The Rise of the Dragon [George R R Martin] (fb2) читать постранично, страница - 3

and her people joined with the Martell forces and set about subduing rival lords and kings, unifying Dorne under their rule. Forever after, women have been included in the Dornish laws of inheritance, holding equal status to men.

In the centuries after, the Martells maintained their rule over Dorne, warring with the Storm Kings and the Kings of the Reach across the Dornish Marches. At the time Aegon Targaryen’s gaze fell on Westeros, the Princess of Dorne was Meria Martell: an aged, fat woman derisively called “the Yellow Toad” by her rivals.

Meria Martell.

Dragonstone.

THE FIRST MEN and then the Andals both settled the rocky isles of Blackwater Bay, making themselves lords and living by piracy and fishing. The largest of these islands, dominated by the volcanic Dragonmont, would come to be known as Dragonstone.

Two hundred years before the Doom, the Freehold of Valyria sent an expedition to seize Dragonstone and make it the westernmost outpost of its vast empire. The citadel that they raised there to guard their new possession was shaped by Valyrian magic into an imposing structure impossible to create by any other means—with towers shaped like dragons, doorways that gaped like the mouths of dragons, and hundreds of gargoyles adorning the wall, forming a menagerie of fanciful beasts that bristled from the stone.

Twelve years prior to the Doom, Aenar Targaryen moved his kin, treasures, and dragons to Dragonstone after his maiden daughter, Daenys the Dreamer, foretold the destruction of Valyria. The Targaryens thus became the only dragonlords to survive both the Doom and the war-torn years called the Century of Blood that followed. Over that century, the Targaryens looked more to the east than to the west, however, busy with the various machinations and wars between the Free Cities in the aftermath of the Doom.

The Targaryens continued the Valyrian custom of wedding brother to sister, but when Aegon Targaryen came of age, he chose to wed not one but two of his sisters: his elder sister Visenya, stern and rumored to practice sorcery, and his younger sister Rhaenys, vibrant and impulsive. All three were dragonriders, each commanding their own great dragon.

Aegon Targaryen had initially made his reputation by joining a grand alliance against Volantis, commanding his dragon Balerion—known as the Black Dread—to burn a Volantene fleet threatening the Free City of Lys. But unlike his predecessors, Aegon showed more interest in Westeros after the fighting in Essos began to abate, exploring the Reach and possibly the Westerlands as well. It was at his command that the Painted Table was made, carved in the shape of the continent and painted to show the mountains, forests, castles, towns, and rivers of Westeros. Notably, however, no borders were ever painted to mark the different kingdoms, presaging what Aegon must have been planning—bringing all of Westeros under his rule.

Aegon joins the grand alliance.

Balerion burning Harrenhal.

THOUGH THE END of Targaryen involvement in the wars between the Free Cities enabled Aegon and his sisters to look to the west, it’s not clear why they decided to take the risk of invading Westeros. The only clear precipitating event seems to be when Argilac the Arrogant, the Storm King, offered the hand of his only daughter Argella to Aegon, along with a dowry of lands beyond the Blackwater. Argilac made this offer in hopes of finding an ally against Harren the Black—the cruelest and most feared king in Westeros at the time. The ironborn had seized the riverlands from the Storm Kings three generations earlier, and Argilac wanted the territory back.

Aegon noted that he already had two wives and did not need a third, so he countered by offering his boon companion and bastard half-brother, Orys Baratheon, as a husband for Argella instead. Misunderstanding the bond between Aegon and Orys, Argilac saw the offer of this baseborn man as an insult, and responded by chopping off Aegon’s envoy’s hands and sending them back to Dragonstone in a box. In response, Aegon gathered his vassals and allies at Dragonstone. Among them were two nominal vassals of the Storm King—Lords Massey and Bar Emmon—who had for many years been more closely associated with the Targaryens.

Six days of debate followed, and on the seventh day ravens flew to every corner of Westeros to announce that Aegon would now be the only king in the land. Shortly after, Aegon and his sisters set sail from their island fortress of Dragonstone with their dragons and a small army—no more than three thousand strong, though some accounts number it more like a few hundred—to begin the Conquest on the mainland. They arrived unopposed at the mouth of the Blackwater Rush, where three hills rose tall above a small fishing village. There the Targaryens erected a simple earth-and-timber palisade upon the highest of the hills, and proceeded to gain control of the river’s mouth and the surrounding lands.

This region had been fought over for centuries, traded off between the kings of the riverlands and the Storm Kings. Some lords submitted to Aegon swiftly, but the Darklyns of Duskendale and the Mootons of Maidenpool joined together with three thousand men and marched on the Targaryen position. Orys Baratheon met them by land while Aegon descended on them from above on Balerion, and both lords were killed while the men they led surrendered and bent the knee.

After this, Aegon had himself crowned by Visenya, and hailed as the King of All Westeros by Rhaenys, in a ceremony witnessed by a handful of lords and knights at the Aegonfort—the crude castle on what would come to be called Aegon’s High Hill. And there he first displayed the banner of the three-headed red dragon on black that would be borne by his descendants. Accepting the fealty of those who surrendered, he also granted offices to his most loyal supporters, establishing his court. The rest of the Seven Kingdoms responded to this brash act by readying for war against their new king—or, in the case of Dorne and the Vale, making overtures of alliance, which Aegon then rejected.

Aegon’s campaign to conquer the Seven Kingdoms began in earnest a few days later. He divided his forces into three parts, each attacking a different enemy. Orys Baratheon and Queen Rhaenys, riding on Meraxes, led the main host south across the Blackwater, invading Argilac’s domain. The newly named admiral, Daemon Velaryon, led the Targaryen fleet against the Vale, accompanied by Queen Visenya on Vhagar. And King Aegon on Balerion flew above a smaller army marching northwest against King Harren the Black.

The Velaryons were a lesser house of Valyrian descent, and thus always closely aligned with their more powerful Targaryen allies. Like the Targaryens, they shared the same silver-blonde hair and purple eyes so characteristic of those with High Valyrian blood, though they possessed no dragons.

Each of these armies met resistance and setbacks. At the Battle of the Gullet, two-thirds of the Targaryen fleet was destroyed or captured, and the master of ships himself, Lord Velaryon, lost his life. At the crossing of the Wendwater, when the Storm King’s vassals fell on Orys Baratheon’s forces, a thousand men perished. And at the Battles of the Reeds, Harren the Black’s forces led a series of attacks against Aegon’s host, while two of Harren’s sons led longships across the Gods Eye to fall on Aegon’s rear at the Wailing Willows.

But complete disaster was averted each time thanks to the Targaryen dragons. Visenya’s Vhagar burned many of the Vale’s ships, as well as the Braavosi sellsails Queen Regent Sharra had hired, before she withdrew with the remaining Targaryen fleet. Rhaenys’s dragon Meraxes set the rainwood ablaze and destroyed the holdings of the stormlords Errol, Buckler, and Fell. And Balerion the Black Dread burned the longships carrying Harren’s briefly victorious sons, sending them both to watery graves.

Yet even as these battles were ongoing, others saw opportunity in the Targaryen invasion. Pirates and Dornish raiders beset the lands of the Storm King while Argilac was distracted; the Three Sisters rose in rebellion and crowned Marla Sunderland as their queen while the Vale was otherwise occupied; and the long-suffering riverlords rose up against Harren the Black under the leadership of Lord Edmyn Tully. Allying themselves with Aegon, the riverlords renounced House Hoare, forcing Harren and his army to take refuge in the enormous Harrenhal, only recently completed. Harren offered great