A Game of Thrones 4-Book Bundle

it was healing. “It itches, though. Maester Aemon says that’s
good. He gave me a salve to take with me when we ride.”
    â€œYou can wield Longclaw despite the pain?”
    â€œWell enough.” Jon flexed his fingers, opening and closing his fist the way
the maester had shown him. “I’m to work the fingers every day to keep them
nimble, as Maester Aemon said.”
    â€œBlind he may be, but Aemon knows what he’s about. I pray the gods let us keep
him another twenty years. Do you know that he might have been king?”
    Jon was taken by surprise. “He told me his father was king, but
not . . . I thought him perhaps a younger son.”
    â€œSo he was. His father’s father was Daeron Targaryen, the Second of His Name,
who brought Dorne into the realm. Part of the pact was that he wed a Dornish
princess. She gave him four sons. Aemon’s father Maekar was the youngest of
those, and Aemon was
his
third son. Mind you, all this happened long
before I was born, ancient as Smallwood would make me.”
    â€œMaester Aemon was named for the Dragonknight.”
    â€œSo he was. Some say Prince Aemon was King Daeron’s true father, not Aegon the
Unworthy. Be that as it may, our Aemon lacked the Dragonknight’s martial
nature. He likes to say he had a slow sword but quick wits. Small wonder his
grandfather packed him off to the Citadel. He was nine or ten, I
believe . . . and ninth or tenth in the line of succession as
well.”
    Maester Aemon had counted more than a hundred name days, Jon knew. Frail,
shrunken, wizened, and blind, it was hard to imagine him as a little boy no
older than Arya.
    Mormont continued. “Aemon was at his books when the eldest of his uncles, the
heir apparent, was slain in a tourney mishap. He left two sons, but they
followed him to the grave not long after, during the Great Spring Sickness.
King Daeron was also taken, so the crown passed to Daeron’s second son,
Aerys.”
    â€œThe Mad King?” Jon was confused. Aerys had been king before Robert, that
wasn’t so long ago.
    â€œNo, this was Aerys the First. The one Robert deposed was

the second of that name.”
    â€œHow long ago was this?”
    â€œEighty years or close enough,” the Old Bear said, “and no, I
still
hadn’t been born, though Aemon had forged half a dozen links of
his maester’s chain by then. Aerys wed his own sister, as the Targaryens were
wont to do, and reigned for ten or twelve years. Aemon took his vows and left
the Citadel to serve at some lordling’s court . . . until his
royal uncle died without issue. The Iron Throne passed to the last of King
Daeron’s four sons. That was Maekar, Aemon’s father. The new king summoned all
his sons to court and would have made Aemon part of his councils, but he
refused, saying that would usurp the place rightly belonging to the Grand
Maester. Instead he served at the keep of his eldest brother, another Daeron.
Well, that one died too, leaving only a feeble-witted daughter as heir. Some
pox he caught from a whore, I believe. The next brother was Aerion.”
    â€œAerion the Monstrous?” Jon knew that name. “The Prince Who Thought He Was a
Dragon” was one of Old Nan’s more gruesome tales. His little brother Bran had
loved it.
    â€œThe very one, though he named himself Aerion Brightflame. One night, in his
cups, he drank a jar of wildfire, after telling his friends it would transform
him into a dragon, but the gods were kind and it transformed him into a corpse.
Not quite a year after, King Maekar died in battle against an outlaw
lord.”
    Jon was not entirely innocent of the history of the realm; his own maester had
seen to that. “That was the year of the Great

Council,” he said. “The lords passed over Prince Aerion’s infant son and
Prince Daeron’s daughter and gave the crown to Aegon.”
    â€œYes and no. First they offered it, quietly, to Aemon. And quietly he refused.
The gods meant for him to serve, not to rule, he told them. He had sworn a vow
and would not break it, though the High Septon himself offered to absolve him.
Well, no sane man wanted any blood of Aerion’s on the throne, and Daeron’s girl
was a lackwit besides being female, so they had no choice but to turn to
Aemon’s younger brother—Aegon, the Fifth of His Name. Aegon the