The Queen Regent and her councillors discussed the question of the king’s marriage time and time again over most of a moon’s turn, but came no closer to reaching a consensus. Jaehaerys himself was not privy to these debates. On this Queen Alyssa and Lord Rogar agreed. Though Jaehaerys might well be wise beyond his years, he was still a boy, and ruled by a boy’s desires, desires that on no account could be allowed to overrule the good of the realm. Queen Alyssa in particular had no doubt whatsoever about whom her son would choose to marry were the choice left to him: her youngest daughter, his sister the Princess Alysanne.
The Targaryens had been marrying brother to sister for centuries, of course, and Jaehaerys and Alysanne had grown up expecting to wed, just as their elder siblings Aegon and Rhaena had. Morever, Alysanne was only two years younger than her brother, and the two children had always been close and strong in their affection and regard for one another. Their father, King Aenys, would certainly have wished for them to marry, and once that would have been their mother’s wish as well … but the horrors she had witnessed since her husband’s death had persuaded Queen Alyssa to think elsewise. Though the Warrior’s Sons and Poor Fellows had been disbanded and outlawed, many former members of both orders remained at large in the realm and might well take up their swords again if provoked. The Queen Regent feared their wroth, for she had vivid memories of all that had befallen her son Aegon and her daughter Rhaena when their marriage was announced. “We dare not ride that road again,” she is reported to have said, more than once.
In this resolve she was supported by the newest member of the court, Septon Mattheus of the Most Devout, who had remained in King’s Landing when the High Septon and the rest of his brethren returned to Oldtown. A great whale of a man, as famed for his corpulence as for the magnificence of his robes, Mattheus claimed descent from the Gardener kings of old, who had once ruled the Reach from their seat at Highgarden. Many regarded him as a near certainty to be chosen as the next High Septon.
The present occupant of that holy office, whom Septon Moon had derided as the High Lickspittle, was cautious and complaisant, so there was little to no danger of any marriage being denounced from Oldtown so long as he continued to speak for the Seven from his seat in the Starry Sept. The Father of the Faithful was not a young man, however; the journey to King’s Landing to officiate at the Golden Wedding had almost been the end of him, men said.
“If it should fall to me to don his mantle, His Grace of course would have my support in any choice he might make,” Septon Mattheus assured the Queen Regent and her advisors, “but not all of my brethren are so inclined, and … dare I say … there are other Moons out there. Given all that has occurred, to marry brother to sister at this juncture would be seen as a grievous affront to the pious, and I fear for what might happen.”
Their queen’s misgivings thus confirmed, Rogar Baratheon and the other lords put aside all consideration of Princess Alysanne as a bride for her brother Jaehaerys. The princess was three-and-ten years of age, and had recently celebrated her first flowering, so it was thought desirable to see her wed as soon as possible. Though still far apart as regarded a suitable match for the king, the council settled swiftly on a partner for the princess; she would be married on the seventh day of the new year, to Orryn Baratheon, the youngest of Lord Rogar’s brothers.
Thus it was settled by the Queen Regent and the King’s Hand and their lords councillors and advisors. But like many such arrangements through the ages, their plan was soon undone, for they had grievously underestimated the will and determination of Alysanne Targaryen herself, and her young king, Jaehaerys.
No announcement had yet been made of Alysanne’s betrothal, so it is not known how word of the decision reached her ears. Grand Maester Benifer suspected a servant, for many such had come and gone whilst the lords debated in the queen’s solar. Lord Rogar himself was suspicious of Daemon Velaryon, the lord admiral, a prideful man who might well have believed that the Baratheons were overreaching themselves in hopes of displacing the Lords of the Tide as the second house in the realm. Years later, when these events had passed into legend, the smallfolk would tell each other that “rats in the walls” had overheard the lords talking and rushed to the princess with the news.
No record survives of what Alysanne Targaryen said or thought when first she learned that she was to be wed to a youth ten years her senior, whom she scarcely knew and (if rumor can be believed) did not like. We know only what she did. Another girl might have wept or raged or run pleading to her mother. In many a sad song, maidens forced to wed against their will throw themselves from tall towers to their deaths. Princess Alysanne did none of these things. Instead she went directly to Jaehaerys.
The young king was as displeased as his sister at the news. “They will be making wedding plans for me as well, I do not doubt,” he deduced at once. Like his sister, Jaehaerys did not waste time with reproaches, recriminations, or appeals. Instead he acted. Summoning his Kingsguard, he instructed them to sail at once for Dragonstone, where he would meet them shortly. “You have sworn me your swords and your obedience,” he reminded his Seven. “Remember those vows, and speak no word of my departure.”
That night, under cover of darkness, King Jaehaerys and Princess Alysanne mounted their dragons, Vermithor and Silverwing, and departed the Red Keep for the ancient Targaryen citadel below the Dragonmont. Reportedly the first words the young king spoke upon landing were, “I have need of a septon.”
The king, rightly, had no trust in Septon Mattheus, who would surely have betrayed their plans, but the sept on Dragonstone was tended by an old man named Oswyck, who had known Jaehaerys and Alysanne since their births, and instructed them in the mysteries of the Seven throughout their childhood. As a younger man, Septon Oswyck had ministered to King Aenys, and as a boy he had served as a novice in the court of Queen Rhaenys. He was more than familiar with the Targaryen tradition of sibling marriage, and when he heard the king’s command, he assented at once.
The Kingsguard arrived from King’s Landing by galley a few days later. The following morning, as the sun rose, Jaehaerys Targaryen, the First of His Name, took to wife his sister Alysanne in the great yard at Dragonstone, before the eyes of gods and men and dragons. Septon Oswyck performed the marriage rites; though the old man’s voice was thin and tremulous, no part of the ceremony was neglected. The seven knights of the Kingsguard stood witness to the union, their white cloaks snapping in the wind. The castle’s garrison and servants looked on as well, together with a good part of the smallfolk of the fishing village that huddled below Dragonstone’s mighty curtain walls.
A modest feast followed the ceremony, and many toasts were drunk to the health of the boy king and his new queen. Afterward Jaehaerys and Alysanne retired to the bedchamber where Aegon the Conqueror had once slept beside his sister Rhaenys, but in view of the bride’s youth there was no bedding ceremony, and the marriage was not consummated.
That omission would prove to be of great importance when Lord Rogar and Queen Alyssa arrived belatedly from King’s Landing in a war galley, accompanied by a dozen knights, forty men-at-arms, Septon Mattheus, and Grand Maester Benifer, whose letters give us the most complete accounting of what transpired.
Jaehaerys and Alysanne met them inside the castle gates, holding hands. It is said that Queen Alyssa wept when she saw them. “You foolish children,” she said. “You know not what you’ve done.”
Then up spoke Septon Mattheus, his voice thunderous as he berated the king and queen and prophesized that this abomination would once more plunge all of Westeros into war. “They shall curse your incest from the Dornish Marches to the Wall, and every pious son of the Mother and the Father shall denounce you as the sinners you are.” The septon’s face grew red and swollen as he raved, Benifer tells us, and spittle sprayed from his lips.
Jaehaerys the Conciliator is rightly honored in the annals of the Seven Kingdoms for his calm demeanor and even temper, but let no man think that the fire of the Targaryens did not burn in his veins.