Viserys I Targaryen had a generous, amiable nature, and was well loved by his lords and smallfolk alike. The reign of the Young King, as the commons called him upon his ascent, was peaceful and prosperous. His Grace’s open-handedness was legendary, and the Red Keep became a place of song and splendor. King Viserys and Queen Aemma hosted many a feast and tourney, and lavished gold, offices, and honors on their favorites.

   At the center of the merriment, cherished and adored by all, was their only surviving child, Princess Rhaenyra, the little girl the court singers dubbed “the Realm’s Delight.” Though only six when her father came to the Iron Throne, Rhaenyra Targaryen was a precocious child, bright and bold and beautiful as only one of dragon’s blood can be beautiful. At seven, she became a dragonrider, taking to the sky on the young dragon she named Syrax, after a goddess of old Valyria. At eight, the princess was placed into service as a cupbearer…but for her own father, the king. At table, at tourney, and at court, King Viserys thereafter was seldom seen without his daughter by his side.

Meanwhile, the tedium of rule was left largely to the king’s small council and his Hand. Ser Otto Hightower had continued in that office, serving the grandson as he had the grandsire; an able man, all agreed, though many found him proud, brusque, and haughty. The longer he served, the more imperious Ser Otto became, it was said, and many great lords and princes came to resent his manner and envy him his access to the Iron Throne.

The greatest of his rivals was Daemon Targaryen, the king’s ambitious, impetuous, moody younger brother. As charming as he was hot-tempered, Prince Daemon had earned his knight’s spurs at six-and-ten, and had been given Dark Sister by the Old King himself in recognition of his prowess. Though he had wed the Lady of Runestone in 97 AC, during the Old King’s reign, the marriage had not been a success. Prince Daemon found the Vale of Arryn boring (“In the Vale, the men fuck sheep,” he wrote. “You cannot fault them. Their sheep are prettier than their women.”), and soon developed a mislike of his lady wife, whom he called “my bronze bitch,” after the runic bronze armor worn by the lords of House Royce. Upon the accession of his brother to the Iron Throne, the prince petitioned to have his marriage set aside. Viserys denied the request, but did allow Daemon to return to court, where he sat on the small council, serving as master of coin from 103–104, and master of laws for half a year in 104.

Governance bored this warrior prince, however. He did better when King Viserys made him Commander of the City Watch. Finding the watchmen ill-armed and clad in oddments and rags, Daemon equipped each man with dirk, short sword, and cudgel, armored them in black ringmail (with breastplates for the officers) and gave them long golden cloaks that they might wear with pride. Ever since, the men of the City Watch have been known as “gold cloaks.”

   Prince Daemon took eagerly to the work of the gold cloaks, and oft prowled the alleys of King’s Landing with his men. That he made the city more orderly no man could doubt, but his discipline was a brutal one. He delighted in cutting off the hands of pickpockets, gelding rapists, and slitting the noses of thieves, and slew three men in street brawls during his first year as commander. Before long, the prince was well-known in all the low places of King’s Landing. He became a familiar sight in wine sinks (where he drank for free) and gambling pits (where he always left with more coin than when he entered). Though he sampled countless whores in the city’s brothels, and was said to have an especial fondness for deflowering maidens, a certain Lysene dancing girl soon became his favorite. Mysaria was the name she went by, though her rivals and enemies called her Misery, the White Worm.

As King Viserys had no living son, Daemon regarded himself as the rightful heir to the Iron Throne, and coveted the title Prince of Dragonstone, which His Grace refused to grant him…but by the end of year 105 AC, he was known to his friends as the Prince of the City and to the smallfolk as Lord Flea Bottom. Though the king did not wish Daemon to succeed him, he remained fond of his younger brother, and was quick to forgive his many offenses.

Princess Rhaenyra was also enamored of her uncle, for Daemon was ever attentive to her. Whenever he crossed the narrow sea upon his dragon, he brought her some exotic gift on his return. The king had grown soft and plump over the years. Viserys never claimed another dragon after Balerion’s death, nor did he have much taste for the joust, the hunt, or swordplay, whereas Prince Daemon excelled in these spheres, and seemed all that his brother was not: lean and hard, a renowned warrior, dashing, daring, more than a little dangerous.

And here we must digress to say a word about our sources, for much of what happened in the years that followed happened behind closed doors, in the privacy of stairwells, council rooms, and bedchambers, and the full truth of it will likely never be known. We have of course the chronicles laid down by Grand Maester Runciter and his successors, and many a court document as well, all the royal decrees and proclamations, but these tell only a small part of the story. For the rest, we must look to accounts written decades later by the children and grandchildren of those caught up in the events of these times; lords and knights reporting events witnessed by their forebears, third-hand recollections of aged serving men relating the scandals of their youth. Whilst these are undoubtedly of use, so much time passed between the event and the recording that many confusions and contradictions have inevitably crept in. Nor do these remembrances always agree.

   Unfortunately, this is also true of the two accounts by firsthand observers that have come down to us. Septon Eustace, who served in the royal sept in the Red Keep during much of this time, and later rose to the ranks of the Most Devout, set down the most detailed history of this period. As a confidant and confessor to King Viserys and his queens, Eustace was well placed to know much and more of what went on. Nor was he reticent about recording even the most shocking and salacious rumors and accusations, though the bulk of The Reign of King Viserys, First of His Name, and the Dance of the Dragons That Came After remains a sober and somewhat ponderous history.

To balance Eustace, we have The Testimony of Mushroom, based upon the verbal account of the court fool (set down by a scribe who failed to append his name) who at various times capered for the amusement of King Viserys, Princess Rhaenyra, and both Aegons, the Second and Third. A three-foot-tall dwarf possessed of an enormous head (and, he avers, an even more enormous member), Mushroom was thought feeble-minded, so kings and lords and princes did not scruple to hide their secrets from him. Whereas Septon Eustace records the secrets of bedchamber and brothel in hushed, condemnatory tones, Mushroom delights in the same, and his Testimony consists of little but ribald tales and gossip, piling stabbings, poisonings, betrayals, seductions, and debaucheries one atop the other. How much of this can be believed is a question the honest historian cannot hope to answer, but it is worth noting that King Baelor the Blessed decreed that every copy of Mushroom’s chronicle should be burned. Fortunately for us, a few escaped his fires.

Septon Eustace and Mushroom do not always agree upon particulars, and at times their accounts are considerably at variance with one another, and with the court records and the chronicles of Grand Maester Runciter and his successors. Yet their tales do explain much and more that might otherwise seem puzzling, and later accounts confirm enough of their stories to suggest that they contain at least some portion of truth. The question of what to believe and what to doubt remains for each student to decide.