Maelor Targaryen

Born in the year 127, Maelor Targaryen was the youngest son of the King of the Seven Crowns Aegon II Targaryen and his sister-wife Helaena Targaryen.

History

Son of Prince Aegon and his sister-wife Helaena Targaryen, Maelor Targaryen was born in 127. In accordance with his family's traditions, he was given a dragon's egg. On the third day of the third moon of the year 129, he went with his mother, his brother Jaehaerys and his sister Jaehaera to their grandfather, King Viserys I Targaryen.

The latter gives Maelor a pearl ring to play with while he tells the twins a story before going to bed.

The king dies that night in his sleep, triggering the succession conflict known as the Dance of the Dragons, pitting the Blacks of Queen Rhaenyra Targaryen against the Greens of her half-brother, Aegon II Targaryen, Maelor's father.

That same year, after the death of Prince Lucerys Velaryon, son of Rhaenyra, killed by Maelor's uncle, Prince Daemon Targaryen hired two killers, Blood and Cheese, to avenge his death.

They break into the chambers of Queen Dowager Alicent Hightower in the Tower of the Hand in the Red Keep. That night, Queen Helaena brings her three children to say goodnight to their grandmother. The killers murder their guard and force Helaena to decide which of her sons will die.

At first reluctant, the queen is forced to choose in order to prevent her daughter from being raped and the whole family from dying: she then chooses her youngest son Maelor.

The killers exchange a knowing smile, before killing Jaehaerys and fleeing. Helaena Targaryen, driven mad by grief and crushed by guilt, refuses to see Maelor again afterwards. It is finally the dowager queen Alicent Hightower, his grandmother, who takes care of him.

When Rhaenyra Targaryen took King's Landing in 130, Maelor Targaryen was among those who disappeared. Rhaenyra offered a reward for his capture.

The young prince was secretly led out of the Red Keep by order of the master of the whisperers, Larys Fort, and entrusted to Ser Rickard Thorne of the Kingsguard to be led to loyal allies, the Hightowers of Villevieille.

They stop at Pont-l'Amer, stronghold of the House of Caswell and supporter of Rhaenyra, when they are only thirty leagues away from Longuetable, where Lord Ormund Hightower is camped. Passing Maelor off as his son, Ser Rickard pretends to be a simple traveler when he stops at the inn of the Hure du Pourceau.

But his money attracts the covetousness of the innkeeper Ben Galettes and his stable boy, Finaud. While the innkeeper distracts the traveler, the stable boy searches through his unattended belongings.

Having discovered the white cloak of the Kingsguard, with Maelor's dragon egg inside, Finaud returns to the inn to trumpet his discovery.

Ser Rickard Thorne then catches Maelor and makes his way to the stables, where he steals a horse and tries to flee, but is stopped at the bridge by the guards of House Caswell who shoot him with several crossbow bolts.

The circumstances of Maelor's death remain unclear, but all chronicles agree that it occurred after the death of his liege shield. The prince would have been fought over by an exalted crowd, who would have fought to obtain it.

According to Champignon, a washerwoman named Saule Pierre-à-Battre crushed him by hugging him too tightly. Septon Eustace does not mention the washerwoman, but speaks of a butcher who cut the prince into six pieces so that everyone could have a piece. Grand Maester Munkun merely says that the prince was massacred by the crowd.

Lady Caswell sends the prince's head to Queen Rhaenyra Targaryen with the remains of Ser Rickard Thorne. According to Mushroom, the queen mourned Maelor from the Iron Throne, while septon Eustace claims she smiled before burning the head.

No public announcement of Maelor's death is made, but rumors of the death spread quickly through the capital. And soon, another even darker story emerges: Rhaenyra is said to have put Maelor's head in a chamber pot before presenting it to her mother Helaena. For Mushroom, this rumor comes from the master of the green council whisperers Larys Fort.

Lady Caswell has Maelor's dragon egg delivered to the followers of Aegon II, but this diplomatic act does not appease their anger.

Lord Ormund Hightower and Prince Daeron the Bold arrive with their army a few days later at Bitter Bridge, which they raze and burn, putting the population and the castle garrison to the sword.

Only Lady Caswell's children were spared and sent to Villevieille as hostages, but not before their mother had hanged herself, in a final gesture of despair.