Chapter XXVII: Pandemonium in Oldtown
To my lord and brother,
You have no doubt heard whisperings of the comings and goings of Oldtown, most probably warped by going from mouth to mouth. Allow me to humbly inform you of the truth of the matter.
The king's uncle and brother to Lord Hightower, Ser Martyn had died when marching with Daeron into Dorne, leaving the lady Rhaena widowed with six orphaned daughters. She and her daughters had remained in Oldtown, the lady judging the city a healthier one than King's Landing, ever mindful of her daughters.
Emboldened by rumours coming out of Planky Town of the death of Baelor at the hand of an assassin, Lord Lyonel Hightower saw fit to bypass the word of the king he now thought dead, and betrothed his eldest niece to his heir, and made plans to hold the wedding with great haste.
The High Septon, mindful of the king and his wishes, barred the doors of the Starry Sept before the Hightowers and their party, forbidding the wedding to go through. In rage at such an affront, Lord Lyonel found a drunken septon and forced his niece to speak the wedding vows. No doubt, he thought, that by outliving one High Septon who did not approve of his deeds, he would be likely to outlive another – and indeed he did, but not in the manner he expected.
Alas, at the news of Lord Hightower's folly, the High Septon's heart gave out, and the Faith remained without a head. In his daring, the lord of Oldtown gathered all among the Most Devout in Oldtown and shut them into the Starry Sept, intent on them choosing his kin Abelar, and ignoring the requisite wait of seven and seventy days for all of the Sacred Conclave to gather, and denied them any victuals until they at last made their choice.
It took them a week to make it, and the choosing was as great a testament against the Hightower as it could ever be. They had chosen a Valeman out of their lot, and not that wretched Abelar.
But once the doors had been opened, Abelar came out – feet first. The new High Septon claimed that his frail constitution could not survive the seven days of fasting that Lord Hightower had imposed upon them. No sane man would accuse the Voice of the Seven of lying, but witnesses claim that it was clear that the body had been rotting for days, and marks of strangling were visible around his throat. It is my own belief that that Stormlander giant of a septon among the Most Devout had given way to his rage and dealt with Abelar, and the rest of the Conclave had sworn itself to silence on the matter.
Not even Lyonel Hightower would dare slay a High Septon or the Most Devout, but his anger was great indeed, brooding in his high tower and continued to claim the marriage of Alyssa Hightower and his son as legitimate.
Some time later, Knights Inquisitors, carrying a decree of our Prince Hand, came to escort the king's aunt and her daughters to the Red Keep, Prince Viserys' writing making it clear he did not recognize the marriage of the eldest.
Lyonel Hightower most assuredly knew that he had overplayed his hand, and that, since Viserys did not call himself king, our blessed Baelor was still alive. He dared to raise his hand against the most holy, but not to rebel against a beloved king. He relinquished thus his nieces.
But the Lady Rhaena and her brood did not leave alone. The High Septon and the entirety of the Conclave present left too for King's Landing, claiming a wish to oversee the work of building our king's sept, leaving the Starry Sept into the care of an Arch-Septon, in an unprecedented decision. Never had that Great Sept been governed, in the absence of the High Septon, by any other than one of the Most Devout.
More unprecedented than that, by the whisperings at court, I believe that the High Septon has no intention of ever returning to Oldtown, into the grasping hands of Lord Lyonel. Furthermore, he has, after "careful consultation" of the sacred texts and the casuistry of sacred law, came to the conclusion that the marriage between Lord Lyonel and Lady Samantha was invalid and thus every fruit of their union illegitimate. Lady Samantha was proclaimed a fornicator and commanded, as penance, to join the Silent Sisters and Lord Lyonel to make a barefooted pilgrimage, in a hairshirt, to the Seven Stones.
The matter of Lord Hightower's sons is not that one easily unknotted. They had been born in the years when the Lady Samantha was still his paramour. They had been legitimized from bastardry in a separate decree by a High Septon agreeable to the Hightowers and could not so easily be called bastards again. But our High Septon has so cunningly concluded that a decree of legitimisation, having effects upon the fiefs of the realm, required further royal approval to be valid, and since the seal of Aegon, Third of His Name, was not present upon it, its words and proclamations were moot. And so the legitimised became base again.
And if those young men cry: "Why bastard? Wherefore base?" they have but their father to thank. The lady Alysssa, her marriage annulled, since her vows were spoken at sword point, is now the heir to Oldtown – the second born topping the firstborn, and already many lordlings are gathering around her, seeking her favour.
Lord Hightower now suffers to effects of his folly, and time will tell if he relinquishes his "wife" (or whore?) to the Faith and make his pilgrimage. But his pilgrimage will be the least of his trouble, for after facing the wrath of the sacred, he will face the wrath of the secular. King Baelor, by the will of the Seven still living, shall return from Dorne and all at court know he never held any fond thoughts for the brood of Hightowers, who brought such strife for the realm, and only his fair cousins have ever found favour in his heart.
For all that the Hightower did not fall that high from grace following the Dance of Dragons, now they shall fall further, and those who had once sought to put a half-Hightower upon the Iron Throne, will find a half-Targaryen of Daemon's blood ruling in Oldtown. If I stand still, I can hear the cries o dismay of Alicent Hightower and her father all the way from the seventh hell.
Your most loyal brother, Balthasar Grell.