King Jaehaerys did not share her certainty. “Our mother, Queen Alyssa, was forty-six when she gave birth to Jocelyn,” he pointed out to Grand Maester Elysar. “The gods may not be done with us.”

He was not wrong. The very next year, the Grand Maester informed Queen Alysanne that she was once more with child, to her surprise and dismay. Princess Gael was born in 80 AC, when the queen was forty-four. Called “the Winter Child” for the season of her birth (and because the queen was in the winter of her childbearing years, some said), she was small, pale, and frail, but Grand Maester Elysar was determined that she would not suffer the fate of her brothers Gaemon and Valerian. Nor did she. Assisted by Septa Lyra, who watched over the babe night and day, Elysar nursed the princess through a difficult first year, until finally it seemed as if she might survive. When she reached her first nameday, still healthy if not strong, Queen Alysanne thanked the gods.

She was thankful as well that year to have finally arranged a marriage for her eighthborn child, the Princess Daella. With Vaegon settled, Daella had been next in line, but the tearful princess presented an entirely different sort of problem. “My little flower,” was how the queen described her. Like Alysanne herself, Daella was small—on her toes, she stood five feet two inches—and there was a childish aspect to her that led everyone who met her to think she was younger than her age. Unlike Alysanne, she was delicate as well, in ways the queen had never been. Her mother had been fearless; Daella always seemed to be afraid. She had a kitten that she loved until he scratched her; then she would not go near a cat. The dragons terrified her, even Silverwing. The mildest scolding would reduce her to tears. Once, in the halls of the Red Keep, Daella had encountered a prince from the Summer Isles in his feathered cloak, and squealed in terror. His black skin had made her take him for a demon.

Cruel though her brother Vaegon’s words had been, there was some truth to them. Daella was not clever, even her septa had to admit. She learned to read after a fashion, but haltingly, and without full comprehension. She could not seem to commit even the simplest prayers to memory. She had a sweet voice, but was afraid to sing; she always got the words wrong. She loved flowers, but was frightened of gardens; a bee had almost stung her once.

Jaehaerys, even more than Alysanne, despaired of her. “She will not even speak to a boy. How is she to marry? We could entrust her to the Faith, but she does not know her prayers, and her septa says that she cries when asked to read aloud from The Seven-Pointed Star.” The queen always rose to her defense. “Daella is sweet and kind and gentle. She has such a tender heart. Give me time, and I will find a lord to cherish her. Not every Targaryen needs to wield a sword and ride a dragon.”

In the years that followed her first flowering, Daella Targaryen drew the eye of many a young lordling, as expected. She was a king’s daughter, and maidenhood had only made her prettier. Her mother was at work as well, arranging matters in every way she could to place suitable marriage prospects before the princess.

At thirteen Daella was sent to Driftmark to meet Corlys Velaryon, the grandson to the Lord of the Tides. Ten years her elder, the future Sea Snake was already a celebrated mariner and captain of ships. Daella became seasick crossing Blackwater Bay, however, and on her return complained that “he likes his boats better than he likes me.” (She was not wrong in that.)

At fourteen, she kept company with Denys Swann, Simon Staunton, Gerold Templeton, and Ellard Crane, all promising squires of her own age, but Staunton tried to make her drink wine and Crane kissed her on the lips without her leave, reducing her to tears. By year’s end Daella had decided she hated all of them.

At fifteen, her mother took her across the riverlands to Raventree (in a wheelhouse, as Daella was afraid of horses), where Lord Blackwood entertained Queen Alysanne lavishly whilst his son paid court to the princess. Tall, graceful, courtly, and well-spoken, Royce Blackwood was a gifted bowman, a fine swordsman, and a singer, who melted Daella’s heart with ballads of his own composition. For a short while it seemed as if a betrothal might be in the offing, and Queen Alysanne and Lord Blackwood even began to discuss wedding plans. It all fell to pieces when Daella learned that the Blackwoods kept the old gods, and she would be expected to say her vows before a weirwood. “They don’t believe in the gods,” she told her mother, horrified. “I’d go to hell.”

Her sixteenth nameday was fast approaching, and with it her womanhood. Queen Alysanne was at her wit’s end, and the king had lost his patience. On the first day of the 80th year since Aegon’s Conquest, he told the queen he wanted Daella wed before the year’s end. “If she wants I can find a hundred men and line them up before her naked, and she can pick the one she likes,” he said. “I would sooner she wed a lord, but if she prefers a hedge knight or a merchant or Pate the Pig Boy, I am past the point of caring, so long as she picks someone.”

“A hundred naked men would frighten her,” Alysanne said, unamused.

“A hundred naked ducks would frighten her,” the king replied.

“And if she will not wed?” the queen asked. “Maegelle says the Faith will not want a girl who cannot read her prayers.”

“There are still the silent sisters,” said Jaehaerys. “Must it come to that? Find her someone. Someone gentle, as she is. A kind man, who will never raise his voice or his hand to her, who will speak to her sweetly and tell her she is precious and protect her…against dragons and horses and bees and kittens and boys with boils and whatever else she fears.”

“I shall do my best, Your Grace,” Queen Alysanne promised.

In the end it did not require a hundred men, naked or clothed. The queen explained the king’s command to Daella gently but firmly, and offered her a choice of three suitors, each of whom was eager for her hand. Pate the Pig Boy was not amongst them, it should be said; the three men that Alysanne had selected were great lords or the sons of great lords. Whichever man she married, Daella would have wealth and position.

Boremund Baratheon was the most imposing of the candidates. At eight-and-twenty, the Lord of Storm’s End was the image of his father, brawny and powerful, with a booming laugh, a great black beard, and a mane of thick black hair. As the son of Lord Rogar by Queen Alyssa, he stood half-brother to Alysanne and Jaehaerys, and Daella knew and loved his sister, Jocelyn, from her years at court, which was thought to be much in his favor.

Ser Tymond Lannister was the wealthiest contender, heir to Casterly Rock and all its gold. At twenty, he was nearer to Daella’s own age, and thought to be one of the handsomest men in all the realm; lithe and slender, with long golden mustachios and hair of the same hue, always clad in silk and satin. The princess would be well protected in Casterly Rock; there was no castle more impregnable in all Westeros. Weighed against Lannister gold and Lannister beauty, however, was Ser Tymond’s own reputation. He was overly fond of women, it was said, and even more fond of wine.

Last of the three, and least in many eyes, was Rodrik Arryn, Lord of the Eyrie and Protector of the Vale. He had been a lord since the age of ten, a point in his favor; for the past twenty years he had served on the small council as lord justiciar and master of laws, during which time he had become a familiar figure about court, and a leal friend to both king and queen. In the Vale he had been an able lord, strong but just, affable, open-handed, loved by the smallfolk and his lords bannermen alike. In addition, he had acquitted himself well in King’s Landing; sensible, knowledgeable, good humored, he was regarded as a great asset to the council.

Lord Arryn was the oldest of the three contenders, however; at six-and-thirty, he was twenty years older than the princess, and a father besides, with four children left him by his late first wife. Short and balding, with a kettle belly, Arryn was not the man most maidens dream of, Queen Alysanne admitted, “but he is the sort you asked for, a kind and gentle man, and he says that he has loved our little girl for years. I know he will protect her.”

To the astonishment of every woman at the court, save mayhaps the queen, Princess Daella chose Lord Rodrik to be her husband. “He seems good and wise, like Father,” she told Queen Alysanne, “and he has four children! I’m to be their new mother!” What Her Grace thought of that outburst is not recorded. Grand Maester Elysar’s account of the day says only, “Gods be good.”