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duxbelisarius · 4 months ago

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Back to the Dance Part Three: Ground Warfare

Thank you to all those who have followed this series so far; if this is your first time reading, Parts One and Two are here and there will be a masterpost now that it's up to three parts.

The next three parts examine the conduct of warfare in Westeros on land, at sea, and from the air, starting with ground warfare. I didn't devote a part in the original series to this aspect of the Dance as I did for dragons and fleets, but ground warfare absolutely warrants attention this time around since it was by this means that the Dance was won/ended. Using the Westerlands Army as our example, we'll look at how Westerosi armies are mobilized and who serves under what terms, the command structure of armies and the role of women leaders in the Dance, and the tactics of missile troops (ie crossbowmen and bowmen) and cavalry and whether their performance in the Riverlands campaign adequately reflects their capabilities on the battlefield.

i. Mobilization

The first problem illustrated by the Westerlands forces is that the time it takes to raise armies and commit them to battle varies wildly in the Dance, and seems driven more by plot convenience than anything else. From Daemon's announcement in "Dying of the Dragons - The Blacks and the Greens" that Aegon has the support of Casterly Rock, to the mention of Jason Lannister's host assembling in the Western Hills in "The Red Dragon and the Gold," the name Lannister only appears alongside Tyland's and we're never told nor given any indication of how the Westerlands are preparing. Between Daemon massing the Riverlords in the west, Rowan and Oakheart supporting Rhaenyra to the south, and the Iron Islands having yet to pick a side, one would expect the Westerlands to be raising troops and preparing the Lannisport Fleet, but nothing in the narrative suggests this is the case. By comparison, the Riverlords begin flocking to Harrenhal soon after Daemon takes over, and both he and the Blackwoods amass sufficient forces to engage the Brackens within in a few weeks, perhaps 1-2 months, of Rhaenyra's coronation. We don't know when Rook's Rest takes place in comparison to Aegon's coronation but by that time, perhaps a few months, Ormund Hightower has raised 5000 men to take on the Blacks in the Reach. The time between Aegon's coronation and Aemond's march on Harrenhal is just under a year, meaning it either took that long for the Lannisters to raise their banners or they simply did nothing despite enemies surrounding them on all sides.

The greater issue with mobilization in the Dance and in ASOIAF as a whole is how these armies are raised and who serves in them. F&B states that Jason's host consisted of 1000 armoured knights and 7000 archers and men-at-arms, and this force is eventually annihilated at the Battle of the Lakeshore, aka 'The Fishfeed.' According to TWOIAF's entry on the Iron Islands, the Westerlands were thinly defended since "Lord Jason Lannister had taken most of his knights, archers, and seasoned fighters east," while F&B claims that the "greater part of the chivalry of the west" was "slain or scattered at the Fishfeed." Leaving aside that we know of other Lannister hosts in the books that far exceeded 8000, and the fact that the Riverlords probably lost more than 8000 men between the Burning Mill, the Red Fork, the 'Fish Feed,' and 1st Tumbleton yet still managed to raise two different hosts of 4000 and 6000 men later on, the fact the Westerlands struggles with manpower for the rest of the Dance makes little sense. F&B later tells us that 100 knights and 3000 men-at-arms took part in the abortive surprise attack on Dalton Greyjoy's forces on Fair Isle, but this takes place 2 years after the Dance ended. We also have to ask what is meant by the "greater part of the chivalry of the west" being lost: if this means that Jason's host was made up of retinues, i.e. military professionals supported by their incomes and those of their lords, then shouldn't the Westerlands still have untapped manpower in its feudal levies, i.e. men not under arms at all times but possessing their own equipment or are provided it by their lords? Why would these forces not have been called up when Jason was raising his host, and how can the Westerlands be thinly defended when the existence of Lannisport and the west's mining industry indicate that it possesses a substantial population to draw upon?

The issues with how armies are raised in ASOIAF goes much deeper than this, to the feudal system as it exists in the books; Bret Devereaux has covered this subject before, but I want to try my hand at it with reference to the books rather than the show. In the books we hear regularly about lords raising levies or 'calling their banners,' but we have little sense of what this entails beyond calling up anyone capable of fighting through vague feudal obligations of military service. The closest we get to seeing this process at work on the individual level is Septon Meribald's 'Broken Man' monologue from AFFC:

Broken men are more deserving of our pity, though they may be just as dangerous. Almost all are common-born, simple folk who had never been more than a mile from the house where they were born until the day some lord came round to take them off to war. Poorly shod and poorly clad, they march away beneath his banners, ofttimes with no better arms than a sickle or a sharpened hoe, or a maul they made themselves by lashing a stone to a stick with strips of hide. Brothers march with brothers, sons with fathers, friends with friends. They’ve heard the songs and stories, so they go off with eager hearts, dreaming of the wonders they will see, of the wealth and glory they will win. War seems a fine adventure, the greatest most of them will ever know.” “Then they get a taste of battle.” “For some, that one taste is enough to break them. Others go on for years, until they lose count of all the battles they have fought in, but even a man who has survived a hundred fights can break in his hundred-and-first. Brothers watch their brothers die, fathers lose their sons, friends see their friends trying to hold their entrails in after they’ve been gutted by an axe.” “They see the lord who led them there cut down, and some other lord shouts that they are his now. They take a wound, and when that’s still half-healed they take another. There is never enough to eat, their shoes fall to pieces from the marching, their clothes are torn and rotting, and half of them are shitting in their breeches from drinking bad water.” “If they want new boots or a warmer cloak or maybe a rusted iron halfhelm, they need to take them from a corpse, and before long they are stealing from the living too, from the smallfolk whose lands they’re fighting in, men very like the men they used to be. They slaughter their sheep and steal their chickens, and from there it’s just a short step to carrying off their daughters too. And one day they look around and realize all their friends and kin are gone, that they are fighting beside strangers beneath a banner that they hardly recognize. They don’t know where they are or how to get back home and the lord they’re fighting for does not know their names, yet here he comes, shouting for them to form up, to make a line with their spears and scythes and sharpened hoes, to stand their ground. And the knights come down on them, faceless men clad all in steel, and the iron thunder of their charge seems to fill the world…” “And the man breaks.”

The way Septon Meribald portrays it, the lord 'takes' his men off to war, although Meribald's own experience in the War of the Ninepenny Kings suggests some degree of voluntarism; weapons are whatever these levies can scrounge up, and service ends with death, desertion, or the conclusion of the conflict, presumably. The idea of men fighting for years on end seems to be used more for effect, since the War of the Five Kings is the longest war fought in Westeros since Daeron's Conquest while none of the Blackfyre Rebellions or Robert's Rebellion lasted longer than a year. Nonetheless, Jaime's quote about the dismissal of the Lannister army is instructive: armies seem to fight for as long as they can fight.

Don't get me wrong, I love Meribald's speech and it perfectly encapsulates George's anti-war sentiments which permeate ASOIAF: the glorification of war by society vs its cruel reality, the disillusionment that follows, the terrible toll it exacts on the body and mind of those that fight, this is all good stuff. Unfortunately the system of military organization it depicts is poorly suited for raising and maintaining armies like Jason Lannister's host, let alone Ormund Hightower's army. For starters, it simply isn't true that feudal service entitled a lord to lead his armies indefinitely; as Kelly De Vries notes in his essay "The Question of Medieval Military Professionalism," the terms of feudal military service varied from region to region. Medieval Romania had feudal service which was given till age 60 unless a suitable heir was appointed, with a third of the year each spent in garrison duty, in the field, and at home, while the Latin Kingdom of Jerusalem required military service for the entire year or until death (De Vries, "Military Professionalism," 117-118). In less embattled regions, terms of service could be much less even for a kingdom like France: when Philip III called on his vassals to put down a revolt by the Count of Foix in 1272, John France notes that some lords were owed only 20 to 40 days service from their vassals. When Philip called on his vassals again two years later to invade Castile, it was determined that he would have to pay his troops since their service would go beyond the borders of France (John France, Medieval France at War, 191-192).

The scope and quality of Westerosi recruitment is also counterproductive, mobilizing large numbers of men with little to no military value while simultaneously hampering local economies. F&B tells us that hundreds and thousands of Riverlanders grabbed even "a pitchfork or a hoe and a crude wooden shield" and set out for Harrenhal at Daemon's summons, while Tyrion VIII of AGOT mentions "field hands on plow horses armed with scythes and their father's rusted swords, half trained boys from the stews of Lannisport" among the vanguard at the Green Fork. The breadth of the call ups in the North during the War of the Five Kings is so great that in Bran II of ACOK, Hother Umber tells Bran that "the Greatjon took too many. Half our harvest has gone to seed for want of arms to swing the scythes," and Alys Karstark in Jon X of ADWD says her father took so many men south that "crops withered in the fields or were pounded into the mud by autumn rains," as only old men, young boys, and women were left to bring in the harvest. We have to ask what is the point of raising such large armies if their ranks will necessarily be filled with poorly equipped, untrained men that will consume rations while being a liability on the battlefield?

This is a problem for the worldbuilding since, as Clifford Rogers notes in Soldier's Lives Through History: The Middle Ages, lords might raise as large a force as they could for prestige purposes, but they most often had quotas for the numbers of men they were expected to raise and equip based on their incomes and lands owned (Rogers, Soldier's Lives, 27-28). By the 12th century if not earlier, legislation existed in most European kingdoms like England and France that required men to own arms and equipment commensurate with their status and income, such as Henry II's Assize of Arms of 1181 and Aistulf's amendments to the Lombard Code in 750 (Ibid., 42-44, 61). Based on the evidence of the books, Westeros' military organization is remarkably ad hoc and unsuited for raising armies in the thousands as is done in the Dance and throughout the books.

ii. We get paid, right...?

These problems pale in comparison to the most glaring omission: the lack of any form of paid military service beyond sellswords. Leaving aside his comments about a certain LOTR character's 'tax policy,' it's no secret that George places a great deal of importance on money in the series: AGOT features starts with Ned and Catelyn agonizing over how to cover the costs of Robert's royal visit, we have Ned's continued agonizing over Robert's lavish spending and the debt this incurs from the Lannisters and the Iron Bank, while ADWD ends with Kevan Lannister mulling over how the crown can fund it's war effort and pay off it's debts now that the Iron Bank has turned to funding the crown's enemies, and Cersei's ruinously expensive fleet building project has gone awry. Rhaenyra's own downfall has Helaena's death and the 1st Battle of Tumbleton as it's catalyst, but the powder keg ignited by these events was filled through Rhaenyra's disastrous tax policies which alienated the population of King's Landing, alongside her cruel punishment of those suspected of supporting Aegon II. I plan to cover fiscal policies more when we discuss strategy in the Dance, but here it is important to note that the Westerosi economy is heavily monetized, meaning cash is the primary facilitator of most economic transactions. When Tyrion meets with the alchemists guild in Tyrion I of ACOK, they inform him that Cersei is paying for wildfire production with the aid of Baelish's tax on entry into the city, implying that even the smallfolk fleeing the Crownlands and Riverlands for the safety of the capital have coin or the valuables to sell for coin to pay the tax.

The problem with the Westerosi economy existing this way is that the military system seems to be completely exempt, and this should not be the case if George wants his armies to have tens of thousands of men serving for long periods. If we look at the Hundred Years War (1337-1453), we find that the French and English states relied heavily, if not entirely in England's case, on paid armies consisting of forces raised by the lords of the realm and paid in their own and/or the crown's coin, leavened with mercenaries. The last time a feudal summons was put forth by the English crown was in 1385 at the behest of Richard II, prior to which it had last been utilized by Edward III in 1327; 4590 men-at-arms and 9144 archers were raised for an expedition to France which Richard redirected against Scotland, but all of these men served 'at the king's wages' according to J. J. N. Palmer (Palmer, "The last summons of the feudal army in England," 771; N. B. Lewis, "The Last Medieval Summons of the English Feudal Levy," 5).

France was able to rely more on feudal obligations to raise forces owing to the fact that France was the defender protecting it's lands; as Christopher Allmand notes, a general levy of all men 18-60 called the arrière-ban was called seven times between 1338 and 1356 by the French government, but it's use was discontinued (Christopher Allmand, The Hundred Years War, 93). Both kingdoms relied upon a form of paid military service known as an indenture or lettre de retenue, which was a contract between the monarch and their commanders (lords, magnates, etc.) that laid out the amount of men to be raised and equipped, their pay, and terms of service, although Allmand suggests lettres were not quite as detailed as indentures (Allmand, 94). This developed from the need for armies that could operate for greater periods and outside the regional confines set by feudal contracts, and it was also far easier to raise troops when they and their lords had a financial incentive to enlist, with a soldier's wage often being well above what a farm labourer could hope to earn (Rogers, Soldier's Lives, 45).

It might have been possible to overlook Westeros' reliance on feudal obligations to raise it's armies, had it not been for the fact that these armies can be very large, larger even than Medieval armies following the expansion of paid service from the High Middles Ages onward. Richard II's host of almost 14000 men-at-arms and archers was one of the largest ever raised by England in the 14th century (Lewis, 13); by comparison, Ormund Hightower raised more than a third that number of his own troops following Rook's Rest, 5000 knights, men-at-arms, and archers, and his host eventually grew to as much as 20000 by the time of 1st Tumbleton, only some of whom would have been sellswords. Ormund's own initial host outnumbered the entire men-at-arms contingent of this 14th century army drawn from all of England! As for the cost of such armies, the wages for the 1385 host in a 40 day campaign were nearly £14000, while a 'double regard' paid to the leaders who organized these men would have amounted to £4750 (Lewis, 13); adjusted for inflation, that would be £17.2 and £4.8 million respectively in 2024, or almost $28 million USD combined. The armies of Westeros should require obscene amounts of money to keep them in the field, let alone pay for weapons, equipment, animals, supplies, transport, etc., but the series avoids this issue by ignoring it entirely.

iii. "Who's drivin' this flying umbrella?!"

If the organization and mobilization of armies in the Dance leaves much to be desired, the same can be said for how they are led, with the Westerlands being the perfect example as I previously discussed in Part 8 of the original series. Following Jason Lannister's death at the Red Fork, the Westerlands army is led by the landed knight Ser Adrian Tarbeck, who distinguished himself in the battle. Lord Humfrey Lefford replaces him when Tarbeck falls in battle at Acorn Hall, and Lefford remains in command until his death alongside the rest of the host at 'the Fish Feed.' We have no sense from the narrative that any kind of chain of command exists, when in reality even Medieval armies possessed a basic form of command structure: hosts were divided into 'battles' when meeting in the field to ease control, as Renly's forces are organized for battle at Storm's End in Catelyn IV of ACOK, and knights and other mounted men formed their own subunits called 'lances' which were then grouped into 'con rois' or 'constabularies' (Michael Prestwich, "Miles in Armis Strenuus," 215-216). Armies were likewise divided on the march into vanguards, rear guards, flank guards, and main bodies, which would require at least 5 commanders to be appointed; thus in Book 3, Chapter 6 of De Re Militari, "The degree of caution to be observed when an army moves in the vicinity of the enemy," Vegetius advises that, "the cavalry take the road in front, then the infantry, with the baggage, pack horses, servants and vehicles placed in the middle, and the light armed portion of the infantry and cavalry bringing up the rear," while the baggage train "should also be enclosed on the flanks with equal strengths of soldiers, for ambushes frequently attack the sides" (Milner, DRM, 75).

Likewise, Book 9, Chapter 4 of Maurice's Strategikon ("The Passage of Defiles and difficult country") advises that, "troops passing through the defile, accompanied by supply trains or plunder, should divide into two groups or formation marching on foot in column by the flanks," adding that "in such situations and places, in addition to the double column assigned to guard the baggage and plunder they might have, a strong force of good, light armed troops must be chosen from the main body, stationed on the four sides of the double column as the terrain permits" (Dennis, Strategikon, 101). It thus makes little sense that Humfrey Lefford is given command of the host when F&B blames his age and injuries for requiring the Westerlands host to march slowly, and when Lords Swyft and Reyne and Sers Clarent Crakehall and Emory Hill of Lannisport are listed among the notables slain at 'the Fish Feed.' Between Jason Lannister, Adrian Tarbeck, Humfrey Lefford, and the aforementioned notables, there are enough men here to lead the subdivisions of a hypothetical Westerlands host, but we have no indication of any chain of command to explain how or why anyone becomes the leader. Nor does the army seem to organize itself into units as mentioned before, since the host all but stumbles upon Forrest Frey and the Winterwolves at the Lakeshore, and Pate of Longleaf arrives to their rear with more men from the south without being detected. Aemond's host is the lone force we're told possesses a vanguard, led by Criston Cole, while the Westerlands army and the rest of those in the Dance simply move and operate as masses.

Another area in which leadership during Dance, military or otherwise, suffers from skewed perspective or lacks it altogether, is the role of women as leaders. This is especially so where the Greens are concerned, as exemplified by Johanna Lannister (Westerling). Following 'the Fish Feed,' the Westerlands all but disappears from the Dance save for the exploits of Dalton Greyjoy. While Johanna Lannister features prominently in the 'Hour of the Wolf' as one of the 'Three Widows' (see Part 13 of the original series for that nonsense), it's only when the Dance is over that she is allowed to take any real action against the Ironborn. The Ironborn alone are a serious problem in the Dance which I'll tackle fully in Part Four, but I've already noted how the weather should severely constrain their actions in Part Two, and we've just talked about the Westerlands manpower is strangely restricted by the narrative. When it comes to Johanna's efforts post-Dance, she's credited with allegedly donning mail and taking up arms to defeat the Ironborn at Kayce in 132 AC, but her attempt to rebuild the Lannisport fleet in 131 is foiled by the Greyjoys while the failed surprise attack on Fair Isle in 133 AC costs the lives of Lords Prester and Tarbeck and Ser Erwin Lannister.

It of course makes no sense for the Westerlands to be 'on pause' until the end of the Dance, as Johanna's efforts at rebuilding a fleet, raising new armies, and repulsing Ironborn incursions cannot wait a year. As of 'the Fish Feed,' her husband and his army are dead, the Westerlands has no fleet to defend it's shores, and Rhaenyra possesses a large number of dragons; if she wishes her family and people to survive, she cannot wait to begin raising new forces and she should absolutely be requesting aid from the Greens in the Reach, especially the Hightower and Redwyne fleets. Even then, her actions post-Dance are still more than any woman in the Green camp is permitted when compared to the Blacks. Rhaenyra joins her dragonriders in their attack on King's Landing despite otherwise not taking part in the fighting, Rhaenys assists the Velaryon Blockade before falling in battle at Rook's Rest, Baela fights in no battles but manages to cripple Aegon and Sunfyre, Sabitha Frey leads her husband's forces after his death even though she herself is a Vypren and her husband ought to have had uncles, cousins, and brothers who could lead their house, Alysanne Blackwood fights at Burning Mill, 2nd Tumbleton, and the Kingsroad leading her archers, and even Jeyne Arryn accompanies the Vale host to King's Landing.

By comparison, Johanna is the only woman on the Greens side who is allowed to take an active, military role and that's after the Dance ends; Helaena doesn't even get to act as an envoy like Aemond before B&C, Alicent briefly tries to organize the defense of King's Landing but is quickly foiled; neither Elenda Baratheon nor her daughters play any role in defending the Stormlands let alone try to force Aemond to uphold his betrothal, despite Elenda being a Caron by birth and thus related to Ellyn Caron who fought the First Vulture King; in short, only the Blacks are allowed to have women fight for their cause and defend their lands.

Lest anyone try to make the asinine claim that this is because the Blacks are fighting for Rhaenyra, i.e. a woman, Medieval history provides us with plenty of women who were leaders and even combatants in war regardless of their sex or their cause. Queen Matilda, Duchess of Boulogne, and Empress Matilda led their factions after King Stephen of England was captured at the Battle of Lincoln (1141) during England's Anarchy. Queen Matilda and her kinsman William of Flanders led Stephen's army against London, driving Empress Matilda from the city before she could be coronated as Queen, and Queen Matilda ultimately succeeded in ransoming Stephen back the Empress. The Breton Civil War came to be known as the "War of the Two Jeannes" after Joanna of Flanders and Joan of Penthièvre took up their husbands causes, and Sichelgaita of Salerno accompanied her husband Robert Guiscard on most of his campaigns in southern Italy, most notably at the Battle of Durazzo in 1081. These are but a few examples, but alongside the other issues we've discussed they highlight the broader problem with military leadership in the Dance, that the limited perspective of the narrative results in leaders being chosen and acting not in the interests of themselves and their factions based on in-universe reasoning, but for the convenience of the plot.

iv. 'Arrayed as if for war'

Having covered the problems with the way armies are raised and led in the Dance we can now cover how they fought, in particular missile troops and cavalry. Some housekeeping is necessary first regarding the equipment and overall technology we should expect of the armies in the Dance per George's worldbuilding. He's talked in the past about his aesthetic for the armours of Westeros being derived from the Hundred Years War, Crecy and Poitiers as well as Agincourt, but also the Crusades. He points out that the further south one ventures the later the armour styles become in ASOIAF at least, thus mail is most common in the North while plate armour is widespread in the Reach. There's no word on how this affects armour in the past, since the Seven Kingdoms were at war for millennia prior to Aegon's Conquest, with the North in particular warring with the Ironborn and the Vale while the kingdoms south of the Neck were constantly at each other's throats. It also doesn't help that TWOIAF credits the Andals with bringing iron mail and plate armour to Westeros, while the Rhoynar smiths that settled in Dorne with Nymeria are said to have produced suits of scale and plate even the Andals couldn't match.

Nonetheless, the Hundred Years War from Crecy to Agincourt is a good point of reference for us to assess the arms and armour of the Dance. "Armour in England, 1325–99" by Thom Richardson gives an excellent overview, via the Tower of London's inventories from the first half of the Hundred Years, of the kinds of armour that would have been used at that time including mail, coat of plates, and individual pieces of plate armour. The Grandes Chroniques de France, a history of France begun by St. Louis/Louis IX in 1270 and continued until 1461, also contains images which give a good sense of the armour and also arms we could expect, at least for knights and men-at-arms. In particular, these illustrations of Crecy and Poitiers made roughly 20 years after the events of those battles shows a wide variety of equipment: swords and daggers, lances and spears, battle axes or hand axes and poleaxes; round shields or triangular heater shields, of which some have a notch or curve in the corn to support the couched lance; helmets of the bascinet and kettle hat variety, some of the latter having visors and almost all having an aventail to protect the neck and head below the ears; and probably more plate armour than we should expect but most of it protecting the limbs and lower body, with some combination of mail and coat of plates protecting the torso underneath a surcoat. This issue of armour and equipment is important, as it has implications for the performance and effectiveness of missile troops and cavalry in he Dance.

v. Archery, historical and Westerosi

Missile troops in this instance refers to bowmen and crossbowmen, generally referred to as 'archers' in the narrative of the Dance. Outside of Essos and southern Dorne where composite recurve bows seem to be most widely used, archers not armed with a crossbow generally use a longbow, a weapon most famous in our own history for it's use by the Welsh and English armies of the Medieval and Early Modern Periods. They feature prominently in the Dance and particularly the defeat of the Westerlands army: Red Robb Rivers shoots down the ravens which Lord Lefford sends to request Aemond's aid at the Lakeshore; Alysanne Blackwood is thought to have killed Amos Bracken at the Burning Mill with an arrow through his visor, and later shoots down the charge of the Stormlands cavalry with her archers at the Kingsroad; and Criston Cole is killed by Red Robb and his archers at the Butcher's Ball when they put three arrows into his neck, belly, and chest, while Bill Burley puts three arrows in the eye of Tessarion after the 2nd Battle of Tumbleton. Their performance in the Dance is heavily exaggerated however, and a proper assessment of the capabilities of the longbow has important implications for the Dance.

It's worth noting that the emphasis on the longbows of the Riverlords obscures the fact that they should be widely used by the other kingdoms. Aside from F&B telling us that the archers of the Hightower army thinned out the blacks ranks at the start of 1st Tumbleton, we never hear of anyone else in the Dance employing to great effect aside from the Riverlords. This makes little sense given that the Lannisters, Gardeners, and Durrandons among others fought over the Riverlands for millennia, so we should expect longbows to feature prominently in all the armies south of the Neck. This also ignores aspects of the worldbuilding which make clear that this is the case: as I talked about in Part 5 of the Dorne series, the Dornish Marchers are renowned as the finest bowmen in all of Westeros and yet it's the Stormlords who wind up on the receiving end of the weapon at the Kingsroad; the Marches also extended into the Reach with the Tarlys ruling over Nightsong for a time, and combined with it's use by the Stoney Dornish and the Riverlords, the bow should be well understood in the Reach (as 1st Tumbleton implies).

The Westerlands similarly warred with the Riverlords and the Gardeners, but TWOIAF indicates they were familiar with the longbow by their own experience: House Yew, which 'sprang from the loins' of the Blind Bowman Alan o' the Oak, is named after the yew tree whose wood is the best for making longbows. When we consider that Jason Lannister's host comprised 1000 mounted knights and seven times as many archers and men-at-arms, the fact that the archers of the west play no role whatsoever in the narrative makes little sense. Michael Harbinson notes in his article "The Lance in the Fifteenth Century" that English tactics in the period of the Hundred Years War centered on the "defensive-offensive," with the English deploying their men-at-arms dismounted in a prepared, defensive position, relying on the longbows to disrupt and disorganize enemy attacks with a mounted reserve pursuing the defeated enemy (Michael Harbinson, "The Lance," 160). The longbow's range also meant it could be used to induce an enemy to attack, ensuring the English could fight an attacking enemy from their secure position; this is what the French sought but failed to do with their Genoese crossbowmen against the English camp at Crecy. The Westerlands army should have had hundreds if not thousands of archers to attempting such tactics when Frey and Pate's hosts first arrived at the lakeshore, rather than sitting back and allowing the Blacks to be reinforced over the next two days.

If the tactics for missile troops leave something to be desired, the feats attributed to the longbow display ignorance of the weapon's actual capabilities and requirements. When it comes to defining what is a longbow, the British Long-Bow Society takes as it's definition a bow of at least 5'6" in length with a "D" shaped cross section (David Whetham, "The English Longbow: A Revolution in Technology?" 215); as Stuart Gorman notes in his PhD thesis The Technological Development of the Bow and the Crossbow in the Later Middle Ages, a bow less than 4 feet is not considered long while one 6 feet or more is, but how to categorize those that lie between is the difficulty (Gorman, Technological Development, 68). Longbows of the Late Medieval and Early Modern Periods were quite powerful: those recovered in 1982 from Henry VIII's warship Mary Rose which sank in 1545 had an average draw weight of 100 to 130 lbs at 30 inches (the distance from the nock point on the string to the grip of the bow when drawn) (Gorman, 40). What the narrative of the Dance fails to acknowledge, although this is an issue it shares with many portrayals of the longbow in other media, is that this power had a cost:

"The skeletons of two men found within the doomed ship have been identified by one of the world’s leading maritime archaeologists as archers thanks to the presence of physical deformities caused by regular practice with a large bow. One of these men had a thickened left fore-arm characteristic of bowyers; and both had spinal deformations from the pressure of repeatedly drawing a bow with the body twisted sideways. These deformities were present despite the fact that both men were still only in their twenties. While it may appear strange that medieval people would be capable of pulling such immense weights—weights that until very recently were thought impossible, it was the technique that made it possible. An archer could not draw a war bow and hold back the string while carefully sighting his target. Even if it were physically possible (which it is not), the enormous tension of a bow held at full draw would have been greatly detrimental to the weapon. Watching experienced modern archers attempt to shoot bows of only around 100 lbs (45 kg), it is clear that even these must be drawn and loosed in a single fluid motion, one that requires the entire body to be “thrown into it.” It is this fluid technique rather than simple brute force that made possible the ring of heavy, English war bows in use during the later Middle Ages. The level of practice required for effective use of the long bow was extremely high and such skills must have quickly atrophied in the absence of practice. It is highly doubtful that the majority of modern enthusiasts would be willing or even able to put themselves through the type of training regime that could inflict the physical deformities similar to those discovered on the Mary Rose archers." (Whetham, 223)

These two videos give an idea of the technique required to draw a longbow-it was not a simple task, and the inability to take precise aim due to the forces being held back in the draw has obvious implications for the plot of the Dance. One can find other ways to have Amos Bracken and Tessarion die that don't require a perfect hit to their eyes, but the elephant in the room is Red Robb picking off the ravens. A renowned archer like Rivers could probably aim instantaneously as would be required, but this wouldn't allow much lead-time and combined with environmental factors and the arrows he'd have access to likely being intended for combat rather than hunting, it's highly doubtful he or even his other archers could pick off every single one. This means, of course, that there's nothing to prevent Aemond from learning of Lefford's plight and flying to the aid of the Westerlands army.

Hitting Ser Criston Cole in the neck, chest, and belly from across the field at the Butcher's Ball also raises some issues, and this is where armour comes into play. When comparing the Mary Rose bows to longbows dated from the Neolithic era up to the Early Middle Ages, Gorman found that while many of the predecessor bows shared certain traits with the Mary Rose bows such as similar lengths, grip widths, and thickness of limbs, the Mary Rose bows were longer and had a narrower grip width compared to the thickness of their limbs, factors that combined together to produce their high draw weights (Gorman, 81-89). The higher draw weights of the Mary Rose bows compared to the likely weights of their predecessors was due to the need to defeat stronger armour as was available in the 16th century; writing of the Battle of Flodden (1513) between Scotland and England, the English chronicler Edward Hall observed of the armoured pikemen in the Scottish front ranks, "they abode the most dangerous shot of arrowes, which sore them noyed, and yet it hit them in some bare place it dyd them no hurt." (Gervase Phillips, "Longbow and Hackbutt, 579) For the bows used at Crecy and Agincourt, their performance against armour would have been better at short range for weaker bows than at long range, where even bows with the highest draw weight would have struggled against torso armour of 2-3mm thickness, although limbs and the less well-armoured soldiers would have been at greater risk.

vi. Medieval Cavalry: A Historiographical Essay

We now come to our final subject for ground warfare, cavalry; despite having 1000 mounted knights in it's ranks at the start of the campaign, we have no indication that they played any role for the Westerlands army. On the other hand, the Blacks cavalry is crucial to their success: Forrest Frey brings 200 knights to 'the Fish Feed' and 300 are with the Black army at the 'Butcher's Ball,' but it is the 2000 'Winter wolves' under Roderick Dustin that take center stage. Clad in 'old mail,' armed with axes, mauls, spiked maces, and ancient iron swords atop their 'shaggy northern horses,' the 'Winter wolves' make five cavalry charges against the Westerlands army at 'the Fish Feed,' losing more than 2/3rds of their number killed or wounded. Accepting Elio Garcia's claim that the 2000 dead at the Lakeshore in F&B refer to the Blacks losses, this means the 'Winter wolves' dead made up a significant portion of that number and that the 'Winter wolves' almost singlehandedly won the Battle of the Lakeshore. Their remnants go on to spoil the Greens victory at 1st Tumbleton, as Dustin and his remaining men charge through the ranks of the Hightower army to kill Ormund and Bryndon Hightower.

In an addition to Part 12 of the original series, I took aim at what I believed was the story exaggerating the qualities of cavalry historically; as I admitted in Part One of this new analysis, reading more about pre-modern warfare has led me to revise some of the stances I took in the first series, and this is one of them. My own background is studying the First World War and 19th-20th century warfare in general, having written my Master's dissertation of British cavalry training and operations from 1904 to September, 1914. Given that infantry, let alone cavalry, sought to avoid massing formations on a battlefield swept by firepower, I accepted John Keegan's 'maxim' from The Face of Battle that horses wouldn't charge a solid formation as they couldn't leap it or pass through it. The conditions facing cavalry on Medieval and even Early Modern battlefields was very different, and I want to try my hand at reassessing the effectiveness and capabilities of Medieval cavalry. To do this, I'll be responding to some of the arguments in the historiography of Medieval military history from the past 3 decades or so, before laying out how cavalry could or should have operated in Dance and where the problems actually lie with how they were written in the Riverlands campaign.

Beginning with historiography, i.e. how history has been written and the trends it followed, I'm assessing Matthew Bennett's essay "The Myth of the Military Superiority of Knightly Cavalry," delivered as a conference paper in 1995 and republished in Medieval Warfare 1000-1300 in 1998, edited by John France (pg 171-184). Bennett has been a successful Medieval military historian for many decades, and his essay is an excellent place to start for assessing the arguments of likeminded historians such as Bernard Bachrach and John Gillingham who argued against the centrality of battle and cavalry in particular to Medieval warfare, placing greater emphasis on infantry and sieges. Bennett's thesis is that "cavalry, no matter how well-equipped or motivated, could make no impression upon foot soldiers who kept their formation," adding that "even the best equipped mounted men of any period could not hope to overthrow a determined infantry line, without missile men to break it up, enabling the horsemen to force their way into breaches," touting "the ability of well-ordered foot soldiers to hold off knightly cavalry in almost any time or place..."(Bennett, "Myth of Military Supremacy," 178-179, 183). To support these contentions, Bennett cites the Norman victories at Hastings (1066), Civitate (1053), and Durazzo (1081), as well as the Battles of Legnano (1176) and Bouvines (1214) with further instances from the Latin East during the Crusades. In his view, the Flemish victory over the French at Courtrai (1302) was unsurprising as the previous clashes indicate that cavalry could make little headway against infantry, thereby questioning the idea that an 'infantry revolution' in the 14th century ended an 'age of cavalry.'

Closer examination of his evidence shows that the majority of examples he provides actually disprove his argument, starting with the Battle of Hastings. Drawing on Stephen Morillo's essay "Hastings: An Unusual Battle," Bennett argues that the Norman cavalry were unable to break into English formations until they had been thinned out by archery during the day, and that the initial retreat of William's army at the start of the battle was halted only by the deaths of Gyrth and Leofwine Godwinson, Harold Godwinson's brothers, which disorganized the English advance. This argument doesn't actually support the cavalry being impotent however: if we follow Morillo's hypothesis of a general advance by Godwinson's army after the initial Norman attack failed, this still means the initial archery of the Normans and the attack of their infantry failed to make headway, and the Norman cavalry had to intervene to prevent a rout. Moreover, if we follow the Bayeux Tapestry as Morillo suggests (Morillo, "Unusual Battle", pg. 100) regarding the placement of Gyrth and Leofwine's deaths, we have to acknowledge that the Tapestry depicts their deaths at the hands of the Norman cavalry while surrounded by their own men. Morillo's placing of the brothers at the center of the line would even suggest that the Norman cavalry could 'make an impression' on the English formation, since the Norman cavalry would have to pass through or around their own infantry to strike the center of Godwinson's formation, allowing time for Harold's brothers to join the ranks had they been placed in front of the lines.

The evidence proposed by Bennett using Morillo's hypothesis does not support that the cavalry had no answer to an infantry formation, at least not unequivocally. If we then accept that it the feigned flights by the Norman cavalry ultimately broke up the shieldwall on Senlac Hill, this likewise fails to decrease cavalry's effectiveness: after all, the Norman infantry attack failed and they were nearly routed, with the Norman cavalry deserving the credit for halting the English advance by killing Harold's brothers and so disorganizing their advance (again, following Morillo's hypothesis). Aside from a brief crisis when William was believed dead, the Norman cavalry remained the primary force for the Normans in the rest of the battle, maintaining pressure on Godwinson's forces with their advances and feigned retreats. The physical and psychological drain of these maneuvers finally induced the English to pursue the final Norman 'retreat' down the hill; this was made possible by the superior mobility of the Norman cavalry, who had a difficult enough time repeating these advances up hill which infantry would have found exhausting in the hot sun.

Bennett's argument regarding Hastings relies on a significant amount of context being left out, and his use of the Battle of Civitate between the Papacy and the Norman Humphrey d'Hauteville is a similar case. Clifford Rogers covers the battle in his essay "Cavalry in Battle in Italy, 1000-1200," and Charles D. Stanton has also reconstructed it in the Journal of Medieval Military History. The battle was won from the outset by the Norman cavalry with little aid from supporting arms, as Humphrey charged the Italian and Lombard levies who were disorganized and ran at the sight; according to Stanton, the Swabian swordsmen remained on the field and charged Humphrey, with both sides clashing in a stalemate until Robert Guiscard fell upon the Swabians flank and inflicted heavy losses, the coup de grace being delivered by Richard of Aversa after he returned from pursuing the papal forces (Stanton, "The Battle of Civitate," 48-50). In this case the cavalry unequivocally won the day, and even when they met opposition from the Swabians these only withstood one attack by the Norman cavalry.

Infantry faired far better at Durazzo but the day still ended in a crushing victory for the Norman cavalry; in this case, Robert Guiscard clashed with the Byzantine Emperor Alexios I Komnenos in modern-day Albania. Norman cavalry on the right attacked the Byzantine left and the Varangian Guard, possibly in a feigned retreat to draw them out; Georgios Theotokis provides more details in his article "The myth of the invincibility of the Norman cavalry charge," and suggests that these were light cavalry levies while Guiscard's knights were with him in the center of the line. Nonetheless, the Varangian Guard attacked and managed to rout the Norman right but wound up removing themselves from the fight by pursuing the Normans, who rallied and defeated them with the support of Guiscard's infantry from the center. Bennett emphasizes this episode but subsequently 'buries the lead' that Guiscard's cavalry carried the day despite this reverse by charging the remaining part of the superior Byzantine host, routing it in turn. Infantry were not unimportant in this battle, but it was the cavalry that proved decisive in Guiscard's case while also proving they could charge and break infantry formations. The results of Hastings, Civitate, and Durazzo show only partial infantry success at best, and even when they could hold out for a time in defensive formations this still does not undermine the overall superiority displayed by cavalry in these engagements.

At Legnano, the cavalry of Frederick Barbarossa drove off the Milanese cavalry and allowed Barbarossa's army to attack the Lombard League forces on the road to Pavia. The League infantry held off Barbarossa's cavalry for a time, but the League only won the day when the Milanese cavalry joined up with the Brescian cavalry that were riding to their aid and attacked the Imperial army, with Barbarossa nearly being captured in the process (Rogers, "Cavalry in Battle," 77-80). At Bouvines, Bennett speaks of the Brabancon pikemen "defying the French knights, only to be let down by the Imperial horse, and eventually overwhelmed by the French foot," but this again ignores the wider context of the battle; I'm drawing on J.F. Verbruggen's account in this case, and while he is more supportive of cavalry's role in the Middle Ages his account of Bouvines also highlights the Brabancons. The battle on the French left was decided by cavalry, the French getting the better of the Flemish and Hainault forces there; in the center, the Holy Roman Emperor and his cavalry broke through the French infantry and fought through to the retinue of Phillip Augustus, the French king, with the Imperial foot also breaking through to follow up, the battle being won by the knights of the French center and left (Verbruggen, The Art of War in Western Europe, pg. 251-255).

The Allied right was made up of Renaud de Dammartin and the Earl of Salisbury representing King John of England, with Dammartin's Brabancon mercenary pikemen forming up two ranks deep in a circular formation that allowed Dammartin to launch mounted attacks against the French left; the Brabancons were not alone on the right nor did they play the only role in stymying the French attacks there, who only attacked the pikemen once; by this point the battle was already won and it ultimately fell to Thomas St. Valery and 50 knights with a number of French foot to defeat the Brabancons. The situation was similar to that of the Swabians at Civitate, the battle being already won and the Brabancons abandoned; they withstood an attack by cavalry, but the smaller force led by St. Valery seems to have penetrated their formation, allowing the French infantry to annihilate the Brabancons (Ibid).

Bennett's argument is on better ground with his examples from the Latin East; he quotes an episode from The Autobiography of Ousama in which Prince Tancred of Antioch and his retinue clashed with Muslim footsoldiers from Schaizar:

On a day (in Spring 1111), a number of footsoldiers came out of Shaizar. The Franks charged them, without disturbing their formation. Thereupon Tancred became angry and said, 'You are my knights and each of you receives pay equivalent to the pay of a hundred Muslims. You have these sergeants (by which he meant the infantry) in front of you, and you are not capable of moving them!' They answered, 'Our only fear was for our horses. Otherwise we would have trampled them and pierced them with our lances.' Tancred replied, 'The horses are my property; I shall replace any one's horse that gets killed.' They then made several charges against the men of Shaizar, and lost seventy horses, without being able to get the men out of their position (Bennett, 179).

The infantrymen held off Tancred's attacks but this does not suggest that he could not break into the ranks, rather that he could not drive them from their position. The initial attempts failed due to his men's reluctance to charge, but they clearly came to blows based on the amount of horses they lost. Nonetheless, this is a single skirmish between forces whose numbers are not given; he also cites the Crusader's 'fighting march' during the 3rd Crusade, but highlights the importance of crossbowmen to keeping the Arab horse-archers at bay, demonstrating that infantry required more to withstand cavalry than just maintaining formation (Bennett, 178-179).

The reasons behind this situation stems from institutions, as Stephen Morillo argues in the "The Age of Cavalry Revisited;" state capacity and urban growth were required to foster the institutions necessary to raise large infantry armies, or at least foster the social bonds that allowed infantry to hold formation in battle. While I disagree with Morillo's claim that it was 'bad infantry' more than good cavalry which characterized this age, as it we have seen good infantry which good cavalry could defeat, the challenge to cavalry towards the end of the 13th and beginning of the 14th centuries saw this trend reversed. Courtrai and its successors showed that large forces of infantry which were furnished in this case by large towns, could hold their own if well led and fighting on suitable ground, but it was growing states and urban settlements that ensured this.

As we will see, cavalry could still break infantry formations after this time but it became a more costly enterprise; writing about the Battles of Dreux and Ivry during the French Wars of Religion, Frédéric Chauviré records the observations of Gaspard de Saulx, a Catholic commander and Marshal of France, and Henri IV of Navarre, the later Protestant leader and unifier of France, to this affect. de Saulx's son, Jean de Tavannes, records his father's comments about the Huguenot cavalry attacks on the Swiss pikemen at Dreux: "it was very foolish to use the vigour of the cavalry to make charges against the swiss or enemy footmen in the campaigns of France, especially since it is easy to judge that the cavalry being defeated, the infantry must be lost" (Frédéric Chauviré, The New Knights: The Development of Cavalry in Western Europe, 1562-1700, 175). The Huguenot gendarmes (heavy lancers) penetrated the square of 5-6000 Swiss pikemen many times with the aid of pistoleers and mounted arquebusiers, but with their lances expended the proved easy prey for the Catholic cavalry; thus at the Battle of Ivry, when informed of the numerous horsemen of his foes, Henri Navarre declared "Good, more people, more glory. Besides once the cavalry are defeated, it will be all well for us to beat the footmen" (Ibid.).

The track record of cavalry in battle was better against even infantry than Bennett would suggest, but the position that cavalry was not a dominant force in Medieval warfare derives from a broader view of the period. Summing up research on Medieval siege warfare in the Journal of Military History in 1994, Bernard Bachrach concluded that "siege warfare dominated Medieval Warfare" and that "the heavily armoured knight on horseback...had at best a minor role to play" as "there was no place for the warhorse in the sapper's tunnel, the artilleryman's battery, or the crossbowman's belfry" (Rogers, "Cavalry in Battle," 61). In the context of the Hundred Years War we can say that Bachrach is correct about the place of siege warfare, though it is also more complicated: using the Chronicles of Jean Froissart and his successors, Clifford Rogers and his students determined that there were just under 900 sieges in the Hundred Years War using a broad definition and 350 with a narrower definition, compared to 132 and 50 battles respectively (Clifford Rogers, "Investigating the Outcome of Sieges During the Era of the Hundred Years' War," 26). Whether broadly or narrowly defined, sieges outnumbered battles by a ratio of 7:1 and this is undoubtedly a great amount but is hardly a 'vast' difference (Ibid.).

Rogers and his students did not examine the number of raids or chevauchées, but it should be noted that neither sieges not raids were mutually exclusive to battles: Crecy and Poitiers were both fought between English armies raiding and devastating the countryside and French armies responding to them, while Courtrai and Bannockburn came about as French and English armies sought to relieve the Flemish and Scottish sieges of Coutrai and Stirling Castle respectively. Moreover, while cavalry obviously played an important role in raiding, its role in siege warfare was considerable as well; in his article "Horses and Horsemen in Fifteenth-Century Siege Warfare," Michael Harbinson stresses the numerous roles for cavalry in maintaining or breaking a siege: cavalry were extremely useful for launching sorties or defending against them, for protecting convoys and foraging parties fore the besiegers or attacking those of the defenders and their relief forces, for defending and scouting the environs of the siege against relief forces, and for devastating the areas surrounding the besieged settlement to deny supplies to the besieged or besiegers.

At Harfleur in 1415, Henry V's army of 15000 men and 25000 exhausted it's 3 month supplies, allowing the French cavalry under Clignet de Brabant to exact a heavy toll by cutting off further supplies to the army and harassing Henry's foraging parties (Harbinson, "Horses and Horsemen," 207). The crowded camp and spoiled stores due to humidity led to dysentery and other sicknesses, which probably cost Henry 1500 men and over half his horses due to sickness or being slaughtered for meat (Ibid., 209-211). When Henry besieged Rouen in 1418-19, he took measures to prevent a repeat of Harfleur:

He ensured that the Seine remained navigable to English ships so that victuals from England could be “conveyed to the hoast,” particularly wine and beer. The king also “ordained a market of all things requisite to be holden,” and “armed horsemen” ensured the safety of merchants and others, who brought fodder and provisions from the surrounding countryside. (Ibid., 212)

The sieges of Arras (1414) and Compiegne (1430) demonstrate the importance of cavalry to the besieged as well: when King Charles VI of France moved to besiege Arras, John "the Fearless" of Burgundy reinforced the city with archers an6 600 men-at-arms while mounted sorties from the city and the nearby castle Bellemotte severely disrupted French efforts and encamping; further raiding by mounted troops from Lens and Douai cut off the French supplies, forcing them to abandon the siege (Ibid., 216-217). When the English and Burgundians laid siege to Compiegne in 1430, they constructed fortifications called 'bastilles' to house their troops and control the approaches to the city, although these efforts had met with mixed results at Orleans in 1429 (Ibid., 222); although the besiegers captured Joan of Arc during a French sortie, mounted forays succeeded in harassing the defenders as the bastilles were too small to house their defenders horses; construction of further bastilles near the city gates and a bridge over the Oise to ease communications in the siege lines began to have an affect on the defenders of the city, a French relief force succeeded in breaking the siege owing to a mounted attack on the siege lines after the defenders had sent away their horses, leading to a rout of the Anglo-Burgundian forces when the defenders of Compiegne sallied forth on horseback (Ibid., 222-223).

It appears the role of cavalry in Medieval siege warfare has been greatly underestimated, but it's role in raiding or chevauchées is impossible to overestimate. By Clifford Roger's estimate, mounted troops could advance 50% faster than infantry while inflicting 123% more damage during raiding, and this is certainly borne out by the historical record (Ibid., 200). In Early and High Medieval Spain, cavalgadas or raids by Spanish and Portuguese armies were a central part of warfare, securing booty and devastating the countryside in Muslim-held territories; raids by the Christian monarchies were capable of penetrating far into enemy territory, with Alfonso II of Asturias reaching Lisbon in 797, Count Rodrigo of Castile reaching Talamanca in the center of the Peninsula, and Ordoño II of Leon covering over 300 kilometers with his army to Mérida in 915 (García Fitz and Monteiro eds., War in the Iberian Peninsula, 66-67). This policy of repeated raiding or 'softening' of enemy lands allowed for many cities to be taken with only a short siege or none at all: Fernando III captured Toledo in 1085 after 8 years of raiding the surrounding country, including devastating the environs of Jaen and Seville prior to the siege of Toledo itself, with the city subsequently surrendering without resistance after negotiations (Ibid., 68-69, 84-85).

vii. "I wanna be in the cavalry, if they send me off to war..."

As I hope I've made clear, Medieval cavalry could be extremely effective fighting forces on and off the battlefield, and while far from invincible, it was absolutely the dominant arm of the Early and High Middle Ages and remained crucial in war during the Late Medieval and Early Modern Periods. The question is to what extent we get any sense of these capabilities in the Dance, particularly during the Riverlands campaign. We've already talked about the absence of a vanguard or any kind of subunits in the Westerlands army and how this makes little sense given the 1000 mounted knight Jason Lannister brought with him and how useful they should have been as coureurs, a combined term for foragers and scouts whose roles George divides into separate units of foragers and outriders in ASOIAF. The Westerlands army stumbles upon the Blacks at the Lakeshore who are already in it's path, while the Blacks are able to ambush Cole's scouts and foraging parties almost at will. There's no real excuse for this haphazardness especially on the part of the Westerlands forces given the mounted troops they have available.

When it comes to cavalry 'types,' i.e. light, heavy, Medieval cavalry tended not to be so specialized with dedicated light and heavy cavalry regiments (Chevaulx-legers or Stradiots vs Gendarmes in French) only emerging in Europe during the Early Modern Period, in particular during and after the Italian Wars (Michael Harbinson, "Coureurs and Their Role in Late Medieval Warfare," 189-190). As previously mentioned, Medieval cavalry in the High and Late periods were organized into 'lances' comprised of both heavily armoured men-at-arms as well as mounted archers and/or crossbowmen and more lightly armoured men-at-arms known to the French as coustilliers and "valets de geurre" (Ibid., 159). Nor was the equipment of coureurs drastically different from their more heavily armoured comrades: the Discipline militaire of 1548 documents the equipment of French chevaulx-legers which differs little from the earlier coureurs: "salade [sallet helmet], gorget, hallecret [armoured undergarment], (breast plate), gauntlets, tassets, shoulder and arm guards, and carried a lance" (Ibid., 169).

The main difference appears to have been the degree of protection worn and how they were mounted: ronceys and coursers seem to have been the preferred mounts for coureurs, being more riding horses than battlefield mounts like a destrier, although the differences between these horse types are not clear and most Medieval warhorses tended to be 15 hands at most (see Part Four and Five of the Dorne series for my discussions there) (Ibid., 160-161). Since a knight or man-at-arms could be expected to have 2 or even 3 horses, this allowed even those more heavily armoured men-at-arms to partake as coureurs, and even kings or high ranking nobles partook in scouting with their coureurs, such as Richard the Lionheart and Joan of Arc (Ibid., 155-156). Yet despite the horsemen available to both sides and their potential to effect events away from the battlefield, it is in battle that we get our only real case of cavalry decisively affecting the campaign.

When it comes to the actions of the 'Winter wolves' at 'the Fish Feed,' part of the issue we have is that the details of the attacks are minimal, aside from being told that they begged to have the honour of leading the attack and charged five times into the Lannister spears. Based on our account of Roddy the Ruin's charge at 1st Tumbleton, the 'Winter wolves' seem to have helms, shields, and mail armour along with their eclectic mix of weapons we listed earlier, while the 'Butcher's Ball' contrasts the 'Winter wolves' "shaggy northern horses" with the "armoured destriers" of the Riverlands knights. We don't know where on the front of the Westerlands army the 'Winter wolves' made their attacks, anymore than we know where the Westerlands cavalry and archers were in this battle, but comparing what we do know about their tactics and equipment with actual Medieval cavalry makes it clear that their implied success against the Westerlands army should not have been possible.

Starting with their tactics and general employment, if we are to believe that the whole of the 2000 'Winter wolves' charged the Lannister spears, then this is far too many men involved for their own good. As Michael Harbinson demonstrates, success in a cavalry charge was not necessarily dependent on having large numbers:

At Poitiers (1356), Eustance de Ribemont considered 300 armored horsemen were sufficient to deal with the English archers. At La Gravelle (1423), the English were routed by 140 lances, and in the following year at Verneuil, 400 armored Lombards penetrated the whole English line. At Vivoin (1432), a charge by 80–100 lances destroyed a significantly larger, but disorganized English force; while at Gerberoy (1435), the English were defeated in detail by around 60 horsemen. Lastly, at Formigny (1450), Richemont achieved success with 200–240 lances. (Harbinson, "The Lance," 171-172)

These engagements featured the lance as the main weapon, but the 10th Century Praecepta Militaria of Nikephoros II Phokas records Byzantine Kataphraktoi tactics for breaking through the enemy's ranks using mace and sword-armed cavalrymen. It recommends forming a wedge 10-20 ranks across at the front and comprised of 384-504 men in total, 80-150 of whom were to be horse archers in the rear ranks who would fire on the enemy as the formation advanced (Eric McGeer, Sowing the Dragon's Teeth: Byzantine Warfare in the Tenth Century, 35-37). The charge was to be delivered at a trot with the aim of smashing through the shields and spears of the enemy front ranks and breaking through to attack their commander, with light cavalry vanguards or prokoursatores moving on the formation's flanks to support them with missiles (Ibid., 39-42).

The most important factor to successfully executing a cavalry charge was maintaining the momentum and order of the units involved, so as to strike with speed en masse when the time arrived to deliver the charge. Collisions between tightly packed horses would cause disorder which would in turn reduce the pace of the advance and leave riders and mounts vulnerable to enemy missiles, causing the formation to dissipate as men fells out of the ranks. As 19th Century British cavalryman Louis Edward Nolan put it in 1854:

A charge, even on good ground, is seldom executed by the whole line at once; the enemy is reached in succession by different points in the line more advanced than others. It is therefore of the greatest consequence that those detachments which reach the enemy first shall be compact, and go at him as one man, to burst through. It is easily understood that with fifty men this can be done; but it becomes almost an impossibility with one hundred and fifty or two hundred. (Harbinson, "The Lance," 159)

Although the French lance charges which Harbinson lists above were from battles which had nowhere near the number of troops involved on either side of 'the Fish Feed' save Poitiers and Verneuil, nor were the English in any of these battles surrounded on all sides as the Westerlands army was, arranging the 'Winter wolves' into more manageable units for their charge would have been vastly more effective than however they seem to have been employed. This would also have permitted multiple charges simultaneously or in quick succession, although it's also worth noting that the Blacks may have been better off engaging the Westerlands army on the march rather than at the God's Eye where it's rear would be covered by the lakeshore.

viii. "I wanna be in the cavalry, but I won't ride home no more."

The equipment of the 'Winter wolves' and their mounts also leaves much to be desired, starting with their 'shaggy northern horses' who seem to have no protection whatsoever. The contrast between the northern horses and the armoured destriers of the Riverlands knights clearly indicates that the 'Winter wolves' brought no barding, i.e. horse armour, for their steeds, and this is a serious problem. Barding for warhorses has been used for centuries, with Xenophon recommending that a cavalry horse should have "a frontlet, breastplate and thigh pieces and its belly, the weakest part, should be protected with quilted material," in the early 4th Century BC (Ibid., 188). The Praecepta recommended barding the horses of the Kataphraktoi "so that nothing of the horses body appears except its legs and nostrils," the legs below the knees and the underbelly being left unarmoured while the barding itself was to be made from pieces of felt or boiled leather that were glued or stitched together, with bison hide also being recommended (McGeer, Dragon's Teeth, 37). By the time of the Hundred Years War, barding included head and neck armour (shaffron, crinet), fore and hind quarters armour (peytral, cruppers), and side armour (flanchards) with gambeson-like padding worn beneath the armour and a cloth covering or caparison sometimes worn over top (Harbinson, "The Lance," 189).

Barding was essential for protecting horses from projectiles and the blows of weapons and collisions on the battlefield, but it was generally not donned unless battle or combat was otherwise imminent, being carried separately while on the march. In battles such as Agincourt (1415), while the less well armoured horses of the valets and other auxiliaries often suffered from archery, the well armoured horses of the men-at-arms were largely unscathed, though prolonged exposure to the blunt force trauma of the English arrows had a negative effect on their willingness to charge (Ibid., 190-194). It was especially helpful when the charge was delivered or in the melee that would follow, as demonstrated during the Ghent War (1449-1453) when Burgundian knight Jacques de Lalaing was rescued from battle by a valet whose horse broke through the Ghentish pikes with it's peytral (Harbinson, Coureurs, 162). The lack of barding for the nothern horses places the 'Winter wolves' at a serious disadvantage, as their mounts possess no protection against the Westerlands archers or the weaponry of their men-at-arms and cavalry. This creates a problem for the narrative since the 'shaggy northern horses' are mentioned at the 'Butcher's Ball' and were presumably ridden at 1st Tumbleton, implying that the 'Winter wolves' somehow still had horses after the horrific losses in men they suffered at 'the Fish Feed' even though this is extremely unlikely.

The riders themselves are similarly poorly equipped for the kind of attacks they are making, as among the list of weapons F&B gives us at the 'Butcher's Ball' wielded by Dustin's men, one is conspicuously missing: the lance. We know from Dunk's Trial of Seven in The Hedge Knight that lances in Westeros come in two forms, 'war lances' and 'tourney lances;' the latter being 12 feet long and hollow while the former are made from 8 feet of solid ash and tipped with steel, with tourney lances being designed to break for safety reasons, although Stannis' knights are said to be armed with 12 foot lances in Davos III of ACOK. Historically, lances were about 10 feet long by the beginning of the Hundred Years War and had grown to 16 feet by the end according to J.F. Finó. As for how they were constructed and used, I strongly recommend Alan William's and co.'s "Experimental Investigation of Late Medieval Comat with the Couched Lance" and Michael S. Curl's "Late Medieval Lance Use," as they do an excellent job of demonstrating why the lance was so effective when couched and how its use evolved in war and jousting.

When it comes to jousting and the use of the lance in war, Westeros seems to be stuck in the early days of jousting, i.e. the 12th or 13th centuries when compared to the equipment and technology available by the time of the Hundred Years War. Westerosi lances are noticeably shorter than those of the 14th or 15th centuries, and shields are used primarily for protection with no indication that notches are added to help support the lance and impart greater force. This also means that Westeros lacks two incredibly important devices, the arrêt de lance or grapper and the arrêt de cuirasse, the former being a leather strap placed in front of the hand grip to prevent the lance being pushed backward on impact while the latter was a metal hook attached to the side of the cuirass to further stabilize the lance and dissipate the recoil throughout the armour and torso to increase the energy of the impact (Harbinson, "The Lance," 143-144). Williams' experiments showed that without the the arrêt de cuirasse the energy imparted by the lance varied from just under 100 joules to just below 200, with 100 joules being possible even without a saddle, but the arrêt allowed 200 or more joules to be imparted regularly (Williams, "Experimental Investigation," 7-8).

These differences in equipment mean that lance strikes by Westerosi cavalry should in theory be less powerful, at least consistently, than was achievable in our own history. Nonetheless, the lance would be the best option for a cavalry charge due to its greater reach and potential to kill or wound through armour when couched. Utilizing the lance, small, more manageable units of experienced men such as the 'lances' of Charles VII's compagnies d'ordonnance in the latter part of the Hundred Years War, were capable of penetrating and breaking-up formations of infantry and cavalry (Harbinson, "The Lance," 196-197). Nor did a charge have to be be a frontal attack, as attacking from an angle or changing direction mid-charge (called "coasting" by the French) could allow units to find openings, attack a flank, or strike from where enemy polearms would not have a good angle to strike rider or horse (Ibid., 175-176). The issue with the 'Winter wolves' is that their weapons have very limited reach on account of not being lances and must be wielded with one hand in order to hold their shield; it's extremely unlikely they could get the first strike on the Westerlands infantry during their charge while the one-armed blows of their weapons would be unlikely to penetrate or otherwise defeat armour unless delivered using the momentum of their mounts. The charges of the 'Winter wolves' could not have ended in any other way than complete failure; on the other hand, if we're to believe the entire Westerlands host was at the Lakeshore when Lefford first encountered the Blacks and assuming his mounted knights had lances, Pate of Longleaf and his stragglers and reinforcements moving up to their rear should have been a prime target for the Westerlands horse to ride over and scatter, as they would have had to take up formation immediately off the march to have any chance of surviving a charge.

I'm going to keep the 'fix-its' fairly brief is with Part Two, since the section on strategy will cover more of how the actions of the armies might have been written better. Nonetheless, the issues with mobilization could be fixed by being more consistent in their timing or having the harvest affect everyone across the board. F&B is too late to be introducing wages for soldiers in Westerosi militaries, but including them from the start of ASOIAF would have made it easier to overlook the issue of army sizes and service length. I want to thank you, dear reader, for making it through this one from start to finish; I hope you found it informative and enjoyable! We'll continue our analysis of Westerosi militaries next time with Part Four: Naval Warfare in the Dance!

#house of the dragon #hotd #asoiaf #asoiaf critical #grrm #grrm critical #fire and blood #fire and blood critical #jason lannister #humfrey lefford #alysanne blackwood #red robb rivers

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novaursa · 6 months ago

Text

The Second Daughter

- Summary: You were born as a second daughter under the watchful eye of a full moon. And just like the moon you were beautiful—and cursed to exist only in the dark.

- Pairing: targ!reader/Jason Lannister

- Note: This is a sneak peek into a story that will take over after Between Pride and Fire.

- Rating: Mature 16+

- Next part: the princess and the lion

- Tag(s): @sachaa-ff @oxymakestheworldgoround

Excerpts from Fire and Blood: The Life of Y/N Targaryen

The Birth of Y/N Targaryen (99 AC)

Grand Maester Mellos writes:

"It was on the night of a full moon, under skies alight with silver, that Lady Aemma Arryn gave birth to her second child at the manse in King's Landing. The labor was long and fraught, though Lady Aemma endured with the stoic grace for which she was known. When the hour of the bat arrived, the child came forth—a girl, pale-haired and lilac-eyed, with all the hallmarks of her Valyrian lineage. The babe, whom her parents would name Y/N, was the picture of perfection save for one cruel twist of fate: she did not see."

Mushroom, the fool, provides his account:

"When the baby first let out her wail, King Viserys (though not yet a king, mind you) burst into the birthing chamber. He had expected a boy, as men often do, but the sight of his daughter softened him at once. I saw him hold her, weeping openly, calling her ‘my little star.’ But the joy turned to sorrow before the sun rose. The maesters whispered their findings to the King and Queen—little Y/N was blind. Her lilac eyes, though beautiful as a spring morn, would never see the world around her. The joy in that room turned as cold as a long winter’s night."

Lady Aemma, overcome with grief, clutched the babe to her chest, her tears mingling with her husband's. Yet despite this sorrow, Y/N was loved fiercely by her parents. "She will never see the world," Viserys said, "but she will feel its love."

The Accession of King Viserys I (103 AC)

Grand Maester Mellos records:

"Upon the passing of the Old King Jaehaerys I in 103 AC, Viserys ascended to the Iron Throne. Y/N, though but four years old, was present at her father’s coronation, sitting quietly beside her elder sister, Rhaenyra, who delighted in the pageantry. Y/N, by contrast, showed little interest in the pomp of court life, even at so young an age. Though blind, she was said to have a preternatural sense of calm, often described as ‘otherworldly.’”

Mushroom recalls:

"Even as a babe, Y/N seemed to find no pleasure in the games of court. She clung to her mother’s skirts or her sister’s hand, never crying, never laughing as the other children did. Her blindness marked her apart, but so too did her gentleness. ‘Aemma’s grace reborn,’ the lords would whisper. Little did they know how much Viserys would favor her, sparing her from the demands placed upon her elder sister. Rhaenyra learned to charm and command, while Y/N was left to dream in her quiet world of dark."

The Bonding with Silverwing (108 AC)

Grand Maester Mellos writes:

"It was during the royal family’s visit to Dragonstone in 108 AC that Y/N Targaryen, then but nine years of age, performed a feat that astonished even the most seasoned Dragonkeepers. Drawn to the abandoned dragon Silverwing, once ridden by Queen Alysanne, Y/N approached her in Dragonmont. Those who witnessed it spoke of how the child sang to the dragon in High Valyrian, her voice carrying a melody so hauntingly beautiful that it seemed the dragon wept. Silverwing, known for her gentle nature, bent her great head to the blind girl, allowing her to touch her snout. From that moment forth, Y/N was counted as a dragonrider, though she could not see the skies she now commanded."

Mushroom, ever dramatic, adds:

"When Y/N sang, even the stones seemed to shiver. I swear on my twisted back, I saw Silverwing shed a tear as she lowered herself to the girl. ‘She knows her rider,’ said the Dragonkeepers, and I believed it. How could I not? Y/N could not see, but she felt the dragon’s heart, and that was enough."

Her Life at Court

Grand Maester Mellos writes:

"As Y/N grew, her beauty became a topic of much admiration. Her pale hair, always intricately braided by her own hand, and her serene demeanor earned her the adoration of lords and ladies alike. Yet, she remained a rare sight at court, preferring the solitude of the gardens or the companionship of her sister, Rhaenyra. King Viserys, protective of his second daughter, seldom required her presence at formal functions. When she did appear, her soft-spoken nature and gentle grace captivated all who met her."

Ser Lorent Marbrand, her sworn shield since childhood, was ever at her side, guiding her through the halls of the Red Keep and beyond. “She has no need of sight,” Ser Lorent once said. “She sees with her heart, and that is sharper than any blade.”

Mushroom, however, whispers of her loneliness:

"Though the court praised her beauty and grace, Y/N was no fool. She knew she was overlooked in favor of her elder sister. Rhaenyra, the Realm’s Delight, drew suitors like moths to a flame, while Y/N’s blindness and quiet demeanor made her an afterthought to many. Yet, those who truly knew her—her sister, her father, and even her dragon—held her in the highest regard."

The Princess and the Black Mare

Grand Maester Mellos writes:

"When Princess Y/N turned ten, her father, King Viserys, gifted her a black mare of remarkable intelligence. The horse, trained by the finest horsemasters in the realm, was taught to respond to subtle cues, guiding her blind rider with unmatched care. Though Y/N was hesitant at first, under the watchful eye of Ser Lorent Marbrand, her sworn shield, she quickly took to riding. The sight of the younger princess atop the sleek black mare became a source of wonder in King’s Landing. Lords and ladies alike would lean from their windows to catch a glimpse of her as she rode through the city with her knight."

Mushroom recounts:

"I remember the day the younger princess first rode through the streets of King's Landing. Her hair, pale as the moon, trailed behind her like a banner, and her lilac eyes stared forward as if she could see clearer than the rest of us. The people marveled, saying she was a dragon in human form, radiant even in her blindness. Courtiers, who should have been attending to their duties, would abandon their posts just to watch her ride. One minor lord—whose name I will not sully this account with—rushed out of the Great Sept mid-chant to witness her. He tripped, fell into a distillery of summerberry wine, and drowned. It took three days to find his body, and when they did, Septa Rhaedis claimed he looked like ‘a pickled egg.’ The court spoke of little else for weeks.”

The Art of Touch

Grand Maester Mellos records:

"In addition to her accomplishments as a rider, Y/N Targaryen also became skilled in embroidery, a talent few believed possible for one without sight. Guided by her Septa, Rhaedis, she learned to identify patterns by touch, stitching elaborate designs into fabrics with a precision that amazed even the most experienced needleworkers at court."

When asked how she knew what she was embroidering, the princess is said to have replied:

"I see it in my dreams. The threads whisper to me as the stars whisper to the skies."

Mushroom, of course, adds his own embellishment:

"The court marveled at her works, and some claimed she was blessed by the Seven or perhaps cursed by the Old Gods. Whatever the truth, her hands created beauty beyond compare. One such tapestry, depicting dragons in flight, hung in the Great Hall of the Red Keep for many years until it was destroyed during the Black Council."

Her Bond with Prince Daemon

Grand Maester Mellos writes:

"Among those closest to the princess, none held a more unique bond with her than Prince Daemon Targaryen, her uncle. Daemon, often described as brash and hot-tempered, was uncharacteristically gentle in her presence. He called her ‘little star,’ a name that echoed her father’s first words upon her birth. It was said that he would sit with her for hours, recounting tales of his travels and victories in the Stepstones, always mindful to paint vivid pictures with his words so that she might see the world through his voice."

Mushroom offers a more colorful account:

"Daemon adored the girl, perhaps more than he did his own ambitions. He’d sit beside her, polishing Dark Sister while she listened to his tales. ‘Do you dream of dragons, little star?’ he’d ask her. ‘I dream of them always,’ she’d reply. I daresay the Rogue Prince would have brought her the moon if she asked for it. He once told me that the gods gave her blindness so she might better see the truths the rest of us are too blind to notice."

Despite their closeness, some whispered that Daemon’s affection for Y/N was an act of defiance against Viserys, a way to provoke the King. Yet others believed it was genuine—a rare display of softness from a man known for his sharp edges.

The Death of Queen Aemma and the Naming of Rhaenyra (105 AC)

Grand Maester Mellos writes:

"The year 105 AC marked a time of profound sorrow and upheaval for House Targaryen. Queen Aemma Arryn, beloved by all, passed away in childbirth, her body unable to endure the strain of delivering the long-awaited male heir. The child, a boy named Baelon, survived but a day, his life as brief as a candle in the wind. The Red Keep was plunged into mourning, for the King had not only lost his queen but his hope for a son to secure the succession."

Mushroom, ever the dramatist, recounts:

"I was there when the Queen’s screams echoed through the halls of Maegor’s Holdfast, haunting us all. The maesters whispered of the impossible choice the King had made—save the babe or save the mother. In the end, neither survived. When King Viserys emerged from the chamber, his face was as pale as bone, and in his arms, he carried the lifeless child. The court fell silent as he whispered, ‘Aemma is gone.’ Yet, in his grief, his gaze fell upon his daughters, Rhaenyra and Y/N, as if to remind himself of what remained."

Y/N, only six years old, was said to have clung to her elder sister during the days of mourning. Blind though she was, she is said to have been acutely aware of the grief that permeated the Red Keep. “I heard her tears,” she later told her Septa, “and they sounded like rain upon stone.”

It was in the wake of Aemma’s death that Viserys made the momentous decision to name Rhaenyra his heir. Grand Maester Mellos writes:

"The King, bereft of sons, gathered his council and declared his eldest daughter, Rhaenyra, the Princess of Dragonstone and his chosen successor. The proclamation was met with mixed reactions, though none dared speak against it openly. Y/N, still a child, sat beside her sister during the ceremony, her small hand clutching Rhaenyra’s, as if to lend her strength. The court whispered of the younger princess’s quiet courage, though few noticed the tears that slipped from her unseeing eyes as the crown was placed upon Rhaenyra’s head."

The Marriage to Alicent Hightower (106 AC)

Grand Maester Mellos writes:

"In the year following Queen Aemma’s death, King Viserys shocked the realm by announcing his intention to marry Alicent Hightower, daughter of Ser Otto Hightower, the Hand of the King. The match, though politically advantageous, was seen by many as a betrayal of Aemma’s memory. None felt this more keenly than the King’s daughters, Rhaenyra and Y/N, who had grown close to Alicent during her time at court."

Mushroom provides his usual flair:

"The whispers began long before the announcement. I saw Lady Alicent visiting the King’s chambers more often than a lady ought. Some said she was there to comfort him, others to ensnare him. When the match was declared, Rhaenyra stormed from the Small Council chamber, her fury unmistakable. Y/N, by contrast, said nothing. She simply withdrew to her chambers, though I later heard her weeping through the walls. ‘She feels too deeply,’ Ser Lorent said. ‘Her heart sees what her eyes cannot.’”

Despite her youth, Y/N was said to have been torn between her affection for Alicent and her loyalty to her late mother and sister. Alicent, aware of the tension her marriage caused, reportedly sought to win over the younger princess. Mushroom recounts:

"Alicent would visit Y/N often, bringing her gifts of perfumes and silks, hoping to mend the rift. ‘I am still your friend,’ she would say. But Y/N, though polite, grew distant. She would not speak against Alicent, but neither did she embrace her. When asked by her Septa why she avoided the Queen, she simply replied, ‘I dream of Mother, and in my dreams, she is crying.’”

The Court’s Reaction

Grand Maester Mellos records:

"The court, ever a cauldron of intrigue, buzzed with speculation over the King’s remarriage. While some saw Alicent as a stabilizing influence, others whispered of her ambition. Rhaenyra’s displeasure was evident, and though Y/N’s feelings remained a mystery to many, her absence from court functions spoke volumes. It was said that the younger princess spent more time in the gardens or with her dragon, Silverwing, seeking solace in the quiet places of the Red Keep."

Mushroom, in his usual irreverence, concludes:

"If the King’s marriage to Alicent Hightower was a political move, it was a clumsy one. It drove a wedge between father and daughters, a rift that would only grow wider in the years to come. As for Y/N, the court often wondered what went on behind her lilac eyes, for she remained silent, even as the storm clouds gathered. ‘A storm is coming,’ she once told her Septa. ‘And when it breaks, none will escape the rain.’”

Thus began a new chapter for the Targaryen family, one marked by tension and the seeds of division that would later engulf the realm.

The Birth of Prince Aegon (107 AC)

Grand Maester Mellos writes:

"In the year 107 AC, Queen Alicent Hightower gave birth to her first child, a son named Aegon. The boy’s safe delivery was met with great celebration throughout the realm. King Viserys, whose grief over the loss of his firstborn son had lingered like a shadow, was said to have wept with joy at the sight of his living heir. The court rejoiced, though not all shared the King’s unbridled happiness."

Mushroom adds, with his usual candor:

"The King threw a grand feast for the birth of his son, lavishing praise upon Alicent as if she had brought forth a dragon herself. Rhaenyra sat stiffly at the high table, her face pale as milk, while Y/N, ever the quiet one, simply lowered her head. When the King raised a goblet and declared Aegon his 'future pride,' the Realm's Delight left the hall in silence. Y/N, as always, followed her sister like a shadow. The court murmured, but none dared speak their thoughts aloud."

The younger princess, blind though she was, seemed to sense the shifting tides. Septa Rhaedis later claimed that Y/N confided in her, saying, “The boy’s cries are like thunder. I hear storms in his wake.”

The Suitors of Rhaenyra

Grand Maester Mellos writes:

"Following the birth of Prince Aegon, the King turned his attention to securing alliances through marriage. Rhaenyra, now in her tenth year of life, had grown into a striking young woman, admired by all for her beauty and fiery spirit. Suitors from every corner of the realm descended upon King’s Landing, eager to win the hand of the Princess of Dragonstone."

The accounts of the court speak of endless gatherings in the throne room, where lords presented gifts and pledges of loyalty. Mushroom, who was privy to these events, recounts:

"The lords came with jewels, horses, and promises of wealth, each one more desperate than the last. The Princess, seated beside her father, bore it all with a grace that belied her young age. Y/N, though often absent from such displays, was occasionally seen by her sister’s side, her unseeing lilac eyes lending an ethereal air to the proceedings. Some whispered that her presence was a silent rebuke to the King, a reminder of the family’s losses and the fragility of alliances forged by marriage."

The Shadow of the Younger Princess

Grand Maester Mellos writes:

"Amidst the fanfare surrounding Rhaenyra’s suitors and the birth of Prince Aegon, Y/N remained largely in the background, a deliberate choice by her father. The King, ever protective of his younger daughter, sought to shield her from the court’s scrutiny. Unlike her sister, Y/N was spared the endless parade of lords and their gifts. Instead, she spent her days in the gardens, on the back of her black mare, or in the company of her dragon, Silverwing."

Septa Rhaedis later wrote:

"The younger princess was not overlooked out of neglect, but out of love. The King feared that her blindness, though it inspired awe in some, would make her a target for others. He believed that by keeping her out of the court’s spotlight, he was protecting her. Yet, Y/N, for all her quiet demeanor, was no fool. She knew her father’s intentions, and though she did not voice her objections, her distance from court life created a rift between her and her family that would never fully heal."

Mushroom, ever irreverent, offers his perspective:

"While Rhaenyra was paraded before the realm like a dragon ready to take flight, Y/N was kept hidden, a jewel locked away in a vault. But jewels cannot stay hidden forever. I heard whispers even then—lords asking about the 'blind beauty' and whether the King had plans for her. Viserys, blind in his own way, dismissed such inquiries with a wave of his hand. 'She is too young,' he would say. But the court knew better. He feared what they might see in her, and what ambitions she might awaken."

The Bonds of Sisterhood

Despite the growing tension in the court, Rhaenyra and Y/N’s bond remained strong. Mushroom writes:

"The two sisters were as different as fire and moonlight, yet they shared a closeness that no storm could break. Rhaenyra often brought her suitors’ gifts to Y/N, describing them in vivid detail so her sister might share in the spectacle. Y/N, for her part, offered quiet counsel to Rhaenyra, soothing her elder sister’s frustrations with her gentle words."

Grand Maester Mellos records:

"Though the court focused its attention on Rhaenyra, it was said that she confided more in her younger sister than in anyone else. Y/N, with her serene demeanor, provided a calming presence in the storm of Rhaenyra’s life. The Realm’s Delight, for all her strength, leaned on her blind sister as one might lean on a crutch. Together, they weathered the growing tensions of the Red Keep, their bond a rare light in a darkening world."

Thus, the stage was set for the years to come, as the lines between duty, family, and ambition grew ever more tangled. While Rhaenyra shone brightly before the court, Y/N remained in the shadows, a quiet flame that many would underestimate to their peril.

The Festivities of Prince Aegon’s Eighth Nameday (115 AC)

Grand Maester Mellos writes:

"In the year 115 AC, the Red Keep hosted a grand celebration in honor of Prince Aegon’s eighth nameday. Lords and ladies from across the realm gathered to pay homage to the young prince and revel in the accompanying festivities. Among the notable attendees was Lord Jason Lannister, the proud and ambitious Lord of Casterly Rock, whose presence stirred no small amount of intrigue. It was widely known that Jason had set his sights on the hand of Princess Rhaenyra, and his bold attempts to court her became a point of great amusement—and anxiety—during the celebrations."

Mushroom, in his irreverent style, recounts:

"Lord Jason, as proud as the lions on his banners, approached the Princess of Dragonstone with the subtlety of a hammer striking an anvil. He presented her with a golden spear—a finely crafted thing, no doubt—and boasted of the hunts they might share at Casterly Rock. Rhaenyra, unimpressed, replied that she had no need for a spear, as her dragon could handle any beast that might trouble her. The court erupted in laughter, leaving Lord Jason red-faced and sputtering."

Having been rebuffed by Rhaenyra, Jason sought out King Viserys, hoping to gain the monarch’s favor. Grand Maester Mellos writes:

"Lord Jason approached the King with a proposal as blunt as it was ambitious: a marriage alliance between House Targaryen and House Lannister. King Viserys, still devoted to his plan to wed Rhaenyra to Laenor Velaryon, dismissed the offer with a firm but polite refusal. Jason left the King’s presence visibly frustrated, his composure shaken by the double rejection."

The Collision That Almost Was

It was as Lord Jason retreated from the King’s chambers, nursing his wounded pride, that he first encountered Y/N Targaryen. Grand Maester Mellos records:

"At the request of her father, Princess Y/N, seldom seen at court in recent years, made an unexpected appearance at the festivities. Her arrival, though quiet, caused a ripple of curiosity among the assembled lords and ladies. Clad in silver and black, with her pale hair braided intricately about her head, the blind princess moved through the throng with a serenity that belied the chaos of the celebrations. Ser Lorent Marbrand, her sworn shield, guided her with care."

Mushroom describes the moment with his usual flair:

"Imagine it! Lord Jason, storming through the halls like a lion with a thorn in his paw, nearly barreled into the younger princess. If not for Ser Lorent’s quick hand, the two would have collided. As it was, Jason stopped short, staring at the blind princess as if she were a ghost. I swear by the Seven, his jaw dropped so low I thought he might swallow his own pride."

It was the first time Jason Lannister laid eyes upon Y/N, and the effect was immediate. Tyland Lannister, Jason’s younger twin and a sharp observer of human folly, later recounted the scene with amusement:

"Jason, ever the picture of confidence, found himself utterly out of his element. The blind princess, serene and unflinching, greeted him with a quiet grace that seemed to rob him of speech. For a man so accustomed to admiration, it was a humbling moment. I, for one, enjoyed every second of it."

Jason, regaining his composure, offered a hasty apology, which Y/N accepted with her usual gentleness. Grand Maester Mellos writes:

"The encounter was brief, but those who witnessed it spoke of how the Lord of Casterly Rock seemed momentarily unmoored, as if the blind princess had seen through him in a way that others could not. Whether by fate or chance, it was a meeting that would linger in Jason’s mind for years to come."

Reflections and Whispers

The court, ever quick to seize upon any moment of intrigue, buzzed with speculation about Jason’s reaction to Y/N. Mushroom, always eager to stir the pot, writes:

"Some said the Lord of Casterly Rock left the festivities with more than his pride bruised. Others whispered that he had found a new prize to pursue, though how one courts a woman who cannot see their fine clothes or lavish gifts, I cannot say. Still, I’d wager Jason would find a way—lions are nothing if not persistent."

Tyland, reflecting on the event years later, remarked:

"That day marked the first time I saw my brother truly at a loss for words. Princess Y/N Targaryen, with her quiet grace and unseeing eyes, had a way of disarming even the most self-assured of men. Jason was no exception. It was as if the gods themselves had decided to humble him, and they chose her to do it."

Though the moment passed quickly, it became a tale retold in the halls of Casterly Rock and King’s Landing alike, a small but significant thread in the tapestry of Y/N’s life and the ever-turning wheel of power in the realm.

#house of the dragon #hotd #fire and blood #hotd x reader #hotd x you #hotd x y/n #game of thrones #asoiaf #a song of ice and fire #house targaryen #house lannister #hotd jason #jason lannister #jason x reader #jason x you #jason x y/n

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