Chapter 12: XII: THE LAW OF THE FIST

XII: THE LAW OF THE FIST​

There were two princes in Summerhall now. To be fair, Aerys had expected that his father would send Baelor to try and stop his plans. It was Baelor he always sent to Aerys so he can reconcile with him after one of their quarrels. His father had been always wary of conflict, and he did not wish to have the same relationship with his son that his own father had with him, hence Baelor being the unfortunate middleman between the two, and almost never complaining about that.

But it seemed his father feared confrontation even when Aerys and the marcher lords defied his will. He did not turn away Baelor, for he could hear him at least. The Prince of Dragonstone was received in Aery's solar after being granted bread and salt.

Aerys sat impassively at his desk, and the gilded skull that was on that desk was the first thing that captured his brother's attention.

"Is that…?"

"Yes," laughed Aerys, "that is the skull of the Vulture King." He lifted the skull cap, showing its inside, "care for a lemon cake?"

Probably still hungry from the road, Baelor took one, even from so morbid a receptacle.

"Now, brother, what brings you into my humble abode? Has father sent you again to make me behave, too cowardly to confront me?" asked Aerys, with a hint of sarcasm to his voice.

"Why do you have to be so vexing, Aerys?" asked Baelor. "Yes. Father has sent me to convince you to stop this folly and allow him and our uncle to arbitrate whatever quarrel there is left between you and House Wyl. It is his belief that if you're set on this road, it will further inflame the tensions between the marchers and the Dornish, and that he does not wants."

"And if I do not obey?" was the petulant answer. "Will father gather his Crownlords and put a stop to my defiance?"

"Father is busy elsewhere," answered Baelor, "and has sent me here as a voice of reason."

"Oh!" exclaimed Aerys with surprise. "What can be so important as to distract my father's attention from his troublesome second son?"

"You've declared a feud, against the terms of the King's Peace. And some have taken your actions as inspiration. Blackwood and Bracken are at it again, after Otho Bracken slew the Lord of Raventree in a tourney at Harrenhal, and the Blackwoods have declared a feud, this being one grievance too many. Manfred Lothson joined with Bracken after the Blackwood claimed that he treacherously allowed Ser Otho a sharp weapon in the melee, the Smallwoods followed suit. The Rootes then took the Blackwoods' side, as did the Lychesters and the Mootons, the latter claiming some border stones being moved by Lothson. Frey joined for Bracken, but the truth is that their lord had its own quarrels with the Rootes, and now had the occasion for settling those."

"It is as if the Riverlands have returned to their age of ancient quarrels, and father is beset by this, and has gathered men along with Tully to pacify the Riverlands. The fact that you've only set against Wyl, not the whole of Dorne, makes you lesser in his preoccupations."

Aerys stifled a laugh, as to not provoke his brother. "Where's Aegor in all this? I imagine he rode the fastest horse to join in the fray as soon as possible."

"No," said Baelor with a sigh. "Father took actions and kept him to his chambers as soon as he found out. When he left for the Riverlands, he had me remove him to Dragonstone. He's terrorizing my servants and little Valarr keep asking me if the tower I stuck the bastard in is haunted, because he can hear screaming coming from it. I shall be glad to get rid of that guest, once the riverlords end their quarrels."

"Father asks that if you would not comply with his will, at least keep Brynden with you instead of allowing him to go to the Riverlands."

"You know I cannot stop this feud, Baelor," answered Aerys, "and no words of yours can convince me otherwise. You can not fault me for this, you know. You value your honour greatly, and so do I. But my honour is now that of a Marcher – and it binds me to this cause. To forsake it is to forsake mine own honour, and that I can not do just so my father might feel at ease. And the honour of many is now bound to my own, and I would not trample it under my feet."

"You are welcomed in Summerhall as a guest, but do not pester me again with this. Now, all I have heard is of father. Do you mean to tell me mother dearest had no opinion on this? Because I can not believe that."

Baelor sighed again. " I have not heard a word from her, for or against it. She kept her counsel in father's chambers. She only bade me to send you this message," he finished, handling a sealed scroll to his brother.

Aerys received it, broke the seal, and quickly read it, a smirk appearing on his face. He said nothing.

Baelor stood yet in his seat, awaiting calmly. Aerys' eyes rose and he saw his brother. "You are still here?"

"You have not told me what mother wrote," answered Baelor, curiosity evident in his voice.

"And I am not going to tell you. If mother wished for you to know, she would have told you what message she wished delivered. She did not, so I will keep it for myself, thank you very much."

"Well, at least I know she has not scolded you, for you would have started raving," said Baelor, with an acid tone, before leaving the room.

The parchment, left opened on the desk, said the following: "I know you well enough, Aerys, to know you are too stubborn a mule to turn away from the task you set forth on. You shall proceed without heed of my words. But at least, do your suffering mother a favour. If the Old Blackadder deigns to leave his castle, slay him – he has long outlived his times, and Maron has no need of that thorn in his side."

A feud, according to Marcher law, was not a war of all against all. It followed strict rules. Though most often invoked for material reasons, in the Marches there were still ancient slights, left unforgiven, as in other parts of the realm, bubbling beneath a veneer of peace.

A feud broke out when a neighbour moved a border stone, when his shepherds took their sheep for pasture in your lands, when you felt that your water rights were neglected, or for more personal reasons – a kinsman slain with perfidy, a daughter soiled by the son of a noble who then forsook marriage – blood calling for blood, a careless insult thrown over a drink at a feast in the case of the most prickly of lords. Some were affairs of honour that could be settled by a duel, and often were, only for the son of the slain one to claim perfidy and declare a feud anyway.

Marcher lords valued their honour so highly that even the child still lying the cradle was expected to one day avenge a fallen kinsman or pay in kind some slight a decade after. Feuding was not his right; it was his duty.

Most feuds meant raiding and plundering your enemy's lands, beneath an excuse of the righteousness of one's cause. But once you had declared such a war, to abandon it, or to be defeated, meant the destruction of your own reputation. One waged a feud to defend his own honour, to further his own wealth, and to raise himself in the eyes of his fellow lords.

One could summon to his aid his kin to the fourth degree, as well as his neighbours and those bound by alliance to him, and his own bannermen, required to give aid to their lords. But in a feud, on could not touch a septon or a septa, a sept, septry or motherhouse, nor women and children not of age, invalids, pilgrims, and bastard kin of their foe which had not taken up arms against him.

Those too craven to fight in a feud, or were considered so by the other Marcher lords, could opt out of the war, swearing that they have not known or consented to the slight done, and declaring they would not aid the other party. The feuder was thus obliged to assure them that he would remain at peace with them.

You could not start a feud without your enemy knowing. A formal challenge, declaring the slight or rights violated was proclaimed openly to the other party, and the hostilities would not begin until forty days later – to allow the enemy to gather his bannermen. The foeman was not bound by this though and could attack as soon as he could. This was a limited war, with greater constraints than a war declared by a king – you could not kill any who had not taken arms against you, only to damage and plunder the property of your foe – but men were men, and lords were lords – and customs were often thrown aside when tempers ran high.

When Aegon created the King's Peace, these quarrels and desires found their place in the tournaments, were lords and knight avenged a slight but unhorsing their opponent or pummelling him in a melee. The ransoming of horse and armour took the place of plundered village. But the lords and knight still knew that they were only playing at war and deep down, they were eager for a more bloody pastime.

In the Marches, beyond the feuds between neighbours, there was an enemy that loomed greater than any others – the Dornishman. For centuries on end, the Dornish had raided their lands, and plundered and burned their villages, sometimes sacking towns, and castles, kidnapping noble maidens for ransom, but in their perfidy, delivering them back soiled after the gold was paid.

The Marcher lords went deep in the mountains to catch these raiders, who sometimes flew openly their banners, and sometimes masked themselves under the pretence of being brigands. The Marchers raided in turn the lands of the Dornish, seeking to recover what once was taken, and the circle of violence continued.

The last of the enmity had occurred during the Conquest of Dorne, when victorious Stormlanders and Reachers marching into Dorne had inflamed Dornish passions, resulting in treachery, in Daeron dying under the banner of parley, with many sons or brothers of Stormlords as his companions. This was a slight that neither gods, nor men, had forgiven, not even thirty years later, and it was a wound that bled with each year Dorne was not punished.

It was a wound reopened when a Targaryen prince married a Martell prince, and it was a wound again reopened when a king gave his sister in marriage to a Dornish prince. The wound bled even more when Dorne joined the realm and the King's peace and the Old Blackadder and the Yronwoods who had plotted the great treachery had remained unpunished.

Aerys had gorged on grief at Summerhall and had gorged on vengeance in the Red Mountains. What he pursued now was not simple-minded vengeance. It was not emotion that pushed him to declare war against Wyl's lands and his smallfolk and servants, against all his property on land, behind walls, fences, or moats. He could justify the destruction and plunder as blood price for his dead son, but that was not what he sought in truth.

The Vulture King was a Wyl, that was certain, and all of the marcher lords knew it. If Lord Wyl claimed he had no knowledge of his kin's actions, or that he offered no aid to him, no sane Stormlander would believe him. For Aerys to take that as truth and do nothing further would lower him in the eyes of his neighbour. Honour and reputation demanded that he answer the perceived slight House Wyl had done to him.

And the reasoning was also political – the Lord Wyl was the same cunning blackadder that had been the one to mastermind the death of Daeron, and he was hardly punished for it – and when Dorne had entered the realm at last, he was not punished, his deeds forgotten, it seems, by the king. But not by marcher lords, many who had lost kin that fought alongside Daeron.

If the man were to die in this feud, at Aerys' hand most preferably, his reputation would grow, as avenger of that great slight. And that of his house with him, for as long it suffered the existence of that old enemy, it stained its own reputation.

For that Aerys would ride into the Boneway, servitor and supporter by his side and make true the words of his house once more. He had fashioned his own take on those two words, fitting for the new House Targaryen of Summerhall: "I would gladly burn those who strike at my blood." And burning and plundering he will do – villages and fields, hearths, and harvests, laying waste to the lands, and he would strike at Wyl of Wyl and slay him, if the gods favoured him.