Blood of Dragons

Day 19 of Month 1, 178 AC

The day before the beginning of the tourney and other contests, Houses Hightower and Tully set aside marriage business for spectacle. The gates of the Red Keep flung open for a lavish parade befitting the king’s city. Rulers and legends of Riverlands and Reach marched amid velvet-draped carts: Ser Jon Hightower and Lady Lysa Tully rode as the Green King of the God’s Eye and Maris the Maid, while King Aegon himself appeared as Garth Greenhand, with Lady Bethany beside him as a River Maid.

The Four Seasons stood in the procession’s way. Jyana Lannister, future Lady of the Rock, was Spring; Lady Bracken was Summer; and Lady Elyse Caswell posed as Autumn. Proud and bountiful though they were, all yielded at last to the entreaties of the procession. Then came Winter, played by Ser Orson Baratheon, unmoving and implacable until Garth Greenhand descended from his pedestal and commanded that beauty and bounty prevail.

The streets and squares answered with the adulation due a king who had given them a grand showing. Yet the revels were not done. On the morrow, the waters of Blackwater Bay would host a contest more perilous than pageantry.

A boat race gave way to a melee fought upon ships bound together in King’s Landing’s harbor. The Tullys live and die by the water, while the Hightowers have ever looked outward to the sea; it was fitting that their wedding festivities should bring steel to the decks of Blackwater Bay.

King Aegon attended with the Dragonknight, Prince Daeron and his elder sons Baelor and Aerys, as well as young Daemon Waters. From the joined captains’ decks, the royal House, the Hand, Lords Kermit and Lyonel with their families, and the court looked on while scores of knights rowed, climbed, and gave themselves to combat.

The Hand’s nephew Raylan matched Ser Jorin Darry. Ser Mathin Lannister, called the Flamewalker, traded blows with Ser Ryckon Westerling; Ser Otho Royce stood like a stone wall against two foes at once; and Ser Jon Roxton and Ser Luthor Rivers let their swords speak as they have so often done before. Lord Aimery Fell found hardy foes in Balian Blackwood and Ser Halder Frey, while exhaustion, injury, poor footing, and the sea’s tricks claimed others. One lad of Broom went overboard, but found boats rather than the deep waters beneath.

In the end, only Ser Mathin Lannister and Lord Aimery Fell remained. The stormlord was the first that day to best the lion, but fortune would have no more of it. Lannister’s riposte came swift and brought him victory.

With the king’s permission, Lords Hightower and Tully honored the Gods before whom their grandchildren would marry. Seven thousand dragons were awarded: five thousand to Ser Mathin Lannister, victor of the melee, and two thousand to Lord Aimery Fell. Thus ended the melee upon the water, with His Grace’s reminder that a sevenday remained until the wedding tourney and the feats it would require.