In the wake of the glad news that the king had recovered enough to be considered safe, word of a tourney arranged by the tourney societies has spread… and with it, other rumors: that the Hand has decided that the seventh place in the Kingsguard must at last be filled, rather than awaiting the gods to indicate whom Baelor should have chosen. How these rumors started, none can say, but there are whispers at the court already about which knight might be selected, and some speculate that some champion in the lists in the upcoming tourneys may be given the white cloak.

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 more, the septons came and went, Prince Viserys as well. But he would not truly hear them: he prayed, and left the realm to others, for his duty was plain to him. The Dornish emissaries? As yet unseen by him, unintroduced in any formal way. The men that Lord Greyjoy sent to speak with him? Left to wait, to be entertained by Oakenfist on occasion as they become increasingly annoyed that this pious young king puts them off.

When he collapsed, dead to the world, the Kingsguard were the first to call for aid, and to carry him gently to his chambers in Maegor’s Holdfast. Instead, Baelor occasionally would ask the septons to fetch him a person, his request fervent, as if the gods moved him. What else could they do, but obey? But those who were brought became increasingly curious: one of the Keepers of the Keys, then a bailiff, then a scullion, then Lord Ryger’s northern niece (strangest of all, some might say, for she worships the old gods of the First Men), a mute who turns the roasting spits at feasts, a begging brother. What the king spoke of with them brought troubling reports: he spoke of visions, of the gods moving him, wishing him to do great things, but to do them humbly, and to take counsel in those whom they moved him to speak to. Others would not say at all (or could not, in the case of the mute; that must have been a strange conversation).

Now the maesters have gathered and do what they can, dripping honey and sugared water past his parched lips, tending him as ceaselessly as he prayed. Ravens have flown. The small council labors under the Hand’s direction to maintain order. And outside the Red Keep? The smallfolk gather for their beloved, pious young king, praying and singing praises to the gods so that they might restore him.

But then another week passed, and another, and now ravens began to fly, wondering if the ships had truly left, asking vassal lords if their men had spied Dornish ships from their towers.

But as it happened, the Dornish beat the news of any raven’s wings. Coming in at a late hour, their ship was unheralded, and no one awaited them. Because of the darkness, none saw the banners on the galleys that came into the Blackwater until they were practically at the quay. Then some quick-thinking gold cloak officer sent word to the Red Keep, and prepared a hasty honor guard to escort the Dornishmen there. What passed through the dark streets was not the grand entrance of the embassy that Sunspear saw, but a somewhat bedraggled group of men and women, who showed signs of illness and privation. The tale slipped out along the way up the Muddy Hook: the journey had been beset by trouble almost from the outset, from a sprung mast as they reached the tip of the Broken Arm to a serious leak developing that required them to come to shore on the northern end of the isle off the Broken Arm for more than a week. It was during this time that they occasionally saw galleys pass back and forth, Lyseni ships, but not flying identifiable banners. Aware that the waters here were prey to the pirates who haunted the Stepstones, a guard was kept. As it happened, it was not necessary, for no one attack them… not, at least, until they had finally made their repairs, taken up fresh water, and set the oars to taking them out back on to their journey.

Perhaps the pirates had landed men in some cove to keep watch, because not an hour had passed when there was smoke rising from the island they were leaving behind… and it was only a handful of hours later that two ships appeared to their east as they began to bear away from the island’s western coast. These ships must have been stationed near the northern shore, awaiting the chance to pounce. Rather than turn tail, the Dornish ships determined to fight off the pursuers—in part for fear that there may be at least one more ship approaching from out to sea, if the trap was a well-laid one. They closed, and it’s said it was a desperate fight. The vessels, pirate ships, were crewed and manned by savage men experienced at such things, while the Dornishmen largely lacked such experience save for the few sea battles during the resistance of the Targaryen invasion and, for some old oarsmen, a recollection of the days when the Prince of Dorne led them in warring over control of the Stepstones. Yet the Dornish had the advantage: there were knights among their number, men bloodied and proven in the resistance and the rebellion.

Even so, it was a near thing as the escorting ship was partially overrun after the other Dornish vessel succeeded in ramming and opening a gash in the hull of the lead vessel. As they backed water to try and move to support the escort, the embassy ship ended up being grappled with the other pirate ship… and there the fighting was its bloodiest as the Dornish sailors and knights fought shoulder-to-shoulder, spears stabbing and swords hacking. They say it was when Lord Orlyn Jordayne leapt over the side deck and managed to knock over a pair of men with his mace and shield that the Dornish defenders were able to force their way over to breaking the will of the pirates. By the time it was all done, the pirate ship’s deck was awash in blood, and it was hard to keep footing. Survivors may have hidden among the dead, or below the deck… but at Ser Perrin’s command, tar was poured over its decks and set alight before the embassy vessel moved on to the aid of its escort.

Having seen what had happened, the pirates that nearly took control of the ship instead fled to their own vessel, cut away the ropes holding the ships fast, and manned oars to get away as swiftly as they could. All told, thirty oarsmen and sailors had been killed on the Dornish ships (including the escort’s captain and two knights who were members of the embassy’s guard), and twice that injured. Considering the damage to the escort ship, it was decided that they would journey deeper into the Sea of Dorne at first, in case the pirates licked their wounds and considered another try or received reinforcement, and once they felt secure they would send the escort to Ghost Hill or the Tor for repairs while carrying on alone.

The rest of the journey was marked by contrary winds that led even the knights to try their hands at rowing, to spell the exhausted oarsmen. Illness also ran through the ship, some simply seasick, others apparently from some of the ship’s stores spoiling. They were unable to make land at Greenstone, for the contrary winds, and when they came to the Straits of Tarth a howling storm from the south forced them to simply drive north rather than land there. So to add to all the troubles, those supplies began to run low. It was fortunate that the battered ship at last was able to make landfall on Massey’s Hook, though there was only a remote fishing village nearby to help them with repairs and supplies. Ser Perrin Blackmont, leader of the embassy, asked that the fishermen send someone to the nearest castle to send word to King’s Landing, and the fishermen said they would… though it seems, given the lack of news, no such thing actually happened.

Finally, after the harrowing journey, they came to King’s Landing. It was just as well no one was prepared for them, and that there was no great fanfare, and that it was the dark of night: they did not come in great state, and for the most part were grateful simply to have the opportunity to be shown to their apartments and be allowed to rest and recuperate.

Now they are here, it seems they are not quite here, not until they are officially received. When will that happen? No one knows, not when the king all but refuses to do anything but pray and fast, but perhaps Prince Viserys and the small council shall prevail on him to do at least this one duty…

The joy did not last, however. Within the hour, both infants had grown too quiet, their skin took a blue tinge, and the maesters ushered people away as they took charge of the infants. They did what they could to warm them, chafing their little hands, trying to feed them tiny draughts that might make breathing easier…

But it was not to be. Within the next hour, both infants were dead. Naerys, exhausted from her efforts, was said to have wept when she learned it; her ladies wept as well, and they say the Dragonknight came to his sister and consoled her. Prince Viserys thanked the maesters for their efforts, and commanded that the babes be taken to the silent sisters, to prepare them.

And King Baelor? Mortified by the tragedy, heart-sore for his cousin’s loss, he concluded that the prayers failed because he had not merited the intercession of the Seven, had somehow offended them and kept them from seeing to Naerys and her twins. And so Baelor now prays, and fasts, and refuses to carry out any of the business of the realm until he has atoned for whatever sins the Seven were offended by.

So it came to pass that on this day, while the king was in the second hour of his afternoon prayers at the royal sept, the king found himself interrupted. It was a lady of the court, a respectable widow who had lost her husband in the Dornish conquest and had since found a place helping to oversee the household (such as it was) of Baelor’s sisters, the princesses in the old keep which some have taken to naming the Maidenhall, and others the Maidenvault. Though the princesses were secluded there at the king’s behest, in his desire to protect the purity of their souls and deny the lusts of men who might look on their beauty (“Even his own,” a court wag was known to remark, until the Hand had him sent away on a long and lonely mission to Castle Black after he repeated the jest in his hearing), their attendants—those who were wed or widowed, at least—were not similarly constrained. And so this lady came, passing the knights of the Kingsguard, to bring to the king a message and… something that she carried wrapped in a cloth, which she said that the king must see. When the knights of the Kingsguard allowed her to approach the king, after consulting with him, the lady laid it out quite plainly:

The king’s youngest sister, Elaena—a maid of three-and-ten years—begged her dearest lord and brother to let her out of her confinement. The lady reported that Elaena had wept as she asked it, but it was not so much for the asking that she wept. No, it was the gift Elaena made that made her weep, though some might call it an offering instead. The small cloth bundle was unwrapped, to reveal within a thick, lustrous braid of platinum white hair, with a long bright streak of gold winding through it. There were many who had said of Elaena that though she had neither the striking beauty of her eldest sister Daena (Baelor’s former bride and queen, until the High Septon undid the marriage) nor looked like to grow to the voloptuousness of her next eldest sister Rhaena, her pale hair was her crowning glory. And now it was cut, sheared away at the end by what seemed to have to be a knife. Baelor, struck silent by the act, asked what Elaena’s message was as he stared at the braid. According to the lady, Elaena had cut her hair in the early morning, before her maids were awake, and informed them that she wished the braid to be sent to him with this message: if he feared that her beauty might tempt men to sin, then she would no longer be beautiful, and would do whatever the king required to prove it if only he would at last allow her out of confinement.

Prince Aemong, attending on the king, looked moved almost to tears by little Elaena’s offering… and the king actually _was_ moved to tears, at the thought of his sister’s sacrifice. He let the lady who had brought the braid know that Elaena would stay. “Her mortal soul is still beautiful, and innocent,” the king said, “and that is enough to draw impure men like moths to a flame.” The lady looked crestfallen, and to that the king added that he would see the braid placed in the royal treasury, to be housed there with the greatest treasures of the Targaryens: the crowns of past kings, the sword Blackfyre, the dragon eggs inherited from the days when the dragons still lived and bred. He counseled the lady to tell his sister that she must pray to the Maiden, to thank her for preserving her innocence, and that he would make time to join her in her prayers in a little while.

And so was the princess uncrowned, and the king moved to tears, but not to a change of heart.

But the most visible of those who have seen the book is Lady Sirona Hill, daughter of Ser Hector Hill of Casterley Rock. She has been seen to read something tucked into a supposed copy of The Seven-Pointed Star, and when she fell during a mummer’s farce in the city, several pages of lewd drawings scattered to the winds. Sirona was taken to the septas following the Septon’s harangue, and not seen again.

She was not seen, that is, until a week later. It is said she underwent intense questioning and examination by the septas to determine her guilt. The King himself has concerned himself with her behavior, and once the results of the questioning were presented to His Grace, Baelor banished the hapless maid from court, and suggested that some time spent in a motherhouse contemplating her sins and how she means to atone for them would not go amiss. And so it has come to pass. Sirona has left the court in the grey robes of a novice septa, and is not to return. While the court has yet to know Ser Hector’s response, given his distance from King’s Landing, it is expected that so old a maiden is likely to be left in the motherhouse to become a septa rather than be left to become a spinster.

Heading the embassy were the august lord Orlyn Jordayne, a well-respected name in Dorne, and Ser Perrin Blackmont, part of a cadet branch of that old house and for long one of the Keepers of Sunspear who aid the prince. In his stead as Keeper of the Sandship, the knight called the Sand Dog would be named, and many remarked he was wed to Ser Perrin’s daughter. Besides these older men, others had been sent with the embassy, to match the numbers King Baelor had dispatched to Sunspear in the cause of peace: the lady Maia Gargalen, said to come bearing certain relics of the Faith, the knight Aubry Allyrion, and other knights besides. Most notably, however, was the knight appointed to head the embassy’s small troop of guards: Ser Aidan Dayne, the Knight of the Twilight. But it was not his presence that was notable, but that of his young esquires, for Prince Marence also revealed that he had made his son Prince Maron the squire to the famous knight of Starfall… and others had noted that Maron’s cousin, the bastard boy Lewyn Sand, was also now Ser Aidan’s page and part of his household. Few understood how it was that Prince Rhodry had come to decide to foist the boy on a knight, and fewer still understood why he’d choose Ser Aidan of all knights, but choose him he did, and it seems it was done. And so a bastard and a royal prince, too, are part of the embassy to the king’s court.

And so for those who returned, the first change they might well have noticed was that the three high hills—that of Visenya, Rhaenys, and Aegon—had taken on a new silhouette. The Red Keep on Aegon’s High Hill stood as it always did. So, too, did the Dragonpit in its decrepitude and growing neglect. But on Visenya’s Hill, where Visenya’s Sept had stood since the first years of Aegon the Conqueror’s reign, something was different: the sept was diminished, its dome and columns and walls covered in scaffolding, and on that scaffolding there were scores of laborers, chipping away at the stones, sending the chips and rubble down by buckets lowered on ropes where more laborers carted it away.

Baelor had seen a vision of a great new sept, the greatest in all the Seven Kingdoms, and had decreed that it had be built on the site of Visenya’s Sept. Many months had gone in the planning, in determining how it should appear, in beginning to find quarry sites. More time had been taken to carefully remove any venerable or holy objects from the sept, storing them in safety in vaults beneath the Red Keep, watched over by the septons of the royal sept and by two of the Most Devout. And so it progressed, and progressed rapidly.

More had change, however: those returning from the riverlands discovered strange new faces, the bearded faces of the ironborn. Far away from the Iron Islands though they were, longships with scores of men manning them had come in to Blackwater Bay, had found berths on the quays, and from them was disgorged their chief: Eurik Greyjoy, the Lord Admiral of the Iron Fleet, brother of the Lord Reaper of Pyke. An uncommon ironborn, they say—but those from the westerlands and the Reach might say that however uncommon, he’s still more than half a reaver, and not to be trusted. Yet trusted he was, and he and his presented themselves at the Red Keep, announcing their intention to stay at the command of Lord Greyjoy, to make sure that the Iron Islands were thought of whenever the rule of the realm was deliberated upon.

It is true, some might say, that it is not the custom of kings to consult the Greyjoys. Not even when the Young Dragon made war on Dorne, and had need of ships, were they sought out—and perhaps that’s part of their grievance (at the least, they might have paid the iron price on the Dornish shore, reaving under the Targaryen banner and winning wealth and thralls while they were at it). And now this new, pious king… Well, it is no great surprise.

Already, Greyjoy and King Baelor have met more than once, though more often they say Eurik has been seen in the company of the Master of Ships. Those near to Velaryon say that they rarely talk of ships and the sea, that Velaryon wearies of these things, but it it seems he has no choice—and it seems Eurik Greyjoy, aware of it, decided to garner more attention for himself and his mission. He declared a melee, a contest between two sides, but not on the usual tourney ground. Instead, the ironborn roped together several of their longships and set teams of warriors on either side. Not, as it happened, one side of the ironmen against a side of challengers—Greyjoy insisted that they be mixed, ironmen and “greenlanders” both, with the victors to share the prize: a chest full of treasures, the ironmen said.

What followed was a curious event, drawing many curious eyes, and even interest from courtiers. There were bold knights who took up the challenge, who did not scoff (not very much, at least) at fighting besides ironmen. The battle was fierce, the decks of the boats swaying this way and that in the shallow water as men fought up and down the decks, leaping gunwales to try and claim more of the deck. Greyjoy fought, as did his son and his nephew, and a notorious warrior called Tormund Bloodaxe as well. Many fine deeds were done, but the finest came only when one side seemed to have the victory in its grasp. Against full eight remaining warriors were ranged only two men: the ironman Romny Saltcliffe and the master-at-arms of Bronzegate, Ser Walton Smallwood.

Yet these two, fighting together against such odds, proved somehow to be greater than the sum of their parts, to fight like half a dozen men rather than a mere, mortal two. Many wondered as one man fell to them, and then another, how much longer their skill and luck would last. And the answer? It would last so long that after felling half a dozen men, it was left to Ser Walton to stand alone against two men alone.

But those two were enough: Tormund Stonetree, a master-at-arms as well, knocked Ser Walton from his feet at last. The cheers were for the brave knight who had withstood such battle… but the prize went to the victors. And there was argument over it: Tormund claimed a greater share, for having been the last and most successful of his side as he claimed it, for having brought down the knight who had defied them. Ser Ryckon Westerling argued with him, and Ser Marrik Bar Emmon—a man recently returned, they say, from hunting pirates in the Stepstones—and at one point it even seemed that Stonetree might come to blows with the disgraced Westerling knight, Ser Humfrey; he even hefted the red-hued ax that gives him his byname, and loudly challeneged anyone who denied him to fight.

In the end, it took Eurik Greyjoy to negotiate peace between the arguing sides. Tormund had his greater share, and his first pick, though Marik Bar Emmon chose to throw the wealth he had started gathering up into the Blackwater rather than deposit them back in the chest; later it was said that there were ironmen and Kingslanders alike swimming and diving in the area, with some occasionally plucking up a treasure.

Others followed after, taking the riches the chest contained: coins from half a hundred lands, semi-precious stones, rubies from Kayakayanaya, bags of queer spices, golden torcs, and more. Ser Ryckon Westerling claimed the second greatest share, they say, for having been next to last of their side. It was noted, too, that when Ser Janden Melcolm took his share, he gave a portion to Ser Walton, an act all considered most chivalrous.

And the result of all this? There are those who say that in the week following the melee, Greyjoy was invited to dine with Prince Viserys, the Hand, and Ser Alyn has departed for Dragonstone with a small part of the royal fleet, no longer required to stay and keep the Lord Admiral of the Iron Fleet entertained. And if Eurik has not met more with King Baelor, that may be no surprise: not long after, word arrived of a tourney incident in far away Dorne, and it said the king has taken to spending a deal of time praying for Lord Joscelyn Mallister, Joscelyn the Just, who some say is reported to have been knocking at the Crone’s door thanks to some Dornish princeling or other.

As it happened, they were. Or, more precisely, they _became_ wrong.

A bold field of knights took up their lances to joust. Not only Dornishmen, but knights of the embassy would ride in the contest, Lord Athell Connington and the famous (and very pious) Lord Joscelyn the Just. Of the knights in Sunspear, Lord Aryard Manwoody was among their number, and Ser Tamlyn Toland, as well as the son of the Bastard of Sunspear, Ser Brys Sand, Ser Jordan Dayne, Dread Daven Wyl, Ser Laurent the Sand Dog, the Lord of Kingsgrave’s kinsman Ser Cullen, Ser Darion Fowler, and Ser Galwell Dalt. And of course, one more: the youngest of the three royal brother, Prince Rhodry, riding with intent some called deadly, for his mood was said to have been black and dangerous for no cause that anyone could tell.

The jousting was skillful, and notable deeds were done, and many were the lances shattered. And if the event was marred by the fact that a certain prince showed little courtesy, and rode with fury in his heart rather than chivalry, it seemed to at least be a tournament worthy of the prize Prince Marence offered.

That, however, came to an end when Prince Rhodry met Lord Joscelyn Mallister, called the Just, in the final contest to decide the victor. All eyes watched as the knights charged. And all eyes watched as the black-hearted prince’s lance swung in and up, aimed not at the shield, nor even the breast plate, but Mallister’s helm. In the normal course of things, it might have caused an unpleasant blow, might even have led to a split lip or a broken nose, but such are the injuries that knights face. But this was not the normal course: by some hitherto-unseen flaw, the steel of Lord Joscelyn’s helm gave way, not merely denting, but seeming to shatter catastrophically. Joscelyn the Just was catapulted from the saddle, seeming lifeless as he tumbled head over heels.

The watching audience reacted with horror, with shock, with fear (for the most part; some did not seem to mind that Joscelyn, a northron emissary already unpopular for his strident views, might be injured), especially when he did not move, and when the bloom of scarlet blood flowered and spread amidst the sand of the lists. Some spoke of curses, or of witchcraft, and others called on the protection of the gods from evil. Squires and maesters attended to him, and Prince Rhodry? Showing neither remorse nor concern, he rode on to claim his prize.

He did not receive it. Not then, at least—Prince Marence refused to do so, in his barely-guarded rage at his brother’s act. Perhaps later, he might collect it, but at that moment Prince Marence wanted nothing more than to see his brother out of his sight. Prince Rhodry shrugged, they say, and rode away to his pavilion, where Tanyth Toland, the Black Tempest, sent imprecations at him for what he did. Those who heard her claimed she was angered because of the danger to those men and women sent as emissaries to the Iron Throne might be put in danger if one of Baelor’s lords were killed. Prince Rhodry did not care for that argument, however: so much so, in fact, that he pushed her aside before leaving, looking angry. Ser Tamlyn, her twin, might have given chase and confronted him, but the Black Tempest stopped him.

And so Lord Joscelyn was taken away to be tended to, and rumors were rife that he was variously dead, or soon dead, or perfectly well but for a bruise and a scratch, and any of number conditions in between. Later reports would have it that the lord had suffered a grievous injury about his eye, shards of steel having to be withdrawn from it, shards that made a neat array about his eye that looked to some not unlike a star. And he remains, worryingly, unconscious, lost to the world. There are those who fear he will die, and chief of these is Prince Marence, who has tasked the maesters at court to watch the fallen lord by night and day.

As to Prince Rhodry, the perpetrator? They would have feted him in the winesinks and pot shops in the shadow city, and even in the halls of the Old Palace he might have found some who would provide discrete praise. Not from his brother, however: they say Prince Marence was heard to raise his voice when he met with him again, shouting at him. The Prince departed, still in his black mood, and trailing in his wake was the word that the prize money had been donated to the Faith, every sun of it, and not by his choice.

And when they left his solar? He told his banners that they would stand down, and he would join her as she marched on Raventree Hall. Two hundred men-at-arms followed him.

Rejoining her consort and son and gathering up the rest of her banners in the greatest display of force that the riverlands have seen since Dance of the Dragons, Lady Tully rode to Raventree Hall. Her host spread itself out within sight of the old walls of the Blackwoods. But again, she offered to parley. Old Lord Auriens chose to ride out rather than admit Lady Tully within his walls. As the Blackwood men watched from the walls, Lady Tinessa and Lord Auriens spoke and argued while Lord Bracken looked on; Bloody Brus sometimes interjected, pressing the Bracken claims against the Blackwoods.

But that came to an end, when Lady Tinessa brought them back to the death of Hoster Bracken. She questioned Balian Blackwood, the famous warrior, about the state of his jousting saddle on the day of the tourney. That brought Balian up short…. and no wonder, when she explained her meaning: Ser Hoster Bracken and his squire, Otho Butterwell, had attempted to partly cut through the girth of Balian’s saddle while it was without supervision. After all, he wished nothing more than to see Blackwood lose. But then Lucas Blackwood came upon them, and a scuffle broke out. Ser Hoster was killed in the scuffle, not intentionally, but killed all the same. Otho fled, and Lucas as well, and both claimed ignorance when the body was found.

Otho Butterwell died of wounds received in the fighting between the two houses. So, too, did Lucas Blackwood, but not before he confessed the accidental death of Ser Hoster. Lady Tinessa stated justice had been done: Hoster died for his crime, and Otho for his part in it, and Lucas paid the price in blood for having killed Ser Hoster. In the end, Lord Blackwood accepted that justice was served.

Lady Tully invited both parties to join her in a feast by the Red Fork, a feast to mark the end of the feud, and as a farewell for the lords and ladies of the court of King’s Landing—including her second son and her daughters—as they went back on their way. Prince Aegon was at the high table, and Lords Bracken and Blackwood sat side by side (though did not seem best pleased). A small melee was ordained to provide entertainment, and casks of wine were broken open and poured out freely—it was a good feast.

The next day, on river galleys loaned by Lady Tully, Prince Aegon and the noble guests departed, travelling down the Red Fork. The Blackwoods and Brackens returned to where they came, the gathered riverlords dispersed to their seats, and Lady Tully and Ser Patrek rode to Riverrun. Peace was restored, for a time a least.