None of this was of great concern to the queen and her familiars so long as Marq Farman ruled in Faircastle, for his lordship was an amiable and good-natured man who loved all his children, his wayward daughter and weakling son included, and loved Rhaena Targaryen for loving them as well. Less than a fortnight after the queen and Androw Farman had celebrated the first anniversary of their union, however, Lord Marq died suddenly at his own table, choking to death upon a fish bone at the age of six-and-forty. And with his passing, Ser Franklyn became the Lord of Fair Isle.

He wasted little time. On the day after his father’s funeral, he summoned Rhaena to his great hall (he would not deign to go to her), and commanded her to remove herself from his island. “You are not wanted here,” he told her. “You are not welcome here. Take your dragon with you, and your friends, and my little brother, who would surely piss his breeches if he were made to stay. But do not presume to take my sister. She will remain here, and she will be wed to a man of my choosing.”

   Franklyn Farman did not lack for courage, as Maester Smike wrote in a letter to the Citadel. He did lack for sense, however, and in that moment he did not seem to realize how close he stood to death. “I could see the fire in her eyes,” the maester said, “and for a moment I could see Faircastle burning, the white towers blackening and collapsing into the sea as flames leapt from every window and the dragon wheeled about again and again.”

Rhaena Targaryen was the blood of the dragon, and far too proud to linger long where she was not wanted. She departed Fair Isle that very night, taking wing for Casterly Rock upon Dreamfyre after instructing her husband and companions to follow her by ship, “with all those who might love me.” When Androw, flushed with anger, offered to face his brother in single combat, the queen quickly dissuaded him. “He would cut you to pieces, my love,” she told him, “and were I to be thrice widowed, men would name me a witch or worse and hound me from Westeros.” Lyman Lannister, Lord of Casterly Rock, had sheltered her before, she reminded him. Queen Rhaena was confidant that he would welcome her again.

Androw Farman, Samantha Stokeworth, and Alayne Royce set out to follow the next morning, together with more than forty of the queen’s friends, servants, and hangers-on, for Her Grace had gathered a sizable coterie about her as the Queen in the West. Lady Elissa was with them as well, for she had no intention of remaining behind; her ship, the Maiden’s Fancy, had been made ready for the crossing. When the queen’s party reached the docks, however, they found Ser Franklyn waiting for them. The rest of them could go, and good riddance, he announced, but his sister would remain on Fair Isle to be wed.

The new lord had brought only half a dozen men with him, however, and he had seriously misjudged the love the smallfolk bore his sister, particularly the sailors, shipwrights, fisherfolk, porters, and other denizens of the dockside districts, many of whom had known her since she was a small girl. As Lady Elissa confronted her brother, spitting defiance at him and demanding that he get out of her way, a crowd gathered around them, growing angrier by the moment. Oblivious to their mood, his lordship attempted to seize his sister…whereupon the onlookers rushed forward, overwhelming his men before they could draw their blades. Three of them were shoved off the docks into the water, whilst Lord Franklyn himself was thrown into a ship’s hold full of fresh-caught cod. Elissa Farman and the rest of the queen’s friends boarded Maiden’s Fancy untouched and set sail for Lannisport.

   Lyman Lannister, Lord of Casterly Rock, had given Rhaena and her husband Aegon the Uncrowned refuge when Maegor the Cruel was demanding their heads. His bastard son, Ser Tyler Hill, had fought with Prince Aegon under the Gods Eye. His wife, the formidable Lady Jocasta of House Tarbeck, had befriended Rhaena during her time at the Rock and had been the first to discern that she was with child. Just as the queen had expected, they welcomed her now, and when the rest of her party landed in Lannisport, the Lannisters took them in as well. A lavish feast was held in their honor, an entire stable was given over to Dreamfyre, and Queen Rhaena, her husband, and her companions of the Four-Headed Beast were assigned a regally appointed suite of apartments deep in the bowels of the Rock itself, safe from any harm. There they lingered for more than a moon’s turn, enjoying the hospitality of the wealthiest house in all of Westeros.

As the days passed, however, that very hospitality grew ever more disquieting to Rhaena Targaryen. It became apparent to her that the bedmaids and servants assigned to them were tattlers and spies, bringing word of their every doing back to Lord and Lady Lannister. One of the castle septas asked Samantha Stokeworth whether the queen’s marriage to Androw Farman had ever been consummated, and if so, who had witnessed the bedding. Ser Tyler Hill, Lord Lyman’s comely bastard son, was openly scornful of Androw, even whilst doing all he could to ingratiate himself to Rhaena herself, regaling her with tales of his exploits at the Battle Beneath the Gods Eye and showing her the scars he had taken there “in your Aegon’s service.” Lord Lyman himself began to express an unseemly interest in the three dragon eggs that the queen had brought from Fair Isle, wondering how and when they might be expected to hatch. His wife, Lady Jocasta, suggested privately that one or more of the eggs would make a fine gift, if Her Grace should wish to show her gratitude to House Lannister for taking her in. When that ploy proved unsuccessful, Lord Lyman offered to buy the eggs outright for a staggering sum of gold.

   The Lord of Casterly Rock wanted more than just a highborn guest, Queen Rhaena realized then. Beneath the warmth of his veneer, he was too cunning and too ambitious to settle for so little. He wanted an alliance with the Iron Throne, possibly through marriage between her and his bastard, or one of his trueborn sons; some union that would raise the Lannisters up past the Hightowers, the Baratheons, and the Velaryons to be the second house in the realm. And he wanted dragons. With dragonriders of their own, the Lannisters would be the equals of the Targaryens. “They were kings once,” she reminded Sam Stokeworth. “He smiles, but he was raised on tales of the Field of Fire; he will not have forgotten.” Rhaena Targaryen knew her history as well; the history of the Freehold of Valyria, writ in blood and fire. “We cannot remain here,” she confided to her dear companions.

There we must leave Queen Rhaena for a time, whilst we cast our eyes eastward again toward King’s Landing and Dragonstone, where the regent and king remained at odds.

Vexing as the issue of the king’s marriage was to Queen Alyssa and Lord Rogar, it must not be thought that it was the only matter that concerned them during their regency. Coin, or rather the lack of coin, was the Crown’s most pressing problem. King Maegor’s wars had been ruinously expensive, exhausting the royal treasury. To refill his coffers Maegor’s master of coin had raised existing taxes and imposed new ones, but these measures brought in less gold than anticipated and only served to deepen the anathema with which the lords of the realm regarded the king. Nor had the situation improved with the ascension of Jaehaerys. The young prince’s coronation and his mother’s Golden Wedding had both been splendid affairs that had done much to win him the love of lords and smallfolk alike, but all that had come at a cost. An even larger expense loomed ahead; Lord Rogar was determined to complete work on the Dragonpit before handing the city and the kingdom over to Jaehaerys, but the funds were lacking.