Chapter Text
It is the year 283 after Aegon’s Conquest.
Rumour has it, prince Rhaegar Targaryen fell at the Trident whispering the name of a woman that was not his wife. Rumour has it, Tywin Lannister had the prince’s children murdered to prove his loyalty to the stag. Rumour has it, the babe’s head was smashed into the wall, left in such a state that it was a bloody mess of brains and bone and chunks of silver hair, unrecognisable. The stag that is Robert Baratheon claimed the Iron Throne stepping on the bodies of murdered children for rumour has it, it took Ser Amory Loch fifty strikes of the dagger to kill a mere three-year-old girl. Rumour has it, Gregor Clegane raped Princess Elia while covered in the blood and brains of her infant son, and then he smashed her head in. Gregor Clegane, who’s just been knighted after the tourney at Harrenhal two years ago, by Elia’s husband prince Rhaegar Targaryen. Now, Clegane will forever be known as the murderer of Rhaegar’s wife and son. He’s now called the Mountain. He’ll be protecting no innocents, no matter how prince Rhaegar charged him thus.
So much has happened in two short years. So much promise was lost, promise after Ser Oswell Whent turned his older brother, Lord Walter Whent. Rumour has it, that’s how it started, and prince Rhaegar footed the bill for the lavish tourney arranged by Lord Walter, brokered by his white sword Ser Oswell… Rumour had it, he was to claim the crown and set aside his mad father. Rumour had it, too, that it was only in his fathers’ head, all of it. But it got the madman out of the Red Keep after four years, and it got Westeros the opportunity to see with our own eyes just how bad things became with that madman. How many have wondered why Rhaegar took this long? Even if the rumour was true that it was indeed the prince’s wish to gather the lords of the realm at Harrenhal… And if it was his purpose, why did he do what he did once they all got there?
Oh, the Gods surely played a cruel trick on prince Rhaegar, did they not? Tall and strong and dashing, he was more beautiful than half the highborn maids of the realm, with his haunting purple eyes and long silver hair and that particular sad melancholy that never left him. The Gods made him the fruit of his father’s loins, raped into his mother, who bore him while Summerhall burned, and he never shook the tragedy of his own begetting, did he? Not until the tourney at Harrenhal, for Rhaegar Targaryen never before stepped out of line. True enough, there were rumours, more stories about his escapades to Summerhall and particularly interesting were the stories about him and the lord of griffins, but he never stepped out of line. Those were just stories, who knows which of the stories were true? Then he crowned Lyanna Stark his queen of love and beauty. If he’s meant to assure the lords of the realm of his newfound resolution – as some stories claimed – then he went about it most unusually. Did he really have so little understanding of politics? And if he did, why are the bards singing about what a good king he would have been?
Rhaegar Targaryen will be no king, good or mad… not anymore. He’ll be king of nothing now. Rumour has it, he’s lost his crown because he kidnapped Lyanna Stark. Strange rumour that is, plunged the realm into war… Though if one gave it a proper thought, this story didn’t add up the way the stag hoped it would. It wasn’t the stag who demanded Rhaegar’s head, no, it was the wild wolf, Brandon Stark, heir to Winterfell and the North. Rhaegar disappeared in the Riverlands long before Stark’s arrival in Kings Landing to demand his head on a pike. That was nothing unusual, everyone knew the prince preferred to disappear, said to prefer travelling the realm, mainly to Summerhall but who knows where else… he left his wife and his newborn son on Dragonstone, and disappeared as was his wont. Did he kidnap the girl? Rumour has it, he’s had not a single drop of bad blood in him, the prince was good they say. The prince sang on the streets of Kings Landing dressed as a pauper and gave his earnings to the orphanages of the city, they say. But he did place the crown of blue winter roses on the girl’s lap, that he surely did.
Only two years ago, that was. Only last year, that the prince disappeared, and the wolf maid too, both in the Riverlands, and so somehow Brandon Stark came to believe that she was kidnapped by the prince. Some say, he’s had proof, a letter sent to him, but by whom? That will perhaps never be known. There aren’t many to tell the tale now. The prince is dead, his ribs and lungs crushed by a single undefended blow of the stag’s axe. In the ruby fort, for the rubies on his chest plate fell into the ford, washing it red, or perhaps that was his blood. Rumour has it, rubies are washing up on the shore, soldiers were scouring the ford for days to find just one after the battle… Laughable that is. Prince Rhaegar will tell no tales now, neither will he sing them. Who knows if he kidnapped the wolf maid? Perhaps his white swords would know of it, but they won’t be telling tales either, those who could have known… Where’s Ser Arthur Dayne, the sword of the morning, the one said to have been always by the prince’s side? Where’s Ser Oswell Whent, said to have brokered the tourney at Harrenhal for the prince? Where’s the White Bull, sent by the madman to bring back the prince to Kings Landing? The prince duly returned, he never stepped out of line, but then the White Bull disappeared? Where are they now? And if they won’t tell, who’s left to tell?
Perhaps the princess Elia knew the truth of it, but whatever the truth is she’s paid the price for it. Elia and her children, their blood is on the hands of Lord Tywin and the new stag king. There’s none left of the prince’s companions now. Ser Richard Lonmouth, his former squire, said to have perished at the Trident. Ser Myles Mooton, another former squire and companion, perished even before it, at the Stoney Sept.
And then there’s the lord of griffins. Perhaps he knew the truth of it, after all he fought his own lord and liege. He searched the town of Stoney Sept house by house they say, trying to find Robert Baratheon hiding in there somewhere. Rumour has it, he was hiding in the town brothel. Fitting, that is, if the stories of him are true, and if they are, it is no wonder that the wolf maid went with the prince… for they say he had not a single drop of bad blood in him, prince Rhaegar, he could not have kidnapped the girl. She was betrothed to the Baratheon and yet, the stag made no overtures after her disappearance. No, the stag only kicked after Arryn called its banners to war against the madman. Then he loudly proclaimed the insult, it is true, aroused the Stormlands and beaten those who resisted his folly. He’s beaten the lord of griffins at the Stoney Sept, and the griffin must have known the truth, for he went and fought the stag who was his liege. The griffin fought for prince Rhaegar and his mad king father, and the griffin lost.
He's now somewhere in Essos they say, he took the prince’s secrets with him to the foreign cities of Essos. Rumour has it, he’s joined the Golden Company, the sellswords that are in truth exiles of failed Blackfyre rebellions against Targaryens. He may not be the only one who left these lands after what they now call Robert’s Rebellion, as if the stag started it, but he’s the one who could tell the truth of it. He could tell many truths, that one… The truth about prince Rhaegar, and the one about the mad king raping his children into his queen, and why the white swords stood by if that was true that her screams could be heard on the corridors of Maegor’s Holdfast at night…
The griffin could tell even where that beautiful maid with the laughing purple eyes have disappeared last year, the lady Ashara Dayne… for he would know, would he not? He danced with the lady at the feast by Lord Walter, the feast that marked the beginning of that fateful tourney. He and Ser Arthur her brother, and Oberyn Martell the red viper, they would know that tale. She danced and laughed with them three, and then she danced with a wolf, and then soon after the tourney she disappeared even before the wolf maid disappeared with or without the prince. But the lady had no drunkard whoring betrothed like the stag, she was free and ten times the beauty of the wolf maid or the princess Elia indeed… Rumour has it someone dishonoured her at the tourney. This world is not made for beautiful maids, but Ser Arthur is nowhere to be found, and Prince Oberyn would never tell, so it’s left to the exile, the lost lord Jon Connington to tell her tale. One of the many secrets Connington must be now keeper of, selling his sword in the free cities of Essos.
So much promise lost. Gone are the Targaryens, beautiful prince Rhaegar and his newborn son and heir named after the Conqueror, and his little three-year-old daughter Rhaenys in the image of her Dornish mother. Gone is his father the madman too, that is the good in all this malady upon this land. Young Jaime Lannister saw the mad king to the grave. It was no knightly deed, stabbing his king in the back, and he’s just a boy of seventeen, now guarding a different king. Rumour has it, Lord Tywin finally got his wish, he will wed his daughter to a king in the end. He wanted the match with Prince Rhaegar, so did his daughter, so obviously preying on the prince at Harrenhal even long after he’s wed the Dornish Princess Elia at his king father’s behest, for the madman wanted no royal match for his servant. Rumour has it, that was what turned the lion of Lannister against him in the end. Rumur has it that was his dashing young son named into the Kingsguard, that left him with a dwarf boy as heir. Rumour has it the king raped the dwarf into his late wife Joanna Lannister.
In any case, Ser Jaime can guard the door for his sister while her new stag husband claims her then, for he’s Kingsguard still, he’s no heir to Casterly Rock. And the stag cannot wed the wolf maid, she can’t be found. Perhaps she no longer lives even. Rumour has it, the one wolf left after it all, the one shy wolf who danced with the Lady Ashara at Harrenhal, he’s out searching for his sister, maybe kidnapped by prince Rhaegar. Maybe killed. But it is odd, is it not? She’s nowhere to be found and gone are the prince’s closest white swords just as well, Ser Arthur and Ser Oswell, gone and so is the White Bull their commander. Gone is the lady with the laughing purple eyes, and the lord of the griffins. Nobody’s left in Westeros to tell the tale, no, the griffin is exiled, the prince is dead, and whoever else are left are nowhere to be found. All that promise, young lords and princes, now gone with them.
There’s a new king, a stag, though he claims to be the new heir now that he’s covered in the blood of the prince’s children. His grandmother was a Targaryen, you see. Shaky his claim is, for there’s a little Targaryen prince said to be hiding in Dragonstone, and who knows, perhaps the Gods play a new trick and bless that forsaken Targaryen Queen with another living child in the very end, for she’s heavy with child. Then there’ll be two Targaryens in line ahead of the stag. No doubt he won’t rest easy until he has their blood on his hands as well, the stag has no love for dragons. He claimed the Iron Throne wading through the blood of little children.
One has to wonder what the Prince of Dorne makes of these things. His sister murdered in the Red Keep with her children, his white sword uncle fallen, what does he make of it that he stands by in his sand castle? What does the red viper make of it? And if word reached the free cities, what does the griffin make of it all, said to be surrounded by Blackfyre supporters now, he, who was said to be the most leal servant of the prince and more, if the tales are true. Rumours, nothing but rumours. Someone has to come and make sense of it all.