The prince was but ten years of age, however, and not yet a king. Uncrowned, and not yet anointed as king, His Grace’s decrees carried no weight in law. Even after his coronation, he would remain subject to a regent or regency council until his sixteenth nameday. Therefore, Lord Stark would have been well within his rights to pay no heed to the prince’s commands and proceed with the execution of Corlys Velaryon. He chose not to do so, a decision that has intrigued scholars ever since. Septon Eustace suggests that “the Mother moved him to mercy that night,” though Lord Cregan did not worship the Seven. Eustace further suggests that the northman was loath to provoke Alyn Velaryon, fearing his strength at sea, but this seems singularly at odds with all we know of Stark’s character. A new war would not have dismayed him; indeed, at times he seemed to seek it.
It is Mushroom who provides the most lucid explanation for this surprising leniency in the Wolf of Winterfell. It was not the prince who swayed him, the fool claims, nor the looming threat of the Velaryon fleets, nor even the entreaties of the twins, but rather a bargain struck with Lady Alysanne of House Blackwood.
“A lean tall creature was this wench,” says the dwarf, “thin as a whip and flat-chested as a boy, but long of leg and strong of arm, with a mane of thick black curls that tumbled down past her waist when loosed.” Huntress, horse-breaker, and archer without peer, Black Aly had little of a woman’s softness about her. Many thought her to be of that same ilk as Sabitha Frey, for they were oft in one another’s company, and had been known to share a tent whilst on the march. Yet in King’s Landing, whilst accompanying her young nephew Benjicot at court and council, she had met Cregan Stark and conceived a liking for the stern northman.
And Lord Cregan, a widower these past three years, had responded in kind. Though Black Aly was no man’s queen of love and beauty, her fearlessness, stubborn strength, and bawdy tongue struck a chord for the Lord of Winterfell, who soon began to seek out her company in hall and yard. “She smells of woodsmoke, not of flowers,” Stark told Lord Cerwyn, said to be his closest friend.
Fire and Blood by GRRM, pg 586-587
#cregan stark#aly blackwood#dance of the dragons#fire and blood quotes#Fire and Blood#asoiaf quotes#asoiaf#a song of ice and fire#aly and cregan#cregan and aly#lord cerwyn#corlys velaryon#hour of the wolf#aegon iii targaryen#aegon iii#cregan's characterization#aly blackwood's characterization#aftermath - the hour of the wolf