“What have you done?” the king said, when at last the princess ran out of words. “Seven save us, what have you done? Have you given one of these boys your maidenhead? Tell me true.”

“True?” said Saera. It was in that moment, with that word, that the contempt came out. “No. I gave it to all three. They all think they were the first. Boys are such silly fools.”

   Jaehaerys was so horrified he could not speak, but the queen kept her composure. “You are very proud of yourself, I see. A woman grown, and nearly seven-and-ten. I am sure you think you have been very clever, but it is one thing to be clever and another to be wise. What do you imagine will happen now, Saera?”

“I will be married,” the princess said. “Why shouldn’t I be? You were married at my age. I shall be wedded and bedded, but to whom? Jonah and Roy both love me, I could take one of them, but they are both such boys. Stinger does not love me, but he makes me laugh and sometimes makes me scream. I could marry all three of them, why not? Why should I have just one husband? The Conqueror had two wives, and Maegor had six or eight.”

She had gone too far. Jaehaerys rose to his feet and descended from the Iron Throne, his face a mask of rage. “You would compare yourself to Maegor? Is that who you aspire to be?” His Grace had heard enough. “Take her back to her bedchamber,” he told his guards, “and keep her there until I send for her again.”

When the princess heard his words, she rushed toward him, crying, “Father, Father!” but Jaehaerys turned his back on her, and Gyles Morrigen caught her by the arm and wrenched her away. She would not go of her own accord, so the guards were forced to drag her from the hall, wailing and sobbing and calling for her father.

Even then, Septon Barth tells us, Princess Saera might have been forgiven and restored to favor if she had done as she was told, if she had remained meekly in her chambers reflecting on her sins and praying for forgiveness. Jaehaerys and Alysanne met all the next day with Barth and Grand Maester Elysar, discussing what was to be done with the six sinners, particularly the princess. The king was angry and unyielding, for his shame was deeply felt, and he could not forget Saera’s taunting words about his uncle’s wives. “She is no longer my daughter,” he said more than once.

Queen Alysanne could not find it in her heart to be so harsh, however. “She is our daughter,” she told the king. “She must be punished, yes, but she is still a child, and where there is sin there can be redemption. My lord, my love, you reconciled with the lords who fought for your uncle, you forgave the men who rode with Septon Moon, you reconciled with the Faith, and with Lord Rogar when he tried to tear us apart and put Aerea on your throne, surely you can find some way to reconcile with your own daughter.”

   Her Grace’s words were soft and gentle, and Jaehaerys was moved by them, Septon Barth tells us. Alysanne was stubborn and persistent and she had a way of bringing the king around to her own point of view, no matter how far apart they had been at the start. Given time, she might have softened his stance on Saera as well.

She would not have that time. That very night, Princess Saera sealed her fate. Instead of remaining in her rooms as she had been instructed, she slipped away whilst visiting the privy, donned a washerwoman’s robes, stole a horse from the stables, and escaped the castle. She got halfway across the city, to the Hill of Rhaenys, but as she tried to enter the Dragonpit, she was found and taken by the Dragonkeepers and returned to the Red Keep.

Alysanne wept when she heard, for she knew her cause was hopeless. Jaehaerys was hard as stone. “Saera with a dragon,” was all he had to say. “Would she have taken Balerion as well, I wonder?” This time the princess was not allowed to return to her own chambers. She was confined to a tower cell instead, with Jonquil Darke guarding her day and night, even in the privy.

Hasty marriages were arranged for her sisters in sin. Perianne Moore, who was not pregnant, was wed to Jonah Mooton. “You played a part in her ruin, you can be a part of her redemption,” the king told the young lordling. The marriage proved to be a success, and in time the two became the lord and lady of Maidenpool. Alys Turnberry, who was pregnant, presented a harder case, as Red Roy Connington refused to marry her. “I will not pretend Stinger’s bastard is my son, nor make him the heir to Griffin’s Roost,” he told the king, defiant. Instead Sweetberry was sent to the Vale to give birth (a girl, with bright red hair) at a motherhouse on an island in Gulltown harbor where many lords sent their natural daughters to be raised. Afterward she was married to Dunstan Pryor, the Lord of Pebble, an island off the Fingers.

   Connington was given a choice between a lifetime in the Night’s Watch or ten years of exile. Unsurprisingly, he chose exile and made his way across the narrow sea to Pentos, and thence to Myr, where he fell in with sellswords and other low company. Only half a year before he might have returned to Westeros, he was stabbed to death by a whore in a Myrish gambling den.

The harshest punishment was reserved for Braxton Beesbury, the proud young knight called Stinger. “I could geld you and send you to the Wall,” Jaehaerys told him. “That was how I served Ser Lucamore, and he was a better man than you. I could take your father’s lands and castle, but there would be no justice in that. He had no part in what you did, no more than your brothers did. We cannot have you spreading tales about my daughter, though, so we mean to take your tongue. And your nose as well, I think, so you may not find the maids quite so easy to beguile. You are far too proud of your skill with sword and lance, so we will take that away from you as well. We shall break your arms and legs, and my maesters will make certain that they heal crookedly. You will live the rest of your sorry life as a cripple. Unless…”

“Unless?” Beesbury was as white as chalk. “Is there a choice?”

“Any knight accused of wrongdoing has a choice,” the king reminded him. “You can prove your innocence at hazard of your body.”

“Then I choose trial by combat,” Stinger said. He was by all accounts an arrogant young man, and sure of his skill at arms. He looked about at the seven Kingsguard standing beneath the Iron Throne in their long white cloaks and shining scale, and said, “Which of these old men do you mean for me to fight?”

“This old man,” announced Jaehaerys Targaryen. “The one whose daughter you seduced and despoiled.”

They met the next morning at dawn. The heir to Honeyholt was nineteen years of age, the king forty-nine, but still far from an old man. Beesbury armed himself with a morningstar, thinking mayhaps that Jaehaerys would be less accustomed to defending himself against that weapon. The king bore Blackfyre. Both men were well armored and carried shields. When the combat began, Stinger rushed hard at His Grace, seeking to overwhelm him with the speed and strength of youth, making the spiked ball whirl and dance and sing. Jaehaerys took every blow on his shield, however, contenting himself with defense whilst the younger man wore himself out. Soon enough the time arrived when Braxton Beesbury could scarce lift his arm, and then the king moved to the attack. Even the best of mail is hard-pressed to turn Valyrian steel, and Jaehaerys knew where every weak point could be found. Stinger was bleeding from half a dozen wounds when he finally fell. Jaehaerys kicked his shattered shield away, opened the visor of his helm, laid Blackfyre’s point against his eye, and drove it deep.