Chapter 51
EPILOGUE II
Ever since the Dance, House Targaryen had faced a problem of perception and legitimacy. Aegon the Conqueror had used his dragons to bind together the Seven Kingdoms, but with the dragons gone in the tragedy of Dance, House Targaryen lost much of its power and legitimacy to rule over the Seven Kingdoms.
Still, alliances and tradition sustained their power, but over the years, their power weakened much, and they were forced to rely more and more on diplomacy and politics rather than the sheer might of the beast that had been theirs to command once.
The Blackfyre Rebellion only added to that, and while one can look at the rebellion as nothing more than a pretender's greed for what was not his. There is another side to these rebellions, for in both the Blackfyre rebellions, it was the Lords who pushed for the Black Dragon to claim the throne.
This could be taken as an indication of the Crown's dwindling power, and it was rather evident to the young Prince Matarys Targaryen. Even as a boy, he had been fascinated by tales of dragons, and it is well known that one of his favorite tomes to read even as a child was 'Garth's Unnatural History'.
It is well documented that over his life, Prince Matarys tried at least three times to revive the dragons using crude rituals and magic. Yet each time he was met with failure, destiny had written it so that the dragons would be revived by his hands.
Most people believed that the last dragon had died during the reign of King Aegon III, also known as Aegon Dragonbane. But the truth is that one adult dragon survived the dance rather unscathed. Silverwing, the former mount of the 'Good Queen' Alysanne Targaryen, was alive at the end of the madness, yet the grief of the war had left it mad.
So, when Ulf the Dragonseed was poisoned to curb his ambitions of kingship, the dragon had flown off from Kingslanding and made home in a rather isolated isle in the Reach.
The mighty dragon took refuge in a cave on an isolated island, and then its existence was lost to tales of war and Kings until one Aemon Targaryen made the discovery and wrote of it to the young Prince.
By then, the Blackfyre Rebellion had come once again, and the Crown faced a crisis of legitimacy and power once more. Despite his proven record, King Baelor chose to refuse the services of his second son as a soldier and warrior and gave him leave to revive the symbol of the Power of their House.
"There is no doubt in my mind that we have a great need of commanders and warriors of your quality. You are the finest warrior I know, but you have already won me two wars, my son. Now, I give you leave to do what you must."
(King Baelor's Thousand Letters)
The Prince made the journey to the Red Lake in secret, with only a few companions, as the Crown could no longer trust its loyal lords to keep their oaths, and just as Lord Lyonels' armies were about to breach the Wendwater, a dragon's cry cut through the skies of the Red Lake and House of the Dragon obtained its greatest might once more.
Barth, in his texts, had concluded that the Dragons were magical beasts and that their abilities and powers followed no law at all. By the norms of biology, Silverwing should have been dead by now, but the dragon had somehow managed to live for some hundred years in a state of hibernation.
Its once glistening scales were now covered with a thick layer of dust and soot, but its colorings mattered little for a dirt-ridden dragon killed just as easily as one with beautiful glistening scales.
The Prince flew on dragonback to reach Wendwater and saved his brother. He burned Lyonel Baratheon's armies until he found himself facing the very man who had once fought by his side.
The Laughing Storm realized that the battle was lost, for no army, no matter how large, could ever stand a chance against the might of a dragon. He addressed the Prince, and called him a coward, and offered to duel him.
But the Prince refused his demands, and named him a traitor, and on that night, The Laughing Storm met its end, and a calm breeze swept through the Seven Kingdoms.
He then flew towards Bitterbridge to support Lord Bloodraven's armies, and with that, the war was all but over. The rebellion was over.
It took another month for the various fronts to close, and the Prince played a massive role in that. He burned down the Golden Company's fleet and slew Haegon Blackfyre in single combat, and by the end of the war the Iron Throne was rather lacking in mercy.
King Baelor Targaryen was a kind man, much like his own father, King Daeron. But the war had hardened him, and with the power of a dragon at his back, the rebellious lords were offered no mercy.
Some three dozen lords were put to the sword, and their entire lineages were uprooted. The girls were given to the faith, and the Silent Sisters, while the boys were all either killed or sent to the Wall.
Many begged for mercy, but the Crown had none to offer them.
"Fire and Blood shall be the norm now. From this day till the day when the sheer memory of this rebellion makes you shake in fear."
(King Matarys Targaryen)
It was during this time that Prince Valarr announced his intention to abdicate in favor of his younger brother, ending any and all hope of mercy. The Prince led an army of five thousand men as he sailed to Essos, where he slowly hunted down all of the remaining sires of Blackfyre, the pretender.
The entire thing took him five years, but by the end of it the world was rid of Aegon IV's greatest mistake, and the Seven Kingdoms were set to welcome a new era.
By the end of the war, King Baelor had grown rather disillusioned with kingship. His ailment had made him weak, and so the King slowly removed himself from the court, as he delegated more and more of his duties and powers to his son and heir, Prince Matarys Targaryen.
The young Prince already had an heir, but he needed a spare as well, and so it was decided that he would wed again. A thousand ladies tried to claim his hand, but in the end, the choice was made by his mother.
Princess Daella Targaryen, the eldest daughter of Prince Maekar, was chosen as his bride. She was the younger sister of Prince Aenys, who had died just a few years ago in a campaign north of the Wall.
There was little love between her and the young Prince, whom she blamed for the death of her own father. But the two of them did their duties. Over their marriage of forty years, they would have three children together, two daughters and a son, yet nothing would be able to thaw away the ice between them.
"I had no desire to marry anyone, let alone Daella. Gods know no girl should ever have to marry the boy whose blade had slain her own father. I demand no love or comfort from her, though she has never shied away from her duties. She is a good Queen, and an even better Mother. That is enough for me."
(King Matarys Targaryen)
The Queen had little interest in the intrigues of the court, even though her children would be drawn into them. She spent a rather quiet life, and in her later years, she even regretted the cold nature of her relationship with her husband.
"I did not hate him. I cannot. He was a good husband to me, and the world shall not see a finer King than him. Ever. I just regret that I could not love him, but I know that he would not hold this against me for he was a good man. A better man than we all deserved."
(Queen Daella Targaryen)
The end of the war saw the map of Westeros change for the first time. The Iron Islands became the Crown's territory, along with Harrenhall, and quite a few other castles and holdfasts bordering the Crownlands came under the Crown's direct rule.
In the end, the Crownlands grew in size, and no amount of protests from the Lords could change that. But that was just the beginning, for as soon as the war came to an end, the Crown launched three massive projects.
One was building a new modernized navy, and the Iron Islands became the best place to do that. Agreements were made with the North and the Riverlands to supply the timber, and the slow building of the shipyard began a year after the war.
The second was the establishment of a Royal Army, and using the castles of the various lords that had abandoned the Crown during the rebellion, House Targaryen assembled an army of ten thousand men and stationed it all across the land to maintain its writ.
Both of the above matters were rather bitter pills for the lords, but what came next was perhaps the greatest blow to their autonomy and power since they were forced to bow their heads to the Dragon some two hundred years ago.
Prince Matarys was not much fond of the lord's dispensing their own justice and enacting their own laws. So, he proposed a unified constitution to bring the entire realm together.
Work on it began not long after the war, and in many ways he was just continuing the work of Barth's codex. Still, the entire process took him some ten years, and when he first offered the draft, the Lords rose in rebellion once more.
By now, King Baelor was dead, and the young King had sat on the throne for some five years. The lords had been grumbling about the Crown's overreach for some time now, but the "Constitution' was the ultimate blow to their power, which had already been weakened much by the ever-present army.
This was a grand rebellion, and lords from all parts of the land rose up against the King and his tyranny. But by now, the Crown commanded an army of fifteen thousand, and had a navy of nearly equivalent number at its command.
The King crushed the rebellion with all his might, and once when the Reach lords refused to bend the knee, the young King burned them all. Slaughtering some five thousand men as evidence of his conviction.
"I will not back down. Never. Even if I must kill half the men that live on this land, then I shall do it for I shall finish the work of the Conqueror and weld these Kingdoms into one nation, through Fire and Blood."
(King Matarys Targaryen)
It was a war unlike any other. By the estimate of the Maesters, someone in ten of all the men died in this five-year-long war, but by the end of it, the Crown had won, and the power of the lords was decimated once and for all.
Five years later, all of the lords gathered in the capital and signed their names onto the Constitution, and with that, the tale of the Seven Kingdoms came to a close, and the Kingdom of Valyria was born from the ashes.
The Constitution stripped away many of the powers of the lords and empowered the Crown. Justice, taxation, census, and defense. All of these powers were now delegated to the Crown, and to deal with all this, the young King established an executive branch.
The Royal College had existed even before the war, but it was believed to be nothing more than the King's fanciful project. It was a place of learning, established by the King in his youth, yet few saw the institute for what it was.
As soon as the war was won, learned men loyal to the King, trained in the Halls of the Royal College, spread all over the realm and formed the backbones of the Crown's Executive Branch.
These men were trained in the art of war, diplomacy, sword fighting, and law. They became agents of the Crown, and with that, the Seven Kingdoms entered a new era.
Courts were established, and a judicial system was enacted. Many of the privileges of the Lords were removed, including the right to a Trial by Combat, and for the first time in the history of the Seven Kingdoms, the same set of laws governed the lands from Planky Town to the New Gift.
The Royal Academy was established to train the young lords of tomorrow and ended the archaic traditions of fostering and squiring. Young lords from all over the realm gathered at the Royal Academy and received the finest education in the disciplines of war, administration, and diplomacy.
The young Prince Maekar was one of the first students at the Royal Academy and was one of the ten boys in his class of forty. The lords had been hesitant to send their sons to this new place, but many of them hoped that their daughters could catch the eye of the Prince.
Still, over the years, an education from the Royal Academy became a symbol of prestige, and with that, all the lords of the realm began vying for a position. Initially, the academy's class was limited to a size of fifty students, but later on this number was expanded to a hundred.
In that time, the Seven Kingdoms grew by leaps and bounds. For all his tyranny, King Matarys was a meticulous administrator. He was dutiful and merciless in his justice.
"He is not married to his wife. He is married to the throne, and we should all be grateful for this marriage."
(Lady Kiera of Pentosh)
The Iron Throne led from the front, and the Land of Valyria became unrecognizable after merely fifty years. The College began making inventions and discoveries, and within a few years, surpassed the mighty and infallible Citadel of Old Town.
The Maesters tried their best to keep pace with the Crown, but in the end they failed, and soon enough the Order of the Citadel became a symbol of decadence and decline.
Antibiotics. Metallic hulls. Gears. Laws of Motion and Light. Algebra. The College transformed the very way of life, and it did so with Royal Patronage. The Crown became synonymous with all this progress, and using their monopoly over the knowledge of these discoveries, the commerce of the Crown expanded uncontrollably.
The Royal Medicinal Company. The Royal Shipbuilders. Royal Works, and a thousand more enterprises were set up, and soon enough House Targaryen became the richest House in the land.
With its coffers overflowing, the Crown set up its own Bank, much to the worry of the Braavos, who could do nothing to bridge the growing gap between their two Kingdoms.
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