Of Kings and Tourneys

[Westeros]

In the months since Prince Aegon’s return from Dragonstone, he has carried on with his ways, and so has King Viserys. His efforts to improve the running of the realm has continued apace, adjusting the codes of laws, arranging for new mints, reorganizing some of the royal household, and more. But the small council, that he has not touched—so far. Rumors are always rife, that he means to make changes to better suit him and the Seven Kingdoms, yet so far he has declined to make any immediate choice. After all, this small council has largely been of his own choosing, men he has known long as Hand to three previous kings.

And speaking of the Hand… when will that office be filled? There are rumors he means to name Beron Buckwell, and others that he means to name Terin Ryger, and even one (rather foolish, most agree) that he will name Lord Baratheon. It’s true the king meets often with individual members of the council, and treats privily with lords great and small, but it is hard to make much of it.

The realm is not consumed by questions of influence and power at court—there has been other news. In the crownlands, feats of arms have been of great interest, with a number of tourneys forming a circuit throughout the land. Some count the first of these as the celebratory hastilude celebrating the marriage of Rymella Meadows to Ser Rynos Prester (won by the famed tourney knight, the lady Rymella’s goodbrother Ser Joffrey Caswell), but the richer prizes began with the tourney at Rosby, won by the King’s Scales, Ser Burton Crakehall. An even grander tourney took place at Duskendale, wherat the Dornish knight Ser Aidan Dayne defeated the royal steward Ser Conrad Arryn for the prize.

The circuit continued beneath the eaves of the kingswood, with great pomp and pageantry to the delight of the lords and ladies who watched the proceedings, and once again the King’s Scales carried the day. The grandest tourney of them all, however, was outside the walls of King’s Landing, with hundreds of knights and squires jousting over two days. Many great feats of arms were done by the likes of Prince Aemon the Dragonknight, the fiery young Ser Quentyn Ball, the splendid Ser Joffrey the handsome, and more… but it was the Knight of the Twilight, Ser Aidan Dayne, who won the rich prize and crowned his northron lady wife as the queen of love and beauty.

The gods smiled on him, as it smiled on other victors. And they smiled as well on the court, for soon after the Princess Mariah was carried away to childbed, and gave birth to her second son, Aerys. It was a joyous occasion. But as the gods give, so can they take: not long before, news from the west reached the court, naming the passing of the ancient Lord of Crakehall, Jonos. A giant of the westerlands, high in the regard of Lord Lannister, he had seen many kings come and go through his long and noble life. But now he was dead, and it fell upon his eldest grandson Ser Burton Crakehall to take on the mantle of lord. He did so with the king’s blessing, and with his blessing he ventured home for a time, to see to the affairs of his grandfather and to do homage to the Lord of Casterly Rock.

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