Fire & Blood chapter 19 discussion

Baela Targaryen, when informed of the match, did not share their pleasure. “Lord Rowan is forty years my senior, bald as a stone, with a belly that weighs more than I do,” she purportedly told the King’s hand.Then she added, “I’ve bedded two of his sons. The eldest and third born, I think it was. Not both at once, that would have been improper.”

We have the deaths of two great men, Ser Tyland Lannnister and the Sea Snake himself, another dreadful plague where it’s claimed Aegon III has ‘healing hands’ and Grand Maester Orwyle becomes a hero, yet is executed all the same. We have a pageantry of fabulous ladies sauntering through the pages, from the Targaryen twins Baela and Rhaena to Matilda of Hull and the Witch Queen of Harrenhal. The Ironborn continue to be as they ever were; Essos continues to be complex, confusing and conflictive. The King and his little queen are broken children and wise men fear for the realm’s future. And finally, that hateful Queen Alicent is carried off by the Winter Fever.

p. 596-7

A more immediate problem was posed by the Dowager Queen, who refused to be reconciled to the new king. The murder of the last of her sons had turned Alicent’s heart into a stone.None of th regents wished to see her put to death, some for compassion, others for fear that such an execution might rekindle the flames of war. Yet she could not be allowed to take part in the life of the court as before. She was too apt to rain down curses on the king, or snatch a dagger from some unwary guardsman. Alicent could not even be trusted in the company of the little queen; when last allowed to share a meal with Her Grace, she had told Jaehaera to cut her husband’s throat whilst sleeping, which set the child to screaming. Ser Tyland felt he had no choice but to confine the Queen Dowager to her own apartments in Maegor’s Holdfast; a gentle imprisonment, but imprisonment nonetheless.

p.615-6

In her last days the Queen Dowager seemed to become more lucid. “I want to see my sons again,” she told her septa, “and Helaena, my sweet girl, oh...and King Jaehaerys. I will read to him, as I did when I was little. he used to say I had a lovely voice.” (Strangely, in her final hours Queen Alicent spoke often of the Old King, but never of her husband, King Viserys.)

A pathetic ending for a fiercely vengeful lady.

Even the Maesters are aware of the vast number of women ruling in Westeros at this point in time

p. 610

Never before or since in the history of the Seven Kingdoms have so many women wielded so much power, ruling in the place of their slain husbands, brothers and fathers, for sons in swaddling clothes or still on the teat. Many of their stories have been gathered in Archmaester Abelon’s mammoth When Women Ruled: Ladies of the Aftermath.

There are three tales of these remarkable women which caught my eye, two of them because of the callouts to incidents in our own RL. The first is an anecdote about a personal favourite of mine, Lady Sam

p. 611-2

In Oldtown, relations between the High Septon and Lord Ormund’s widow, the lady Sam, continued to worsen when she ignored His High Holiness’ command to remove herself from her stepson’s bed bed and take vows as a silent sister as penance for her sins. Righteous in his wroth, the High Septon condemned the Dowager Lady of Oldtown as a shameless fornicator and forbade her to set foot in the Starry Sept until she had repented and sought forgiveness. Instead Lady Samantha mounted a war-horse and burst into the sept while His High Holiness was leading a prayer. When he demanded to know her purpose, Lady Sam replied that whilst he had forbidden her to set foot in the sept, he had said naught about her horse’s hooves. Then she commanded her knights to bar the door; if the sept was closed to her, it would be closed to all. Though he quaked and thundered and called down maledictions upon “this harlot on a horse”, in the end the high Septon had no choice but to relent.

This story reads like a combination of elements of the legends of Lady Godiva and her naked ride through Coventry and the cleverness of Queen Auslag (or Kráka, as she was also known)

...once as she was bathing, she was discovered by some of the men of the legendary king Ragnar Lodbrok. Entranced by Kráka's beauty, they allowed the bread they were baking to burn; when Ragnar inquired about this mishap, they told him about the girl. Ragnar then sent for her, but in order to test her wits, he commanded her to arrive neither dressed nor undressed, neither fasting nor eating, and neither alone nor in company. Kráka arrived dressed in a net, biting an onion, and with only a dog as a companion

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aslaug

The second lady with whose tale has resonances in our world is the stalwart Lady Johanna Lannister

p. 611

The songs tell of how she slew a dozen ironmen beneath the walls of Kayce, but these may be safely put aside as the work of drunken singers (Lady Johanna carried a banner into battle, not a sword). her courage did help inspire her westermen, however, for the raiders were soon routed and Kayce was saved.

A brave woman carrying a banner into battle to save her country from island-born invaders? Joan of Arc!

Joan stated that she carried her banner in battle and had never killed anyone,[45] preferring her banner "forty times" better than a sword

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Joan_of_Arc

The third lady who stands out to me in this chapter is no lady, but a free spirit who made her own life and loved the man she did and bore him two sons. It’s Matilda of Hull, who brings her true love’s body home for a proper burial

p. 603

Lord Corlys lay in state beneath the Iron Throne for seven days. Afterward his remains were carried back to Driftmark aboard the Mermaid’s Kiss captained by Matilda of Hull with her son Alyn. There the battered hull of the ancient Sea Snake was floated once again and towed out into the deep waters east of Dragonstone, where Corlys Velaryon was buried at sea aboard the very ship that had given him his name. It was said afterward that as the hull went down, the Cannibal swept overhead, his great black wings spread in a final salute. (A moving touch, but most likely a later embroidery. From all we know of the Cannibal, he would have been more apt to eat the corpse than salute it.)

You have to love the maesterly ironic comment about romantic additions to what is a noble ending to a great love story.

On a side note- Yes, the smallfolk claim Aegon III had healing hands

p. 616

Most of those he (King Aegon III) visited died, but those who lived would afterward attribute their survival to the touch of the king’s “healing hands.”

Any fan of LOTR will recognise this callout to the incident in the House of Healing, where Strider uses kingsfoil and the King’s Touch to heal Faramir, Eowyn and Merry after the Battle of the Pelennor Fields, giving rise to the rumour amongst the smallfolk of Minas Tirith of the return of the king.

/r/pureasoiaf Thread