Rumors of war across the narrow sea, a king disabled, bandits in the Kingswood—these are the kinds of troubles that are not unheard of in the Seven Kingdoms, but all at the same time they are a cause for worry. Some at the court of the Red Keep worry over these matters, and worry that King Baelor will not recover any further than he has from the disasterous fast that almost killed him. Yet others, it must be said, take heart in the fact that the king’s uncle, Prince Viserys, has been active in these and many other matters beside.

As Hand of the King, he has dispatched forces to strengthen

The news trickles down from high to low: the king is safe. Under the constant care of maesters and septons since his collapse following thirty days of fasting, the worst is over and the Grand Maester believes he will recover… in time. Never robust, the king’s fast left him on the precipice of death and his painfully-thin form is now almost cadaverous. He is too weak to even speak for more than brief periods, and when he has the strength he prefers to pray and consult with septons. But Prince Viserys has spoken with him, and at the king’s behest it will be the Hand who will hold court and sit

Thirty days.

Thirty days of fasting. Thirty days of prayer. Thirty days to atone for the nameless sins that made the gods take Princes Naerys’s twins to their bosom, and nearly killed her.

Thirty days to collapse, body thin and wasted, eyes dimmed. Thirty days for a crown to roll across the royal sept’s floor, to end at the foot of the statue of the Stranger, who is death.

King Baelor fasted and prayed by day, prayed and fasted by night. He would take water on occasion, and bread occasionally (though more and more seldom as his fast progressed). The Grand Maester councilled him to eat

It was at the end of the third month of the 164th year since Aegon’s Conquest that the Dornish embassy to the Iron Throne departed the Planky Town. The weather had been fair enough, despite the autumn season, and the captain of the ship carrying them to King’s Landing had plotted a cautious route that would protect them as much as may be from the autumn storms that sometimes roared up and down the narrow sea. Three weeks, they supposed, the journey would take if thigns went fairly; perhaps even two, though that was likely too much to hope for unless the Seven willed it. So a fortnight passed,

Princess Naerys Targaryen, daughter of the Hand and wife of Prince Aegon, was quite suddenly brought to the bloody bed after months of the most careful stewardship of her pregnancy. Never the strongest of women, the birth of her sole child Daeron having nearly undone her, still she bore up bravely as she remained often abed on the advice of the maesters and her companions. But while she entered her labor, there were worried looks among those self-same maesters and companions: it was too soon, and too sudden. If Naerys realized it, she did not say, instead closing her eyes and mouthing

There have been scandals, both lesser and greater, that have wormed their way into the gossip of the court, from a lady assaulted by common hands to a disgraced knight riding in a wedding tourney to a coterie of young lords and ladies becoming ensnarled in whispers of a lewd, foreign book and its scandalous drawings that would make a septon’s hair rise on end. That last scandal led to the dismissal of one woman from the court, its said, to lead a life of penitence in some distant motherhouse. Yet otherwise, despite these troubles, these problems with the morality of the Kingslanders and the

Ser Rynos Prester has certainly created a stir with his book of lewd and lascivious drawings! Just a week ago, Septon Elwood gave a fiery sermon in the Royal Sept, where he called out all the congregants for their sins of lust. He chided the married woman for lusting after her husband, and the maiden for lusting at all. He was most particularly inspired by Prester’s vile book, and seemed to single out those known to have seen so much as a page of the book, or to have made inquiries as well. Not everyone was best pleased; Ser Albyn Crane was especially furious to have been looked upon in what

For those who had traveled to the riverlands months earlier, who witnessed a wedding and a feud and the unquiet spirits (if such they were), the return to the royal city of King’s Landing may well have been greatly welcome. But though the city may have been welcoming, it had not stopped in being what it was, the center of the realm, the heart of it, the high seat where lords and knights and ladies existed in King Baelor’s court. Beneath the shadow of the Iron Throne, and the shadow of the Maidenvault where the three princesses now linger, life went on.

And so for those who returned, the

Nearly two months had passed since King Baelor had decreed that the murderer Quenton Rosby would be transported to a septry near Saltpans, famous for the brothers who minister to women and children and those in need. The arrangements took time to make, including a wheelhouse with bars on its doors and an escort of a dozen gold cloaks, personally selected by Ser Richard Harte, the commander of the City Watch. It would be a long, slow journey thanks to the wheelhouse, but the king insisted that Rosby travel in comfort. And so, too, did the king insist that two septons would accompany him, to

In the Red Keep, all manner of rumors may be heard, about embassies and septons, of tourneys and princesses locked in the keep a wit has taken to calling the Maidenvault… but one thing that is not a rumor, though some wished it were, is that King Baelor seems to have struck an accord with the High Septon regarding the disposition of Ser Quenton Rosby, the mad knight who brought a reign of terror to King’s Landing with his murders of prostitutes and noblewomen alike, as well as his brutal killing of the heir to Storm’s End, Ser Tancred Baratheon. When the king had met with the High Septon to

Word has been spreading through the halls of the Red Keep, from the small council down: over the last weeks—months, even—the king has secretly been preparing something that some might find curious, even objectionable. And now, it seems, he is prepared to reveal it; not in some grand public edict, but merely by circulating through the court commands to see ships outfitted, supplies readied, and gifts to be gathered.

The project that he has kept so quiet, even as he has distracted the realm with the locking up of his sisters in the keep which the court has taken to calling the Maidenvault? An

Rhaena’s nameday came with great fanfare, with a tourney in her honor ... though that was not, it was said, her own desire. Pious and mild, Rhaena never favored tourneys, but it was Que—Princess Daena who insisted that it was only proper for her younger sister’s sixteenth nameday. And so a tourney was held, and it was good, with many fine deeds, with shows of boldness and chivalry, and it was Ser Brynden Tully who carried the day after the three princesses deliberated. Some say Daena dearly wanted Ser Humfrey Westerling to be named Rhaena’s champion… but the courtiers there noticed that after

In the late morning, bells began to ring through the city: _it is done_, _it is done_, _it is done_.

The crowds in the streets and squares took up the call in shouts and cries: _it is done_, _it is done_, _it is done_.

In the halls of the Red Keep, it was said in whispers: _it is done_, _it is done_, _it is done_.

Daena Targaryen, daughter of Aegon the Third of His Name, sister to Baelor the First of His Name, and…. that is all. She is no longer his wife. She is no longer his queen. She is Princess Daena, as she once was and as—it seems—she will always be. The High Septon granted the

The last blessing given by the septon at a late morning service, many waited for the king and royal kin to depart before they made their way from the Royal Sept. His Grace King BAELOR did not make a quick departure, but the king - looking pallid (in the midst of fasting, some say, to seek the intervention of the Seven in the murders that have been plaguing King’s Landing) - made his way to the statue of the Mother, praying silently to the statue, before he departed the sept. The Saltcliffes, DAGUR and REYNA alike, awaited the King’s pleasure, as did the Lord JUSTYN Serry - though his ironborn

Though some doubted that King Baelor—so pious and peace-loving—would be a patron of chivalry in its more warlike manifestations, when word came that there would be a royal tourney, it seemed that that would not be the case. Certainly, no melee was planned, but the jousts were always the center of any tournaments. The promised prize was rich, gold for the winner and the knight to come in second. Of course, only knights were permitted in this tourney…

Which led to the swift growth of a particular rumor: that the tournament was taking place so that the king might find some men worthy of the