Septon Barth was more reflective, as he observed the princess at the age of twelve in 79 AC. “She is the king’s daughter, and well aware of it. Servants see to her every need, though not always as quickly as she might like. Great lords and handsome knights show her every courtesy, the ladies of the court defer to her, girls of her own age vie with one another to be her friends. All of this Saera takes as her due. If she were the king’s firstborn, or better still his only child, she would be well content. Instead she finds herself the ninthborn, with six living siblings who are older than her and even more adored. Aemon is to be king, Baelon most like will be his Hand, Alyssa may be all her mother is and more, Vaegon is more learned than she is, Maegelle is holier, and Daella…when does a day go by when Daella is not in need of comfort? And whilst she is being soothed, Saera is being ignored. Such a fierce little thing she is, they say, she has no need of comfort. They are wrong in that, I fear. All men need comfort.”

Aerea Targaryen had once been thought to be wild and willful, given to acts of disobedience, but Princess Saera’s girlhood made Aerea seem a model of decorum by comparison. The border between innocent pranks, wanton mischief, and acts of malice is not always discerned by one so young, but there can be no doubt that the princess crossed it freely. She was forever sneaking cats into her sister Daella’s bedchamber, knowing that she was frightened of them. Once she filled Daella’s chamberpot with bees. She slipped into White Sword Tower when she was ten, stole all the white cloaks she could find, and dyed them pink. At seven, she learned when and how to steal into the kitchens to make off with cakes and pies and other treats. Before she was eleven, she was stealing wine and ale instead. By twelve, she was like as not to arrive drunk when summoned to the sept for prayer.

   The king’s half-witted fool, Tom Turnip, was the victim of many of her japes, and her unwitting catspaw for others. Once, before a great feast where many lords and ladies were to be in attendance, she persuaded Tom that it would be much funnier if he performed naked. It was not well received. Later, far more cruelly, she told him that if he climbed the Iron Throne he could be king, but the fool was clumsy at the best of times and prone to tremors, and the throne sliced his arms and legs to pieces. “She is an evil child,” her septa said of her afterward. Princess Saera had half a dozen septas and as many bedmaids before she turned thirteen.

This is not to say that the princess was without her virtues. Her maesters affirmed that she was very clever, as bright as her brother Vaegon in her own way. She was certainly pretty, taller than her sister Daella and not half so delicate, and as strong and quick and spirited as her sister Alyssa. When she wanted to be charming, it was hard to resist her. Her big brothers Aemon and Baelon never failed to be amused by her mischief (though they never knew the worst of it), and long before she was half-grown, Saera had learned the art of getting anything she wanted from her father: a kitten, a hound, a pony, a hawk, a horse (Jaehaerys did draw a firm line at the elephant). Queen Alysanne was far less gullible, however, and Septon Barth tells us that Saera’s sisters all misliked her to various degrees.

Maidenhood became her, and Saera truly came into her own after her first flowering. After all they had endured with Daella, the king and queen must have been relieved to see how eagerly Saera took to the young men of the court, and they to her. At fourteen, she told the king she meant to marry the Prince of Dorne, or perhaps the King Beyond the Wall, so she could be a queen “like Mother.” That year a trader from the Summer Islands came to court. Far from shrieking at the sight of him, as Daella had, Saera said she might like to marry him too.

By fifteen she had put such idle fantasies aside. Why dream of distant monarchs when she could have as many squires, knights, and likely lords as she desired? Dozens danced attendance on her, but three soon emerged as favorites. Jonah Mooton was the heir to Maidenpool, Red Roy Connington was the fifteen-year-old Lord of Griffin’s Roost, and Braxton Beesbury, called Stinger, was a nineteen-year-old knight, the finest lance in the Reach, and the heir to Honeyholt. The princess had female favorites as well: Perianne Moore and Alys Turnberry, two maids of her own age, became her dearest friends. Saera called them Pretty Peri and Sweetberry. For more than a year, the three maids and the three young lords were inseparable at every feast and ball. They hunted and hawked together too, and once sailed across Blackwater Bay to Dragonstone. When the three lords rode at rings or crossed swords in the yards, the three maids were there to cheer them on.

   King Jaehaerys, who was forever entertaining visiting lords or envoys from across the narrow sea, sitting at council, or planning further roads, was well pleased. They would not need to scour the realm to find a match for Saera, when three such promising young men were here at hand. Queen Alysanne was less convinced. “Saera is clever, but not wise,” she told the king. Lady Perianne and Lady Alys were pretty, vapid, empty-headed little fools from what she had seen of them, whilst Connington and Mooton were callow boys. “And I do not like this Stinger. I’ve heard he sired a bastard in the Reach, and another here in King’s Landing.”

Jaehaerys remained unconcerned. “It is not as if Saera were ever alone with any of them. There are always people about, serving men and maids, grooms and men-at-arms. What mischief can they get up to with so many eyes around them?”

He did not like the answer, when it came.

One of Saera’s japes was their undoing. On a warm spring night in 84 AC, shouts and screams from a brothel called the Blue Pearl drew the notice of two men of the City Watch. The screams were coming from Tom Turnip, who was lurching helplessly in circles trying to escape from half a dozen naked whores, whilst the patrons of the house laughed uproariously and shouted on the harlots. Jonah Mooton, Red Roy Connington, and Stinger Beesbury were amongst those patrons, each one drunker than the last. They had thought it would be funny to see old Turnip do the deed, Red Roy admitted. Then Jonah Mooton laughed and said the jape had all been Saera’s notion, and what a funny girl she was.

   The watchmen rescued the hapless fool and escorted him back to the Red Keep. The three lords they brought before Ser Robert Redwyne, their commander. Ser Robert delivered them to the king, ignoring Stinger’s threats and Connington’s clumsy attempt to bribe him.

“It is never pleasant to lance a boil,” Grand Maester Elysar wrote of the affair. “You never know how much pus will come out, or how badly it will smell.” The pus that burst forth from the Blue Pearl would smell very badly indeed.

The three drunken lords had sobered somewhat by the time the king confronted them from atop the Iron Throne, and put up a bold front. They confessed to making off with Tom Turnip and bringing him to the Blue Pearl. None of them said a word concerning Princess Saera. When His Grace ordered Mooton to repeat what he had said about the princess, he blushed and stammered and claimed the watchmen had misheard. Jaehaerys finally ordered the three lordlings taken to the dungeons. “Let them sleep in a black cell tonight, mayhaps they will tell a different tale come morning.”

It was Queen Alysanne, knowing how close Lady Perianne and Lady Alys had been to the three lords, who suggested that they be questioned as well. “Let me speak with them, Your Grace. If they see you up on the throne glaring down at them, they will be so frightened they will never say a word.”