WiC Reads: Fire & Blood

5) Prince into King – The Ascension of Jaehaerys I

Having claimed the throne and finding himself without any brothers, sisters, nephews, nieces, uncles or aunts trying to dispute his claim, the yet uncrowned King Jaehaerys I, known to history as Jaehaerys the Conciliator, has to deal with what his uncle (Maegor the Cruel), the Faith, and to as lesser degree his father (Prince Aenys Targaryen) turned the realm into.

Jaehaerys’s decisions are somewhat puzzling. While Gyldayn, our fictional author, is kind to him, it’s questionable that he would pardon all of the lords and knights who fought for the Faith without any kind of trial. He wants “no trials, nor torture, and no executions”. He doesn’t want to be like his uncle, which is fair enough. Later, though, he does execute people for their part in Maegor’s reign of terror. At one point, he has the headsman, gaolers and confessors summarily executed for helping Tyanna of the Tower torture Prince Viserys, and sentences Maladon Moore of the Kingsguard to death, mostly for delivering Tyanna to Maegor and watching Maegor kill her. A lot of these decisions just don’t seem to add up. It is a dubious brand of justice that this young king who would become the Old King is serving.

Jaehaerys also wants to fight a Kingsguard in a trial by combat, but his mother is having none of it, obviously. Another man takes his place in the duel, and wins. Jaehaerys then names that man the new Lord Commander of his Kingsguard. That’s another questionable decision in my book.

At the end of this chapter, we get another mystery. Septon Moon, half High Septon, half half-literate sex cult leader, is the last proper threat standing in Jaehaerys’ way. He gets a nightly lady visitor and ends up not only poisened but with a slit throat. Gyldayn wonders if it could have been a Faceless Man who did the deed, but discards the idea rather quickly, and I agree. Something is off there. It sounds like whoever slit the septon’s throat did not know he was already poisoned, but nobody else seems to have been in the tent with the two of them. I kind of get Renly déjà vu here, but that’s probably too far-fetched.