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Ser Myles is the youngest son of Lord Lyonel Hightower, and is the most like his father in look and demeanor. He is the favorite son, and while his activities in the Dornish Conquest are not discussed in polite company, it is well known that he acted as the Inquisitor for Lord Tyrell during that war. He has a deep-rooted hatred for Dorne and all things Dornish as a result of his experiences in the conflict. He is vindictive, impatient, and prone to putting things off until the last possible moment. He has a black sense of humor, and is ultimately a pragmatist. He seldom gives his word, but once it is given he is known as a reliable knight. His penchant for the whorehouse is well-known but not discussed.
Ser Myles Hightower is a fourth child and third son, and as such he has little troubled himself with dynastic responsibilities. He is most like his father of all his siblings, both in mind and stature, and while most third sons would be packed off to the Citadel or a Sept, being the favored son of Lyonel Hightower has resulted in many opportunities for self-aggrandizement.
He was born in Oldtown 138 years after the start of Aegon the Conqueror’s reign, and weathered his first winter-a long one-from 142 to 145, spending most of his formative years in his father’s company or that of the Maester of the Hightower. From his father Myles acquired a strong belief in the bond of a man’s word. Somewhat cagey, Myles has rarely given that word since, preferring to remain noncommittal and aloof until he can sense the direction of the tide. From the Maester, he acquired his wary distrust of religion, specifically the Seven. Aside from one or two visits to the Starry Sept with his mother, he seldom darkened its doors. These two central tenets of Myles’ character began early and run deep in his psyche. Discipline was light, however, and he developed a tendency of cruelty to servants that would come to manifest itself in a much more virulent form during the Dornish Conquest.
It was this cruel streak which played a role in Myles being sent to page at the Bronzegate. His mother convinced his father to send him to his uncle, Lord Regenard Buckler’s household to page in his first spring. Regenard was a kind man, if stern, and he had a rigid sense of justice, which was just what his mother felt he needed. He made friends with the Buckler household, and was eventually squired to the old lord. When Myles was sixteen, Lord Buckler was violently gored on a hunt, and died of his wounds shortly thereafter. Myles took it hard. The new lord Buckler, Kennald, took Myles on and two years later he received his spurs following a tourney at King’s Landing.
Myles then for a time returned to Oldtown, where his father put him in charge of collecting imposts and customs in the harbor, but Myles was a middling manager at best, preferring to leave the bookwork to his underlings while he wenched and drank and tilted at the lists.
Upon King Daeron’s ascension to the throne, and the decision to invade Dorne, Ser Myles traveled with his father’s levies to join Lord Tyrell’s host in the Prince’s Pass. It was Dorne that brought out the heretofore benign vindictive streak in Ser Myles. Frustration at the slow going mixed with the stress of constant raiding took its toll on the knight, and before long had passed he had taken to personally overseeing the putting of captured Dornishmen to the question, which rarely ended in an outcome less severe than gross mutilation. In battle, he offered no more quarter to the enemy than he was forced to, and this was a light guiding hand, as frustration at Dornish raiders resulted in ever crueler retaliation.
The Dornish campaign was not a grand adventure for Ser Myles, and he was quite critical of the Lord Tyrell’s stratagems, obviously feeling he was more suited to the task than Garvys. The victories were hard won, and Ser Myles’ own squire was killed in the Battle of the Blind. So great was his frustration that shortly after the fall of Sunspear, Ser Myles took his leave and made for King’s Landing.
Having established residence there with his new squire, Richard Mullendore, better known as Spotted Dick, Myles set about establishing a Hightower presence at court. He was a frequent guest of Reyna Saltcliffe’s. Despite all of this, he hates the city-he considers it dirty and squalorous and is ever comparing it to Oldtown in a negative light. Mostly he turns to wenching and drinking to forget his environs, a few time resulting in embarrassing situations. It is a poorly-kept secret that his mother is nagging him to marry, but he resists it. Myles was summarily barred from the Dornish tower for his actions in Dorne and his continuing hatred of them.
With little warning, Ser Myles departed King’s Landing early in 159, shortly after receiving a raven from Oldtown. He returned home to deal with family matters, and matters in the Reach kept him occupied through much of the Dornish rebellions in 160 with the death of Lord Tyrell; Garvys’ death was little mourned by him. It was in early 161 before he was able to tear himself away and make his way down the Boneway to join the siege at Yronwood with several Hightower men at arms, but due to bad information received at Blackhaven—word travels slowly—he was set upon and taken captive by men answering to Ser Laurent Dalt. Sent on to Sunspear as a captive, he spent an unpleasant time in captivity until ransomed by his father for the handsome sum of 1,500 dragons. He set sail from Sunspear on a ship from the Free Cities bound for King’s Landing, disembarking in the royal city late in the sixth month of 161.
Ser Myles was not to stay long in King’s Landing, however. He remained long enough to procure a horse on his family’s credit and rode for Oldtown, on a summons from his father. When he arrived at the Hightower, he received an unexpected boon. Lord Lyonel granted his son lands for his own income. It was a moderate-sized holding about two days’ ride from Oldtown up the Honeywine, but its primary, lucrative income was in the cultivation of the madder plant, a crop use to make reddish textile dye. Ser Myles spent the better part of the year establishing and securing the estate, and overseeing the first crop. So established, Ser Myles left the estate in the capable hands of a trusted overseer and rode for King’s Landing to resume his place in court. Myles reached Highgarden just as a tournament was concluding, and took to the barges with the noble knights and ladies returning to the capital.
Ser Myles is a Companion at court to Prince Aegon Targaryen, and is the favored son of one of the oldest and wealthiest families in all of Westeros, the Hightowers.
Category://King’s Landing -> People