I mean to name him Aemon Targaryen in your honor. The name of the Dragonknight and the wise maester seem fitting for a child who may become Aegon's Hand or Lord Commander in due time.
Thank you for your council and regular correspondence during these troubling times, uncle. When the rebellion is ended, and Lyanna has recovered from her delivery, it is my fondest wish to travel north, so she may visit Winterfell, and I may speak with you in person.
Sincerely,
Rhaegar
Prince of Dragonstone
"It's addressed to Maester Aemon at Castle Black," Sansa finished, "but it was never sent."
"Aemon," Jon murmured, fighting the urge to scream. "My name is Aemon Targaryen?"
He almost missed Lord Reed's answering nod. All these years, he thought bitterly, he'd been with his uncle at the Wall, and he'd never known. Maester Aemon had believed himself and Daenerys the last of their line, when all that time, he'd had his namesake—his brother's great-great-grandson—within a stone's throw of his library.
A Targaryen alone in the world is a terrible thing, the maester had told Sam once.
"Jon," called Sansa, squeezing his shoulder. "Jon, are you well?"
"No," he replied hoarsely. Then he remembered sending Maester Aemon and Dalla's babe away from the Wall, to protect them from Melisandre and her thirst for king's blood, and laughed until tears rolled down his cheeks. The sound of it was harsh, too loud for the quiet solar, but Jon couldn't stop. He ought to have sent himself away from the Red Woman! Then he would have stayed dead, and he'd never have known the truth of his birth.
"Jon!" cried his sister in alarm. But of course, she was not his sister. She never had been.
"Cousin Sansa," Jon said, a caustic smile touching his lips.
She flinched.
"Jon, you are still Father's son. He is the one who raised you, not Rhaegar Targaryen. He is the one who taught you to be what you are."
"There is this, as well," Lord Reed said, pulling a document out of his pocket. It was nowhere near as faded as the letters inside the box, and Jon saw a gray wax seal with a direwolf on the outside.
"Before the Boltons and Freys murdered King Robb, he wrote a will, and sent Maege Mormont and Galbart Glover to find me. They brought a copy of the king's last will. I think you should read it, your grace, and know that the crown belongs to you."
With trembling hands, Jon took the will. His eyes prickled as he recognized Robb's spiky handwriting. He skimmed the will until he found the relevant paragraphs, and read,
I hereby legitimize my brother, Jon Snow, and request that he be released from his vows to the Night's Watch. In exchange for this boon, three hundred Northmen are to take the black, and more will ride to the Watch's aid at need, as soon as the war against the South ends and we ride home. Should I die with no heirs of my body, Prince Jon Stark must be my successor, and lead the North's armies to victory over the Lannisters.
With Brandon and Rickon dead, Jon is my last living brother, and I could not find a more worthy heir in the whole of the North. Jon is Eddard Stark's son, dutiful and honorable, and the blood of the Kings of Winter flows true in his veins. Princess Arya Stark, should she be found alive, will be his heir until Jon has children of his own. Though it pains me to do so, I hereby disinherit my sister Sansa Lannister. I fear she will outlive her usefulness to the enemy as soon as she has borne a child, and Winterfell must never fall into Lannister hands.
Sansa's cheeks were tearstained, her eyes closed in grief. Seeing this, Jon raised himself out of his chair and engulfed his sister-turned-cousin in a hug, not realizing that he was weeping too.
Howland Reed allowed them a moment. He stayed in his seat, looking out the window in silence, until the two Starks had composed themselves.
"We must show this to the council, Jon," Sansa advised, sitting in her chair once more. "If there are any who doubted you would suit as king, Robb's word will help."
"Are you mad? Robb thought I was his brother!" cried Jon. "He made me his heir based on a lie, the lie Fath—Eddard Stark told to keep me out of sight!"
"You are still a Stark," Sansa insisted. "I'm not the first Stark woman to be passed over in favor of a male cousin. And more importantly, the lords chose you to be king. You can't throw that back in their faces!"
"Sansa, they think Rhaegar Targaryen kidnapped and raped my mother," Jon argued. "When they know the truth, why would any of them want me on the throne? I must give it up, or they'll kill me. You know what they say of bastards born of rape, and Ramsay Bolton proved them right! And who would want a Targaryen madman's son as King in the North?"
"They think wrong, and we will correct them!" Sansa replied, exasperated. "Are you so eager to run away south and leave me alone? I never believed you were craven, Jon."
Jon deflated. He didn't want to abandon Sansa, any more than he wanted to leave Winterfell. It was home, now more than ever. But the thought of admitting what he was made him sick with dread, and the thought of hiding it forever was worse.
"I was a witness, at the tourney and at the Tower, King Jon," Howland Reed interjected in his quiet manner. "I will provide proof. Any who know you will realize that you are more Stark than Targaryen in all the ways that count."
Jon had no such faith in his fellow men, not after the mutiny. But when the Northmen cast him out, at least Sansa would have a home for Arya to return to.
"Very well," he said. "We will tell them. Today."
Lord Howland smiled sadly. "Lady Lyanna would be proud of the man you've become, your grace."
"Does anyone else know?" asked Sansa suddenly. "You were two men and a newborn babe, surely there was a wet-nurse?"
Trust Sansa to think of the small details! As much as Jon hated Littlefinger, the weasel had trained Sansa to survive a royal court, or perhaps she'd trained herself. Once Joffrey had pulled her head out of the songs she loved so much, she must have learned quickly—too quickly for a young girl, he pondered sadly.
"You're quick, princess," the crannogman replied. "We rode to Starfall first, for that very purpose. Ned insisted on returning Dawn to House Dayne, and while we were there, Lady Ashara provided us with a wet-nurse for the journey. She'd just lost her own babe, and had no need of Wylla. If memory serves, that good woman stayed at Winterfell until King Jon's first nameday—his real one, of course."
"He changed my nameday, too?" Jon asked, aghast. "Is anything about me true?"
Lord Howland sighed. "Remember, your grace, that your father chose to hide you as his bastard. You were a moon older than Robb, his heir by Lady Catelyn. That meant that unless you became a younger son, the Tullys would have even more cause to fear you, the firstborn. You were born early, and such a small babe that no one suspected the truth. You are three moons older than you think you are."
"Wonderful," snarled Jon, fighting the urge to punch something. He was burning up with anger: anger at his mother for running off with a married man, and the son of the Mad King besides; anger at his father for taking her, and for this ridiculous prophecy that had caused so much trouble; last of all, Jon was furious with his uncle, the man he'd loved so dearly, for lying to him all his life.
Cool hands wrapped around his wrist, pulling Jon back to the present.
"Jon," murmured Sansa. "Why don't you visit your mother?"
He took several deep breaths, trying to calm down. When he could finally answer at a normal volume, Jon agreed to his sister's—cousin's—plan.
"What would you like to do with this, your grace?" asked Lord Howland, pointing to the chest. Now that Jon knew what lay within, he realized it had been his mother's hope chest once—one more clue that her flight from the Riverlands had been planned for in advance.
"Have you kept it in Greywater Watch all this time?" asked Sansa.
"Indeed," replied the man. "In fact, I offered to foster King Jon there, as well. I knew his reception would be less than ideal once Lady Catelyn arrived with Robb. Ned wouldn't hear of it; his sister's son was a Stark, he said, and a Stark's place was in Winterfell. So he took the babe, and I took the papers, the cloaks, and the harp."
"If I wanted to hide my identity forever, I could bury the chest in the crypts," Jon thought aloud, "but I don't mean to. I'll need it for the council meeting, and then..."
"And then nothing will change," Sansa insisted. "The lords will applaud your honesty and support you as king. The North loves Lyanna, or at least, the idea of her."
"I'll leave it here for now, and lock the door," Jon decided, disagreeing with Sansa but unwilling to argue. "I'm going to the crypts. Will you come with me, Sansa?"
Sansa smiled gently. "Of course, Jon."
After seeing Lord Howland through the door, Jon locked it, and led his sister down to the crypts. For once, no one bothered the King in the North. Except for the occasional curious wildling, no one but the Starks entered the crypts. There were no treasures down there, nor food. It was cold and dark inside, as always, and deathly silent.
"I used to dream about this," Jon confessed to Sansa as they passed the first statues. "I had to find something in the crypts, and I felt like an invader. I could feel the Kings of Winter staring at me, judging me unworthy, and I screamed that I wasn't a Stark."
"But you are," Sansa protested.
"Perhaps the frightening thing in the crypts was my mother's secret," Jon mused, stopping in front of Lyanna's statue. "People accused her of all sorts of things—Stannis thought I'd been fathered on a fishwife. Theon said she was a whore from the winter town. A few servants whispered about Ashara Dayne. But I knew, deep down, that she was a highborn lady, beautiful and kind. I dreamed of her."
Sansa said nothing, but her left arm snaked around Jon's waist in a silent gesture of comfort and warmth.
"Can you imagine me as Rhaegar Targaryen's son?" Jon said, his voice trembling. "Aemon Targaryen, a prince in the Red Keep, learning sword-fighting from Arthur Dayne by day, and playing the harp by night? My mother, a second queen behind Elia Martell? My brother, the future king on the Iron Throne, probably with my sister for a wife, and me in a white cloak?"
It sounded ridiculous out loud, even more so than it had in Jon's head. He'd wanted to be Aemon the Dragonknight as a child, but not like this!
"I don't understand him, Sansa," Jon said, looking for familiar features in his mother's stone face. "How could Rhaegar think it a good idea?"
"Princes do what they like, and don't think of the consequences" said Sansa, and Jon heard bitter experience shining through her even tone. "Do you think Joffrey knew killing Father would start a war? His mother did, but he was too stupid to realize it."
Jon winced. "Thank you for comparing my father to that little shit."
Sansa laughed then, a clear sound that echoed throughout the crypts. For a moment there were hundreds of Stark ladies with him, laughing in mirth.
"You may have been born Aemon Targaryen," she told him at last, "but you're Jon Stark now, the King in the North. That's all that matters. And now you see how much Father loved you; you know how much he valued his honor, and he sacrificed it for you. It would have been so easy for him to leave you in the Neck, to be raised far away from Mother, but he did not. And when you look through Aunt Lyanna's chest, you'll see some of her letters," Sansa added. "She wrote one to you, telling you how much she loved you and to be brave. I only saw a few lines, but I expect it was the last she ever wrote."
Jon broke. The anguish, horror, and rage he'd felt throughout the morning burst out of him at once, and he fell to his knees, weeping like a child. Beneath his mother's pale stone gaze, Aemon Targaryen grieved for the mother he had never known, the mother who had lain under his feet, unknown, all these years, and for the father who had raised him—the father he had lost.
In a swish of skirts, Sansa knelt beside him, offering a literal shoulder to cry on. Jon held her tightly, grateful for the silent support but unable to speak. Their shaky breaths steamed in front of their faces, and neither had brought gloves. Sansa drew slow, soothing circles across Jon's back, murmuring comforting nonsense now and then. He supposed she'd had plenty of practice with her Arryn cousin.
After he'd run out of tears, Jon stood on stiff knees and pulled Sansa to her feet.
"Thank you," he said sincerely, kissing her on the cheek. "This was a good idea. I had years of grief bottled up inside, for both of them."
Sansa turned slightly, and Jon saw in the torchlight that she'd been weeping too.
"I know the feeling, Jon," she replied softly. She smiled wryly. "We're in no state to be seen, least of all by the whole council."
"I'm sure," answered Jon, knowing that his face would be puffy and his eyes visibly red. "I'm just glad the Wintersguard are not following us around yet. I'd never survive the shame."
Sansa poked Jon in the ribs, much like Arya had done as a child. "It's not funny, Jon. My dress is filthy now."
"We can sneak around the soldiers," Jon offered, knowing that Sansa had not climbed or explored Winterfell's dark corners as much as her siblings. "Just follow my lead, and I'll get us to our rooms unseen."
His cousin drew herself up to her full height. "Lead the way, your grace."
And up the stairs they went, in a companionable silence.
Since I first posted this story on Ao3, I've received a few comments along the lines of "great story and all, but you should have made Jon's name JAEHAERYS." It was Jaehaerys, back in my first draft. But then I got into Reddit, and I read things that changed my mind completely. Going by the books alone, Jon's only connected to two Targaryen names: Daeron and Aemon. He compares himself to Maester Aemon, when he thinks of deserting. He also calls himself Aemon the Dragonknight while playing.
There are tons of quotes I could throw at you, but I'm typing this note on my phone, so I won't. Every Aemon in Targ/Blackfyre history had a brother named Aegon, and we know that Rhaegar and Maester Aemon were in touch via raven. And Aemon refused the Iron Throne; I'm sure Jon would do the same.
Let me know your thoughts on the chapter, and a big thanks to everyone who dropped such lovely comments already. They can make an awful day better instantly!