Knights of the Cardboard Castle

A year passes uneventfully. Then two. The restored Targaryen dynasty gains strength from month to month. At 17 years of age, Queen Daenerys Targaryen proves to be as good a monarch as it would be possible to imagine for Westeros. The essential goodness of her character, her skill with diplomacy and her fearlessness win over the lords of the realm, great and small. It also helps that her superb generalship makes the armies she commands a force to be reckoned with and her unmatched physical beauty makes all men enamoured of her. In January 301, the first child of Queen Daenerys and King Quentyn Martell is born. She is a girl, named Cerenna Martell.

The realm is at peace for the most part. There are still small wars as various minor lords vie for lands and titles but nothing that matches one Great House against another. From time to time, some nobles talk of making a push to seat Mya Stone or Prince Gulian Baratheon on the Iron Throne but nothing ever comes of it. Mya Stone eventually marries one of the Freys while Prince Gulian seems to become content with the pleasant castle of Summerhall and does not even support the faction pushing for his kingship. Queen Daenerys faces no credible threat and such is her popularity that it is hard to imagine any such threat emerging during her lifetime.

But now that Quentyn has a child with the Queen, Prince Doran Martell must take steps to ensure that no future conflict will arise between the Iron Throne and House Martell even after his own death. Regretfully this means disinheriting Arianne Martell and naming Quentyn Martell as the heir of House Martell instead, ensuring that the children of Quentyn will be both Kings or Queens of the Iron Throne and the reigning rulers of Dorne. This machination requires some subtlety. Changing the laws of succession requires the consent of all vassals and will inevitably cause unpopularity. Only one of our vassals withholds consent. This is Lady Mya of the Ghosthills whose father was slain by Prince Oberyn Martell in the trial by combat years ago.

To appease her, we award her the Lordship of the Ghaston Grey. This causes us to lose some income but as the island is impoverished and thinly populated, the loss is very minor. This allows us to change the laws in Dorne to allow the eldest male child to inherit, reverting to the female child only if there are no male heirs. And so Quentyn becomes heir to the Dorne and Sunspear. We expected Arianne to be enraged but the change actually pleases her. It must be that she did not want to rule Dorne anyway. The one person who does get enraged is Jon Snow, Arianne’s husband, who thinks he has been cheated as he expected to marry a future ruler of Dorne. The poor bastard did not get Winterfell and now he does not get Dorne either.

Of course, Prince Doran has not forgotten his oath of blood vengeance against the Lannisters. While we occupy ourselves with replenishing both the treasury and our armies during these years of peace, we also plot the death of Ser Jaime Lannister of the Kingsguard. It is slow going but we eventually win some support from the other members of the Kingsguard, including its current Lord Commander Ser Preston. In June 301, a carriage is “accidentally” thrown off a cliff with Ser Jaime inside it.

But Lord Tywin Lannister escapes our wrath after all. While still the Hand of the King, he passes away in January 302 of natural causes at the age of 59. He is succeeded by his son Lord Tyrion, popularly known as “The Imp”. Some years ago Lord Tyrion had married Lady Jeyne Westerling and they have had a daughter together. In a gesture of trust, this daughter is given over to Queen Daenerys as her ward. However Lord Tyrion is not made Hand of the King. The Queen appoints a minor, but talented, lord to the position instead. By all accounts Lord Tyrion is a decent man and House Martell has no quarrel with him.

More years pass. Queen Daenerys’ rule becomes so entrenched that in 304, Lord Renly Baratheon fights and wins a war against Prince Gulian Baratheon for control of Summerhall, a minor conflict which the Queen wisely does not intervene in. In that year as well, the Queen gives birth to a male child, named Alester Martell, ensuring that the Iron Throne and Dorne will eventually have a male ruler. The next year, Lord Mace Tyrell, who in the last few years had become so gluttonous that he had become known as Lord Mace the Fat, dies of natural causes. His son Lord Garlan Tyrell, still married to Lady Cersei Lannister, succeeds him but we note that Cersei has still not given him a child after all their years of marriage.

As for dealing with Cersei herself, it takes a long time and as we can find no co-conspirators who wish her death, we are forced to spend ruinous amounts of gold to send for professional assassins instead. Finally in 306, the assassins succeed in killing Cersei in her own bed and thus the last name on our list is struck off. We are pleased to note that Lord Garlan remarries soon afterwards to a daughter of one of his vassals who does give him a child in short order. He does not appear to be aware of our involvement and no feud arises with House Tyrell due to this assassination.

Over the next two years, his life’s work done, Doran Martell occupies himself with the prudent administration of Dorne and amassing a large amount of gold so that Quentyn can use it to secure his own rule when the time comes. Finally near the end of 208, Doran has a stroke and becomes permanently bed-ridden. Queen Daenerys reluctantly relieves him of the position of Master of Laws and appoints Lord Edmure Tully instead. After this, he lives for only one more year and finally dies in October 209 at the age of 61 at Sunspear, surrounded by his family and friends.

Quentyn Martell, now styled King of the Seven Kingdoms and Prince of Dorne, succeeds him. Queen Daenerys remains the sovereign in King’s Landing and Quentyn moves to Sunspear by himself to rule Dorne. This distance between them could yet cause friction in the future. Worse, Quentyn is a far less talented leader than Doran Martell. Both his vassals and his court officials dislike him. His uncle, Prince Oberyn Martell, enjoyed a close relationship with Doran, and would have never entertained the notion of challenging his brother for control of Dorne, but Quentyn is a different matter, especially if his incompetence and slothfulness becomes too obvious. Revolts and assassination attempts are all risks that Quentyn Martell must contend with and it will be many years before his rule is secure.

But that is a different story and the story of Doran Martell, Prince of Dorne, has now ended.