But Prince Aemon had a child: his daughter, Rhaenys, born in 74 AC, had grown into a clever, capable, and beautiful young woman. In 90 AC, at the age of sixteen, she had wed the king’s admiral and master of ships, Corlys of House Velaryon, Lord of the Tides, known as the Sea Snake after the most famous of his many ships. Moreover, Princess Rhaenys was with child when her father died. By granting Dragonstone to Prince Baelon, King Jaehaerys was not only passing over Rhaenys, but also (possibly) her unborn son.

The king’s decision was in accord with well-established practice. Aegon the Conqueror had been the first Lord of the Seven Kingdoms, not his sister Visenya, two years his elder. Jaehaerys himself had followed his usurping uncle Maegor on the Iron Throne, though had the order of birth alone ruled, his sister Rhaena had a better claim. Jaehaerys did not make his decision lightly; he is known to have discussed the matter with his small council. Undoubtedly he consulted Septon Barth, as he did on all important matters, and the views of Grand Maester Elysar were given much weight. All were in accord. Baelon, a seasoned knight of thirty-five, was better suited for rule than the eighteen-year-old Princess Rhaenys or her unborn babe (who might or might not be a boy, whereas Prince Baelon had already sired two healthy sons, Viserys and Daemon). The love of the commons for Baelon the Brave was also cited.

Some dissented. Rhaenys herself was the first to raise objection. “You would rob my son of his birthright,” she told the king, with a hand upon her swollen belly. Her husband, Corlys Velaryon, was so wroth that he gave up his admiralty and his place on the small council and took his wife back to Driftmark. Lady Jocelyn of House Baratheon, Rhaenys’s mother, was also angered, as was her formidable brother, Boremund, Lord of Storm’s End.

The most prominent dissenter was Good Queen Alysanne, who had helped her husband rule the Seven Kingdoms for many years, and now saw her son’s daughter being passed over because of her sex. “A ruler needs a good head and a true heart,” she famously told the king. “A cock is not essential. If Your Grace truly believes that women lack the wit to rule, plainly you have no further need of me.” And thus Queen Alysanne departed King’s Landing and flew to Dragonstone on her dragon Silverwing. She and King Jaehaerys remained apart for two years, the period of estrangement recorded in the histories as the Second Quarrel.

   The Old King and the Good Queen were again reconciled in 94 AC by the good offices of their daughter, Septa Maegelle, but never reached accord on the succession. The queen died of a wasting illness in 100 AC, at the age of four-and-sixty, still insisting that her granddaughter Rhaenys and her children had been unfairly cheated of their rights. “The boy in the belly,” the unborn child who had been the subject of so much debate, proved to be a girl when born in 93 AC. Her mother named her Laena. The next year, Rhaenys gave her a brother, Laenor. Prince Baelon was firmly ensconced as heir apparent by then, yet House Velaryon and House Baratheon clung to the belief that young Laenor had a better claim to the Iron Throne, and some few even argued for the rights of his elder sister, Laena, and their mother, Rhaenys.

In the last years of her life, the gods dealt Queen Alysanne many cruel blows, as has previously been recounted. Her Grace knew joys as well as sorrows during the same years, however, chief amongst them her grandchildren. There were weddings as well. In 93 AC she attended the wedding of Prince Baelon’s eldest son, Viserys, to Lady Aemma of House Arryn, the eleven-year-old child of the late Princess Daella (their marriage was not consummated until the bride had flowered, two years later). In 97, the Good Queen saw Baelon’s second son, Daemon, take to wife Lady Rhea of House Royce, heir to the ancient castle of Runestone in the Vale.

The great tourney held at King’s Landing in 98 AC to celebrate the fiftieth year of King Jaehaerys’s reign surely gladdened the queen’s heart as well, for most of her surviving children, grandchildren, and great-grandchildren returned to share in the feasts and celebrations. Not since the Doom of Valyria had so many dragons been seen in one place at one time, it was truly said. The final tilt, wherein the Kingsguard knights Ser Ryam Redwyne and Ser Clement Crabb broke thirty lances against each other before King Jaehaerys proclaimed them co-champions, was declared to be the finest display of jousting ever seen in Westeros.

A fortnight after the tourney’s end, however, the king’s old friend Septon Barth died peacefully in his sleep after serving ably as Hand of the King for forty-one years. Jaehaerys chose the Lord Commander of his Kingsguard to take his place, but Ser Ryam Redwyne was no Septon Barth, and his undoubted prowess with a lance proved of little use to him as Hand. “Some problems cannot be solved by hitting them with a stick,” Grand Maester Allar famously observed. His Grace had no choice but to remove Ser Ryam after only a year in office. He turned to his son Baelon to replace him, and in 99 AC the Prince of Dragonstone became the King’s Hand as well. He performed his duties admirably; though less scholarly than Septon Barth, the prince proved a good judge of men, and surrounded himself with loyal subordinates and counselors. The realm would be well ruled when Baelon Targaryen sat the Iron Throne, lords and common folk agreed.

   It was not to be. In 101 AC Prince Baelon complained of a stitch in his side whilst hunting in the kingswood. The pain worsened when he returned to the city. His belly swelled and hardened, and the pain grew so severe it left him bedridden. Runciter, the new Grand Maester only recently arrived from the Citadel after Allar was felled by a stroke, was able to bring the prince’s fever down somewhat and give him some relief from agony with milk of the poppy, but his condition continued to worsen. On the fifth day of his illness, Prince Baelon died in his bedchamber in the Tower of the Hand, with his father sitting beside him, holding his hand. After opening the corpse, Grand Maester Runciter put down the cause of death as a burst belly.

All the Seven Kingdoms wept for Brave Baelon, and none more so than King Jaehaerys. This time, when he lit his son’s funeral pyre, he did not even have the comfort of his beloved wife beside him. The Old King had never been so alone. And now again His Grace faced a nettlesome dilemma, for once more the succession was in doubt. With both of the heirs apparent dead and burned, there was no longer a clear successor to the Iron Throne…but that was not to say there was any lack of claimants.

Baelon had sired three sons by his sister Alyssa. Two, Viserys and Daemon, still lived. Had Baelon ever taken the Iron Throne, Viserys would have followed him without question, but the crown prince’s tragic death at the age of four-and-forty muddied the succession. The claims of Princess Rhaenys and her daughter, Laena Velaryon, were put forward once again…and even if they were to be passed over on account of their sex, Rhaenys’s son, Laenor, faced no such impediment. Laenor Velaryon was male, and could claim descent from Jaehaerys’s elder son, whilst Baelon’s boys were descended from the younger.

   Moreover, King Jaehaerys still had one surviving son: Vaegon, an archmaester at the Citadel, holder of the ring and rod and mask of yellow gold. Known to history as Vaegon the Dragonless, his very existence had been largely forgotten by most of the Seven Kingdoms. Though only forty years of age, Vaegon was pale and frail, a bookish man devoted to alchemy, astronomy, mathematics, and other arcane arts. Even as a boy, he had never been well-liked. Few considered him a viable choice to sit the Iron Throne.