Jena
After she parted ways with Titus and Sadog, Jena put the Great Council from her mind.
Her recollection of the farce which she'd sat through was already beginning to fade. The details did not matter; she foresaw the events before her. Aemon and Aegon's supporters would talk themselves hoarse. Aemon would continue to refuse the crown, or mayhaps he might be persuaded to try and give up his holy vows.
None of it mattered. Aemon would not be released, while Aegon would never be accepted. It would fall upon Brynden Rivers to present himself as the compromise, the man who'd already ruled the Seven Kingdoms in all but name. He might step forward himself, or - more likely - one of the great lords would implore him to embrace the role which was thrust upon his shoulders.
Rather than go back to her apartment, Jena stopped by the castle sept. Only a handful of women and children were present, sitting together silently or whispering amongst themselves. Any child who made too much noise was quickly admonished.
Jena tried to ignore the others as she knelt before the Crone's statue. It seemed the most natural god for her to pray to; as a girl, she'd often knelt before the Maid, who had granted all her deepest desires. Then the Mother had betrayed her, filling her life with misery and grief as she'd lost most of her children, then her grandsons, then her husband, and the only two sons who survived infancy. Mayhaps the Crone will grant me wisdom. It is the least which I could be granted after all these years.
Truthfully, she knew full well that the gods alone were not responsible for her ruined life. The evil magic of Bloodraven and Seastar had cast a pall over her life, a shadow beneath from which her spirit would no longer be raised.
Surely it did not have to be this way, she thought as she gazed upward at that wizened face. The candlelight flickered across the painted wood, but it did nothing to warm her stern expression.
Crone, Jena prayed earnestly. I am humbled before you, as I have been humbled by the gods for thirty years. I am shorn of pride, of happiness, of purpose. To what end have you made me suffer thus? If you have any mercy left, grant it to me now, or else make an end of my life so that I can sleep forevermore.
"Your Grace?"
Startled, Jena flinched at this unexpected address. When she turned to her left, she beheld a shy-looking girl of seven. She was dressed in frilly finery, though Jena could not properly determine the colours in the low light.
This was no stranger to Jena. This was Shaera Targaryen, eldest daughter of Prince Aegon and Princess Betha. She looked upon Jena with concern. "Are you well?"
Jena hastily wiped at her cheeks, embarrassed by this child's intervention. "I am," she reassured the little princess. "I knelt too close to the candles, that is all. I appreciate your concern, child."
Shaera dutifully curtseyed, but she did not depart. She continued to look upon Jena with a wary curiosity.
Perhaps it was the effect of the low light in the sept, but Jena was struck by how pale this girl was, in contrast with her hair, which rested upon her shoulders in two long braids. It was pitch-black, in contrast with the golden twine which kept her braids in place.
"What brings you to the sept?" Jena asked her.
"My brother is ill again," Shaera answered. "I came to pray for him."
"Alone?"
"Mother went to the godswood," Shaera explained.
"Ah." Jena knew that Aegon's wife still worshipped the old gods, as did the rest of House Blackwood. How often does she kneel before that tree? Does she ever go there in her uncle's company? Does she resent that her children must be raised as worshippers of the Seven?
Besides these thoughts, Jena also knew which of Shaera's brothers was sick. Aegon's second son was very similar to his father's uncle, the late King Aerys. "I will include Jaehaerys in my prayers."
Shaera smiled and curtseyed again. "Thank you, Your Grace."
Jena tried to return the smile; Shaera was an innocent little girl, who presumably understood nothing of the bad blood festering within House Targaryen. Still, she could not help but be disappointed. This is the gods' work, she reflected rancorously. I begged them for aid, for guidance, for mercy. And so they sent me this girl, the third of five children, born to a happily married prince. Is this some sort of spiteful mockery at my expense?
She plodded back to Maegor's Holdfast with angry thoughts and ill wishes buzzing in her head. Along the way, she was faced with two Raven's Teeth who were walking in the opposite direction. As they reluctantly stood aside for her, she deliberately walked slower to frustrate them.
Ser Ruggan Darklyn of the Kingsguard stood at the door instead of Ser Niall. Must be at rest, Jena supposed. He gave Jena a perfunctory bow as she approached, which she acknowledged with a curt nod.
"You have guests awaiting you," the knight told her as he fumbled for the keys around his neck. "The burned woman and the dwarf."
"Miru and Matthias, you mean," Jena reproached him sharply.
Ser Ruggan froze for a moment. "Forgive me, Princess. I forgot their names."
"Then address them as my niece and my nephew," Jena snapped. "That is what they are."
"Of course, Princess," Ser Ruggan muttered.
Once again, Jena bitterly felt the loss of Willem Wylde. Niall was a well-meaning young knight, but the rest were strangers to her. All of them had been elected to the Kingsguard after Baelor's death. They saw her as a relic, an old woman who no longer mattered.
The worst was Ser Duncan. Even he seemed to sense her animosity for him, as did the other knights, for he alone had never been assigned to protect her.
As Ser Ruggan had declared, Matthias sat with a miserable-looking Kiera on a couch. Nearby, young Vaella was by the fireplace as was her wont. Miru was carefully brushing her hair, just as Kiera sometimes did. Vaella was making the same contented cooing noises which accompanied her hair being brushed the right way.
"Aunt Jena," Miru greeted her with that crooked smile of hers.
"Your Grace." Matthias was less cheery. Gods… he must have heard us in the hall…
"Don't mind him," Jena told Matthias. "Ruggan's a boor." She sat down with a sigh of relief. She was sore from sitting in that wretched chair for most of the day. "What are you two doing here?"
"We came to see you," answered Miru as she continued to brush Vaella's hair. "We encountered someone who might be a lost kin. He looks very similar to Matthias."
"Oh?" Jena stared at Miru in surprise and apprehension. She had always reckoned that her brother had left a multitude of bastards in his wake, but Matthias had been the only one she'd encountered.
"He's a maester called Lyman," Miru explained. "He said he was raised at the Citadel."
"An old story," Jena observed. "I trust that Titus doesn't know yet?"
"We came to see you first," answered Miru. "We thought you might have avoided the council. Princess Kiera was gracious enough to host us."
Kiera smirked at the courtesy, but said nothing about it as she took another dainty sip of wine.
Jena worried for her; she herself had struggled with wine for years. After the deaths of Gwenys, Baelor, her sons… she might have drank herself to death were it not for the efforts of Kiera, Daeron, Queen Myriah, and Princess Aelinor. Now, she recognised those same warning signs in her former good-daughter, but she had yet to confront her on it.
"Did he say who his mother was?" Jena asked.
"That's the strange thing," Miru resumed. "He doesn't know his mother's name. The only thing he knows about her was that she was executed for murder."
Gods be good… Jena might have collapsed if she wasn't already sitting down. A memory stirred within her, one which she hadn't recalled for more years than she could count. It can't be…
"Aunt Jena?" Miru ceased her brushing, much to Vaella's audible disappointment. Matthias had stood up, as if he were about to run for help. Even Kiera was staring at her.
"Executed," Jena echoed. "This man, Maester Lyman, how old was he?"
"We didn't ask," Matthias replied. "He was older than Miru. Past forty at least."
"Oh gods," Jena exclaimed. She clapped a hand to her mouth as she struggled to breathe slowly through her nose. It's him… after all these years…
Miru stood up and ran towards her. "Aunt Jena!" She knelt by her, gripping her knee in one hand. Kiera arose and approached her too, staring in confusion. "Who is this maester?"
"That is a long story," Jena admitted.
It was a story which Jena told over supper in her apartment. As Kiera and Vaella ate in their sleeping quarters, Jena sat at the table with Miru and Matthias, eating little and speaking a great deal.
"How much do you know about the year my father and brother died?" Jena asked when they first began to eat.
Matthias' face fell. "We know what Father did. He told us how he and the maester poisoned our grandfather."
Jena balked at that. "He did?"
Miru nodded. "He's been very open about his faults and his crimes. He spent years consulting priests and priestesses at the Temple of Love in Ebonhead. It was a long journey for him, but he became a better man for it."
You were right all along, Baelor. Jena sighed. "Well, then, I'll try not to repeat what he might have told you…"
"No, please tell us everything," Matthias urged. "I want to hear it all."
"Me too," Miru agreed. "Mayhaps you recall things Father forgot."
Thus, Jena spoke to her brother's children of the fateful year when she'd met and then married Baelor Breakspear. She spoke of how her father had fallen ill during the last days of winter, lingering for weeks as he slowly rotted in his bed. She spoke of how Titus had reappeared shortly after her father had become sick, disguising himself as a begging brother.
"He never told me that he was behind Father's poisoning," Jena clarified sternly. "I thought he was simply up to another one of his antics. And besides, Father and Ser Lomas would never have allowed him back into Blackhaven if he'd tried to return as himself."
She continued on with her account. Her father had died in agony, throughout which she did not shed a single tear. Then the news came shortly thereafter of her older brother Arlan's death at sea. His widow, Tyana, had challenged Titus' inheritance of Blackhaven and House Dondarrion's lordship in the name of her late husband's child.
"The council decided to wait and see if Tyana's child was a boy or a girl," Jena explained. "In the meantime, Titus and I went to King's Landing to attend the great tourney."
She might have gone on about all which had occurred in King's Landing. She could have talked all day about her own campaign to win Baelor's hand in marriage, and how it had implausibly ended in success. She could have gone over Titus' defence of Uthor and Edgar Dalt when they were accused of murdering Lord Commander Red Robert Flowers.
Instead, she focused on Blackhaven, and what had transpired whilst she and Titus were away. She spoke of Maester Gerold's murder, and the madness which it had unleashed upon Blackhaven. She spoke of Royce Storm's trial, of his innocence, of his declaration of Tyana's supposed guilt, of the discovery of the murder weapon in her chambers, and her months-long imprisonment as she awaited the birth of her child.
"She requested that the baby be given to the Faith," Jena concluded. "I wasn't there when she was executed, but when she was given her final words, she declared that her son was the true heir to Blackhaven."
"But he wasn't, surely?" Matthias replied. "She and Royce were having an affair, and he was a Dondarrion bastard."
"Mayhaps," Jena mused. "I wondered about that too. Her son was already on his way to the Citadel by that point. She had nothing to gain from making such a claim on the executioner's block. The only reason I can imagine is that she was speaking the truth, or what she believed to be the truth. Or it could have been an attempt to spite my sister."
She could live another forty years and still not decide how she felt about her sister. She had never gotten along with Cassana, especially in regard to their opposite opinions of Titus and their father. As adults, she'd tried to reach out to her sister and bring their families closer, but the attempts were feeble half-measures, in hindsight. Cassana had always been a mystery to her, as to why she'd been the way she was, and it wasn't until long after her murder that Jena finally gained the insight which she'd never had.
"It was Cassana who killed the maester," Jena reflected. "She'd discovered the truth of our father's murder, and she avenged him by cutting Gerold's throat. She used her knowledge of the crime to make Titus give up his claim to the seat of Blackhaven. Then she turned Royce Storm and Tyana against each other so that she could frame one of them for Gerold's death. It was a masterstroke, if the expression may be allowed."
"How did you learn all this?" Miru asked quietly.
"I learned some of it from Titus," Jena answered quietly. "I also spoke with some who witnessed the events unfold. And some came from my goodbrother Baldric."
"Baldric?" Matthias echoed in confusion. "When did he tell you that?"
"After the deaths of my sons, I went back to Blackhaven. King's Landing was a place of ghosts, and I thought Baldric was the one who would best understand my anguish. Titus was gone, and Baldric had lost more than anyone else I knew."
Baldric had been wasting away ever since the end of the Vulture Hunt. By the time Jena returned to Blackhaven, he was a hermit who never left his chambers at the top of the Spare's Tower. His daughters had married and left Blackhaven, and his surviving sons wanted nothing to do with him.
Jena gave a long shuddering sigh before continuing. "I stayed with Baldric and spoke to him, looked after him, and we confided in each other. I think we were both trying to make sense of the madness which nearly destroyed our house." And he died before we could find any answers.
"Cassana blamed Titus for his kinslaying of our father," Jena mused. "Titus thought so too, after the Blackfyre Rebellion. But Titus was not the first kinslayer in our family." Gods be good…
"Mayhaps it was something else," Matthias interjected. "Mayhaps Tyana was speaking truly, and the seat was usurped by Cassana and her family."
"Steady on," Miru told her brother. "We don't even know if Maester Lyman is Tyana's son."
"You're right," Jena remarked. She put aside her plate and arose. "Supper is surely done by now. The Royces will be back from the hall." Royce… if Tyana's son serves House Royce… the gods really do love their cruel jokes.
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It took only three knocks on Lord Royce's door to summon an answer.
Judging by the sword at his side and the bronze plate depicting House Royce's sigil over his mail, he appeared to be a household knight.
"Yes?" He asked gruffly as his eyes went from Jena to Miru, to Matthias, and back to Jena again.
Jena was undaunted; she had long ago grown accustomed to speaking to such men. "I am Princess Jena Targaryen," came her haughty reply. "You will address me as such!"
The knight's demeanour quickly changed. He swung the door open and gave her a low bow. "Your Grace," he murmured. "Forgive me. Please come in."
Jena had spoken loudly enough that those inside the apartment would hear her. An astonished Lord Ellard Royce stepped forward, alongside his wife, their children, and more than half a dozen members of their household. All of them bowed to Jena as she walked through the doorway, with Miru and Matthias in tow.
"We're honoured by your visit," Lord Royce declared in his sonorous voice. "Would that we'd known of your coming, for we could have prepared a warmer welcome."
"No need for that," Jena reassured him. "I would never question the honour and courtesy of House Royce. I wish to see your maester."
He was standing amongst the rest of Royce's household, staring in astonishment as all eyes turned to him.
"My maester," Lord Royce repeated in a confused tone. "May I ask why?"
"You may," Jena replied, "but first I wish to see him." She turned to the man and beckoned him. "Step forward, young man. My eyes aren't what they used to be."
As the others made a path for the maester, he approached her and gave a second bow. "Princess," he said.
Jena felt a shudder go down her body. She had great difficulty remembering her three elder brothers, including Arlan. Royce Storm was also a man whose image had faded too much. She did recall Titus, though, and this Lyman was neither tall enough nor similar enough for Jena to consider him his son. Whether it was Arlan or Royce who'd sired him, she couldn't be sure, but there was no doubt in her mind that he was Tyana's child.
Mayhaps this is the sign that the gods wished me to have, she thought to herself as she stared up at the maester. I am being made to answer the sins of my family once again.
"If I may, Lord Royce," Jena said to a dumbfounded Ellard, "I believe I have much to tell Maester Lyman about whence he came."