House of the Dragon: How does Aemond Targaryen know that Blood and Cheese came for him?

The season premiere of HBO's Game of Thrones spinoff House of the Dragon ended with a horrific assassination when mercenaries hired by Daemon Targaryen (Matt Smith), known to history only as Blood and Cheese, snuck into the Red Keep and sawed off the head of young prince Jaehaerys, the four-year-old heir to the Iron Throne. Jaehaerys wasn't the intended target of this plot, though; that would be his uncle, Aemond Targaryen (Ewan Mitchell), who kicked off the bloodshed of the Dance of the Dragons civil war when his dragon Vhagar chomped up his nephew, Lucerys Velaryon (Elliot Grihault) during the season 1 finale.

Aemond wasn't at home when Blood and Cheese came calling; the pair snooped around the Red Keep until they found Jaehaerys and the prince's mother, Helaena (Phia Saban). When last we saw Aemond, he was making battle plans with the Lord Commander of the Kingsguard, Ser Criston Cole (Fabien Frankel), placing coins on a map of Westeros to mark the great houses they needed to win over. Later, when Blood and Cheese enter Aemond's bed chamber, we see Blood snatch up these coins before they move on to the next room. They are mercenaries after all, and mercenaries do love gold.

That seemingly small detail holds larger implications in the next episode, "Rhaenyra the Cruel," which begins with guards rounding up the servants in the Red Keep in an attempt to find the perpetrators. Aemond wanders his chambers in a daze...and notices that the coins that he and Criston had placed on the map are now gone. Kneeling down next to the table, he finds one coin that Blood forgot. The episode gives us a lingering shot of Aemond studying this coin that brings about an obvious question: does Aemond Targaryen realize in that moment that the assassins were meant for him?

There's a strong implication that he does, because we see Aemond's guilt over killing Luke come crashing down on him later when he visits a brothel madam (Michelle Bonnard), confiding in her that he knows Daemon sent the assassins for him and that he feels guilt over his own murder of Lucerys. It's a rare bit of vulnerability from a character who is as close to a larger-than-life anime villain as House of the Dragon has.

Will Aemond tell his family that he was the target of Blood and Cheese?

Aemond's murder of Luke might have been an accident, but it was driven by vengeance for a childhood wrong that Luke did him when the boy slashed out his eye with a dagger. Now Daemon's attempt to get revenge for Luke has gone off the rails. In the second episode of the season, we see another act of vengeance put into play when Aemond's mentor Ser Criston Cole (Fabien Frankel) sends the Kingsguard knight Ser Arryk Cargyll (Luke Tittensor) to infiltrate Dragonstone and murder Queen Rhaenyra (Emma D'Arcy). That one doesn't work out either, with Arryk and his twin brother Erryk (Elliot Tittensor) dying before Rhaenyra's eyes after a terrible duel to the death. Everyone wants revenge, but no one is quite getting it the way they intend.

Considering how bloody events have been, and how much worse they're going to get, it's no surprise that Aemond is experiencing some guilt. But how much of that is guilt over Luke? Does he feel any responsibility for Jaehaerys?

Hopefully we'll find out more from Aemond himself as the season goes on, especially with book characters like Alys Rivers (Gayle Rankin) entering the series. She has an interesting relationship with Aemond in George R.R. Martin's novel Fire & Blood, and I can't wait to see what the show does with it.

As for Aemond and Blood and Cheese, yes, Aemond knows he was their original target. We see him connect the dots in the episode that the assassins were in his room when he finds the coin, and he later tells the brothel madam outright that he knows "Daemon sent them to kill me." She also confirms why he wasn't at home when Blood and Cheese came calling: he was at her brothel, spending the night with her.

The big question now is: what is he going to do with that information? Judging by his conversation with the madam, it's obvious he's going to feel yet more guilt weighing him down. Will he tell his brother Aegon (Tom Glynn-Carney) or mother Alicent Hightower (Olivia Cooke) that Daemon's cutthroats were meant for him? Or will he only reveal it in quiet, private moments with the women he goes to for comfort?

Here's hoping we'll find out sooner rather than later. New episodes of House of the Dragon premiere Sundays on HBO and Max.

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