Gaemon Palehair

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Gaemon Palehair
Aliases
  • King Cunny
  • The Cunny King
  • The Palehair
Title King
Allegiance House Targaryen
Born In 126 AC[1]
Died In 133 AC[2], the Red Keep
Book The World of Ice & Fire (mentioned)

Gaemon Palehair was a pretender king during the Dance of the Dragons. His mother Essie, a whore in the House of Kisses, claimed he was a bastard son of Aegon II Targaryen.[3]

History

During the Riot of King's Landing, whores at a brothel raised Gaemon as king. They bestowed their favors free of charge to any man that swore his sword to Gaemon.[4] During the Moon of the Three Kings, after Rhaenyra Targaryen's escape from King's Landing, Gaemon gathered thousands of followers and issued a series of edicts.[3]

After the death of Rhaenyra, Lord Borros Baratheon took the capital and the Red Keep. He and his knights rode against Visenya's Hill, where the court of the "Cunny King" was gathered, and put to rout the sellswords, drunkards and scum that had gathered round the little king. Gaemon, who had celebrated his fifth nameday only two days previous, was taken to the Red Keep slung over the back of a horse, chained and weeping. His mother walked behind him, clutching the hand of Sylvenna Sand, and leading a column of whores, witch women, cutpurses and all surviving remnants of the Palehair's court. He was put in a dungeon along the two other false kings, Trystane Truefyre and the Shepherd, to await the return of King Aegon II and his judgement.[5]

Gaemon was spared by King Aegon on account of his age and made a ward of the Crown. Essie, his mother, confessed under torture that the boy's true father had been a silver-haired Lysene oarsman and not the king. Lowborn and unworthy of the sword, Essie, along with Sylvenna Sand and twenty seven other meembers of Gaemon's court were hanged from the battlements of the Red Keep.[5]

Gaemon was taken into the royal household, befriending Aegon III Targaryen and becoming his constant companion, his whipping boy after Lord Unwin Peake came to power, and later, for some years, food taster. He died of poison that had been intended for the king or his queen Daenaera Velaryon.[6]

Gaemon's edicts

Some of Gaemon's edicts, certainly the work of Essie's paramour Sylvenna Sand, were:[7]

  • Girls should henceforth be equal with boys in matters of inheritance
  • The poor be given bread and beer in times of famine
  • Men who lost limbs in war must be fed and housed afterward by whichever lord they had been fighting for when the loss took place
  • Husbands who beat their wives should themselves be beaten, regardless of the motive for the chastisement

References

  1. See the Gaemon Palehair calculation
  2. Fire & Blood, The Lysene Spring and the End of Regency.
  3. 3.0 3.1 The World of Ice & Fire, The Targaryen Kings: Aegon II.
  4. Fire & Blood, The Dying of Dragons - Rhaenyra Overthrown.
  5. 5.0 5.1 Fire & Blood, The Dying of the Dragons - The Short, Sad Reign of Aegon II.
  6. The World of Ice & Fire, The Targaryen Kings: Aegon III.
  7. The World of Ice & Fire, Dorne: Queer Customs of the South.