Beyond the city, however, 134 AC would not be a year to remember fondly. North of the Neck, winter still held the land in its icy fist. At Barrowton, Lord Dustin closed his gates as hundreds of starving villagers gathered beneath his walls. White Harbor fared better, for its port allowed food to be brought in from the south, but prices rose so high that good men began to sell themselves into bondage to slave traders from across the sea so their wives and children might eat, whilst worse men sold their wives and children. Even in the winter town, beneath the very walls of Winterfell, the northmen fell to eating dogs and horses. Cold and hunger carried off a third of the Night’s Watch, and when thousands of wildlings walked across the frozen sea east of the Wall, hundreds more of the black brothers perished in battle.

   In the Iron Islands, a savage struggle for power followed upon the death of the Red Kraken. His three sisters and the men they had married seized Toron Greyjoy, the boy upon the Seastone Chair, and put his mother to death, whilst his cousins joined with the lords of Harlaw and Blacktyde to raise up Toron’s half-brother Rodrik, and the men of Great Wyk rallied to a pretender called Sam Salt, who claimed to be descended of the black line.

Their bloody three-way fight had been raging for half a year when Ser Leo Costayne descended upon them with his fleet, landing thousands of Lannister swords and spears on Pyke, Great Wyk, and Harlaw. Lord Oakenfist had refused to be a part of House Lannister’s vengeance upon the ironmen, but the old Sea Lion proved more amenable to Lady Johanna’s entreaties…swayed, mayhaps, by her promise to marry him if he delivered the Iron Islands to her son’s rule. That proved beyond Ser Leo’s power to achieve, however. Costayne died amidst the stony hills of Great Wyk, cut down by the hand of Arthur Goodbrother, and three-quarters of his ships were seized or sunk in those cold grey seas.

Though Lady Johanna’s wish to put every ironman to the sword was frustrated, no man could doubt that the Lannisters had paid their debt by the time the fight was done. Hundreds of longships and fishing boats were burned, with as many homes and villages. The wives and children of the ironborn who had wreaked such havoc on the westerlands were put to the sword wherever they were found. Amongst the slain were nine of the Red Kraken’s cousins, two of his three sisters and their husbands, Lord Drumm of Old Wyk and Lord Goodbrother of Great Wyk, as well as the Lords Volmark and Harlaw of Harlaw, Botley of Lordsport, and Stonehouse of Old Wyk. Thousands more would die of starvation before the year was done, for the Lannisters also carried off many tons of stored grain and salt fish, and despoiled that which they could not carry. Though Toron Greyjoy remained upon the Seastone Chair when his defenders beat off the Lannister assault upon the walls of Pyke, his half-brother Rodrik was taken and brought back to Casterly Rock, where Lady Johanna had him gelded and made him her son’s fool.

   Across the width of Westeros, another struggle for succession broke out late in the year 134, when Lady Jeyne Arryn, the Maiden of the Vale, died at Gulltown of a cold that had settled in her chest. Forty years of age, she perished in the Motherhouse of Maris on its stony island in the harbor of Gulltown, wrapped in the arms of Jessamyn Redfort, her “dear companion.” On her deathbed, her ladyship dictated a last testament, naming her cousin Ser Joffrey Arryn as her heir. Ser Joffrey had served her loyally for the past ten years as Knight of the Bloody Gate, defending the Vale against the savage wildlings of the hills.

Ser Joffrey was only a fourth cousin by degree, however. Far closer by blood was Lady Jeyne’s first cousin, Ser Arnold Arryn, who had twice attempted to depose her. Imprisoned after his second failed rebellion, Ser Arnold was now quite mad after long years in the Eyrie’s sky cells and the dungeons under the Gates of the Moon…but his son Ser Eldric Arryn was sane, shrewd, and ambitious, and came forward now to press his father’s claim. Many lords of the Vale rallied to his banners, insisting that long-established laws of inheritance could not be put aside by “the whim of a dying woman.”

A third claimant emerged in the person of one Isembard Arryn, patriarch of the Gulltown Arryns, a still more distant branch of that great house. Having split off from their noble kin during the reign of King Jaehaerys, the Gulltown Arryns had gone into trade and grown rich. Men japed that the falcon on Isembard’s arms was made of gold, and he soon became known as the Gilded Falcon. He used that wealth now, bribing lesser lords to support his claim and bringing sellswords across the narrow sea.

Lord Rowan did what he could to alleviate these woes, commanding the Lannisters to withdraw from the Iron Islands, shipping food to the North, and summoning the Arryn claimants to King’s Landing to present their cases to the regents, but his efforts were largely ineffectual. The Lannisters and the Arryns alike ignored his decrees, and far too little food arrived at White Harbor to alleviate the famine. Though well-liked, neither Thaddeus Rowan nor the boy he served were feared. By year’s end, many at court had begun to whisper that it was not the regents who ruled the realm, but rather the moneychangers of Lys.

   Though the court and city still doted on the king’s brother, that clever, gallant boy Viserys, the same could not be said for his Lysene wife. Larra Rogare had taken up residence in the Red Keep with her husband, yet in her heart she remained a lady of Lys. Though fluent in High Valyrian and the dialects of Myr, Tyrosh, and Old Volantis in addition to her own Lysene tongue, Lady Larra made no effort to learn the Common Tongue, preferring to rely upon translators to make her wishes known. Her ladies were all Lyseni, as were her servants. The gowns she wore all came from Lys, even her smallclothes; her father’s ships delivered the latest Lysene fashions to her thrice a year. She even had her own protectors. Lysene swords guarded her night and day, under the command of her brother Moredo and a towering mute from the fighting pits of Meereen called Sandoq the Shadow.

All this the court and kingdom might have come to accept in time, had Lady Larra not also insisted upon keeping her own gods. She would have no part in the worship of the Seven, nor the old gods of the northmen. Her worship was reserved for certain of the manifold gods of Lys: the six-breasted cat goddess Pantera, Yndros of the Twilight who was male by day and female by night, the pale child Bakkalon of the Sword, faceless Saagael, the giver of pain.

Her ladies, her servants, and her guards would join Lady Larra at certain times in performing obeisances to these queer, ancient deities. Cats were seen coming and going from her chambers so often that men began to say they were her spies, purring at her in soft voices of all the doings of the Red Keep. It was even said that Larra herself could transform into a cat, to prowl the gutters and rooftops of the city. Darker rumors soon arose. The acolytes of Yndros could supposedly transform themselves from male to female and female to male through the act of love, and whispers went about that her ladyship oft availed herself of this ability at twilight orgies, so she might visit the brothels on the Street of Silk as a man. And every time a child went missing, the ignorant would look at one another and talk of Saagael’s insatiable thirst for blood.

   Even less loved than Larra of Lys were the three brothers who had come with her to King’s Landing. Moredo commanded his sister’s guards, whilst Lotho set about establishing a branch of the Rogare Bank atop Visenya’s Hill. Roggerio, the youngest, opened an opulent Lysene pillow house called the Mermaid beside the River Gate, and filled it with parrots from the Summer Islands, monkeys from Sothoryos, and a hundred exotic girls (and boys) from every corner of the earth. Though their favors cost ten times as much as any other brothel dared to charge, Roggerio never lacked for customers. Great lords and common tradesmen alike spoke of the beauties and wonders to be found behind the Mermaid’s carved and painted doors…including, some said, an actual mermaid. (Almost all that we know of the myriad marvels of the Mermaid comes to us from Mushroom, who alone amongst our chroniclers is willing to confess to visiting the brothel himself on many occasions and partaking of its many pleasures in sumptuously appointed rooms.)