Jeyne Arryn, by dreamgirlindescansos.
134 AC, the Motherhouse of Maris in Gulltown
Jeyne Arryn, called the Maiden of the Vale, was the Lady of the Eyrie and the head of House Arryn during the reign of kings Jaehaerys I, Viserys I, Aegon II, and Aegon III Targaryen.
Lady Jeyne fiercely defended her rights, despite some claiming that women were “too soft to rule”. She had no fear of armies, but was concerned about potential dragon attacks on the Eyrie. She felt that she and her cousin, Rhaenyra Targaryen, should band together as female rulers in a world of men, though she did not care for Rhaenyra’s husband, Daemon Targaryen.
Lady Jeyne never married, thus receiving the title “the Maiden of the Vale”. According to the scurrilous Testimony of the fool Mushroom, Jeyne was a “highborn harlot” with a voracious appetite for men. In his The Reign of King Viserys, Septon Eustace repeats the widespread rumor that Jeyne preferred the intimate companionship of other women, but goes on to say it was not true. Jessamyn Redfort was a “dear companion” of Jeyne.
Jeyne became Lady of the Eyrie in 97 AC when she was three years old, after her father and older brothers were killed at the hands of the Stone Crows. She did not attend the Great Council of 101 AC. In her stead went Lord Yorbert Royce, who served as Lord Protector and regent during Jeyne’s minority.
Jeyne’s inheritance was twice contested by her cousin, Ser Arnold Arryn. Consequently, he was imprisoned in one of the sky cells, while he and his descendants were disinherited from the Arryn line of succession by her last testament. Jeyne would later say that “thrice” her own kin had tried to replace her, but it was also clearly stated that Arnold only rebelled against her twice; possibly the third time was when she was initially named ruler of the Vale at only three years old, or when she came of age in 110 AC.
On the death of Lady Rhea Royce in 115 AC, her husband Prince Daemon Targaryen appealed to Lady Jeyne in the hopes of claiming Runestone for himself. Jeyne not only rejected his claim, but also warned him that his presence in the Vale of Arryn was unwelcome.
Jeyne and her ward, Rhaena Targaryen, and Rhaena’s dragon, Morning, illustrated by Riotarttherite.
At the start of the Dance of the Dragons in the 3rd moon of 129 AC, King Aegon II Targaryen’s green council decided to not seek support from Lady Jeyne, as they believed her rights might be called into question should those of Rhaenyra Targaryen be put aside. As for Queen Rhaenyra’s black party, she sent her son, Prince Jacaerys Velaryon, north on his dragon, Vermax, to treat with the Lady of the Vale for her cause. According to Mushroom, Lady Jeyne offered Jacaerys the allegiance of the Vale of Arryn if he could bring her to climax using his tongue. Grand Maester Munkun’s True Telling makes no such mention. He quotes Jeyne saying that despite her contempt for Prince Daemon Targaryen, Rhaenyra was an Arryn on her mother’s side (through Rhaenyra’s mother, Aemma Arryn), and women should band together. Lady Jeyne’s only request was dragonriders to protect the Eyrie from the greens’ own dragons. After Jacaerys agreed, Lady Jeyne and her warriors knelt before the prince, bringing the Vale into the civil war on the side of the blacks.
Late in 129 AC, Prince Jacaerys fulfilled his promise to Lady Jeyne, and sent his younger brother Joffrey Velaryon to fly to Gulltown with his young dragon Tyraxes, to deter the greens from attacking the Vale. Munkun suggests Prince Jacaerys actually sent Joffrey to the Vale to keep him safe, as his young dragon was barely large enough to ride and would be no match for the greens’ dragons in combat (though a young dragon would still deter enemies with no dragons, while fulfilling the promise to Jeyne). Prince Joffrey was accompanied by Lady Rhaena Targaryen, one of Daemon’s twin daughters and his first cousin, and Jeyne made Rhaena her ward. Rhaena brought with her three dragon eggs, and prayed nightly for their hatching.
While the Vale ultimately suffered no direct attacks in the war, Jeyne sent forces by sea by way of Gulltown to join the queen’s hosts at King’s Landing after the fall of the city.
Following the riot of King’s Landing and the Storming of the Dragonpit, Rhaenyra fled the capital for Duskendale. Lady Jeyne sent a message of support from her winter castle, the Gates of the Moon, but since the passes of the Mountains of the Moon were closed by snow, her army would have to come by sea. If Rhaenyra were to send transport ships to Gulltown, or gold to hire ships, Jeyne was willing to send her troops; unfortunately, the queen lacked both ships and gold. After Rhaenyra had to leave Duskendale, Ser Harrold Darke of the Queensguard urged her to seek refuge with Lady Jeyne in the Vale. Rhaenyra was determined to return to Dragonstone, and refused his council. The queen was eventually killed by King Aegon II Targaryen’s dragon Sunfyre on the island of the 10th moon of 130 AC.
The remaining blacks refused to surrender: the black army defeated the last of the green army at the Battle of the Kingsroad, and a new host of Northmen was marching south led by Lord Cregan Stark. Lady Arryn assembled a host of eight thousand men-at-arms and fifteen hundred knights in opposition to King Aegon II, and sent envoys to Braavos to arrange for ships to bring them against King’s Landing. In 131 AC, one of Rhaena’s dragon eggs hatched at the Eyrie, and she named the hatchling Morning. News of Morning’s birth emboldened the blacks while greatly troubling the greens, because by that point in the war both sides had lost all their other dragons (save for three that had gone wild or missing). Dowager Queen Alicent Hightower feared that the blacks’ possession of this new dragon at the Eyrie, even if it was still just a hatchling, would make the smallfolk see their side as more legitimate.
King Aegon II was poisoned, and Rhaenyra’s son, King Aegon III Targaryen, came to the throne. Ten thousand men from the Vale, under the command of Lord Leowyn and Ser Corwyn Corbray, eventually landed at Maidenpool and Duskendale, and were welcomed with feasts and flowers. Lady Jeyne, her ward Rhaena Targaryen, and Rhaena’s dragon Morning, set sail from Gulltown, and they arrived in King’s Landing during the Hour of the Wolf, when Lord Cregan Stark controlled the city and did justice to Aegon II’s killers. Lady Jeyne supported Rhaena and her sister, Baela Targaryen, when they demanded to see their brother, Aegon III, who Cregan was keeping secluded. Mushroom credits Lady Jeyne among the women who brought peace at the end of the civil war.
Jeyne and her “dear companion”, Jessamyn Redfort, by Riotarttherite.
Following the conclusion of the civil war, Lady Jeyne served as one of the seven initial regents to Rhaenyra Targaryen’s eldest surviving son, King Aegon III Targaryen. Jeyne returned to the Vale of Arryn in 132 AC to deal with raiding mountain clansmen. When the epidemic called the Winter Fever ended in 133 AC, Lord Manfryd Mooton wanted the other regents, including Jeyne, to convene to decide on the appointments and arrangements the king had made while the regents were ill and after the passing of his Hand of the King, Tyland Lannister. Lord Unwin Peake declared that the former regents had given up their places on the council by departing King’s Landing, made himself Hand, and reversed all of Aegon’s decisions. When Lord Unwin betrothed Aegon to his daughter, Myrielle, Lady Jeyne was one of the many lords who disapproved, sending an angry note from the Vale.
Jeyne died at age 40 in 134 AC of a chest cold while in the Motherhouse of Maris in Gulltown. The unmarried Maid of the Vale passed away in the arms of her “dear companion,” Jessamyn Redfort. On her deathbed, Lady Jeyne dictated her last testament, naming as her heir her distant cousin and the Knight of the Bloody Gate, Ser Joffrey Arryn. A conflict over her succession ensued upon her death, as Arnold’s son Ser Eldric Arryn, and Isembard Arryn, head of the Gulltown Arryns, tried to contest Lord Joffrey’s inheritance. Though many lords of the Vale insisted that the laws of inheritance could not be put aside by “the whim of a dying woman”, Ser Corwyn Corbray, one of Aegon III’s regents, ruled that Jeyne’s will must prevail.
