(Top image: Illyrio Mopatis, by Jake Murray @Fantasy Flight Publishing)
“Which plan?” said Tristan Rivers. “The fat man’s plan? The one that changes every time the moon turns?” (aDwD, The Lost Lord)
From the moment that Illyrio appeared discussing war strategies beneath the red keep in aGoT, many have attempted to pinpoint what Varys and Illyrio are hoping to get out of all of their plans, what the motivations of both Varys and Illyrio are. Are they Targaryen loyalists? Or Blackfyres? Is Young Griff just Illyrio’s Valyrian looking son? Did he truly mourn over Viserys’ death? Or did he use reverse psychology on Viserys to get him to join with the Dothraki, knowing it would get him killed? And some suggest that Illyrio just wants to destroy the Iron Bank of Braavos so that Illyrio can become the planet’s moneylender. Are Varys and Illyrio one mind and unit, who have the same exact motivation? Or do they have differring interests?
While not all has been revealed yet, I think the chapter in which Jon Connington introduces Aegon to the Golden Company reveals certain aspects of the plan for us to at least reconstruct the plan as far as Aegon, Viserys and Daenerys goes from the start of the aSoIaF series. Meanwhile the history of Pentos sheds a light on how Illyrio must go about it.
And this essay comes with the warning that I treat the little information we do have on Illyrio’s and Varys’s past at face value. This was an exercise to make sense of Illyrio’s past before aGoT and the series’ timeline into a coherent storyline, character motivation and plan if I assumed that neither Varys or Illyrio are Blackfyre or Targaryen descendants, and that Aegon is indeed Aegon Targaryen. While I do have to fill in some gaps for uncomfirmed necessary data, I find it is possible for Illyrio’s motivation and plan to be consistent within those restrictions. And if the plot (past and present) remains consistent and can hold up without Illyrio being a Blackfyre or Targaryen, without being Aegon’s true father, then it becomes a valid alternative to those secret identity theories.
Aegon and the Golden Company
Tristan Rivers reveals Illyrio’s military plan at the start of the series and how it changed over time, because of circumstances.
“First Viserys Targaryen was to join us with fifty thousand Dothraki screamers at his back. Then the Beggar King was dead, and it was to be the sister, a pliable young child queen who was on her way to Pentos with three new-hatched dragons. Instead the girl turns up on Slaver’s Bay and leaves a string of burning cities in her wake, and the fat man decides we should meet her by Volantis. Now that plan is in ruins as well.” (aDwD, The Lost Lord)
Tristan Rivers confirms that Illyrio did want Viserys to acquire an army of Dothraki, and Viserys was to join the Golden Company with them. Now, I know that the sceptics of the veracity of this rely on several arguments against this. Have some patience though, as I will tackle the “issues”.
And one of the ways I will do this is by stressing Tristan’s wording – Viserys and the Dothraki were to join the Golden Company, not the other way around. It is a seeming subtle difference, but very important.
The reveal of Jon Connington’s survival to raise Aegon and the blood contract between the Golden Company seems the first huge counter argument against Illyrio desiring Viserys’ survival of his travels with the Dothraki.
“The Golden Company marches toward Volantis as we speak, there to await the coming of our queen out of the east.”
Beneath the gold, the bitter steel. “I had heard the Golden Company was under contract with one of the Free Cities.”
“Myr.” Illyrio smirked. “Contracts can be broken.”
“There is more coin in cheese than I knew,” said Tyrion. “How did you accomplish that?”
The magister waggled his fat fingers. “Some contracts are writ in ink, and some in blood. I say no more.” (aDwD, Tyrion II)
When Tyrion and Illyrio travel through the hinterland of Pentos, the heartland of what once was Andalos, Illyrio reveals that the Golden Company is journeying to Volantis. aFfC already confirmed via Cersei’s chapters that the Golden Company had broken their contract with Myr, which was unheard of (see also Aurane, the Lord of Waters, Part 1 – The Set Up). They never broke a contract in history before (see also House Blackfyre). Illyrio also confirms the news that the Golden Company is marching for Volantis as Qyburn learns and tells at Cersei’s small council.
What we and nobody else knew yet in aFfC was that the Golden Company was moving because of an older contract, not one that was bought and paid for, but bound by blood. While Illyrio makes it appear as if this is purely for Daenerys Targaryen, later on Tyrion uncovers the true intended benefactor: the supposed son of Rhaegar Targaryen, Aegon VI Targaryen, introduced and disguised as Young Griff.
“Why,” said Tyrion, “if the stone men had taken Yandry or Griff or our lovely Lemore, we would have grieved for them and gone on. Lose you, and this whole enterprise is undone, and all those years of feverish plotting by the cheesemonger and the eunuch will have been for naught … isn’t that so?” […] “The blue hair makes your eyes seem blue, that’s good. And the tale of how you color it in honor of your dead Tyroshi mother was so touching it almost made me cry. Still, a curious man might wonder why some sellsword’s whelp would need a soiled septa to instruct him in the Faith, or a chainless maester to tutor him in history and tongues. And a clever man might question why your father would engage a hedge knight to train you in arms instead of simply sending you off to apprentice with one of the free companies. It is almost as if someone wanted to keep you hidden whilst still preparing you for … what? Now, there’s a puzzlement, but I’m sure that in time it will come to me. I must admit, you have noble features for a dead boy.” […] “Men will tell you that I am a kingslayer, a kinslayer, and a liar, and all of that is true … but then, we are a company of liars, are we not? Take your feigned father. Griff, is it?” The dwarf sniggered. “You should thank the gods that Varys the Spider is a part of this plot of yours. Griff would not have fooled the cockless wonder for an instant, no more than it did me. No lord, my lordship says, no knight. And I’m no dwarf. Just saying a thing does not make it true. Who better to raise Prince Rhaegar’s infant son than Prince Rhaegar’s dear friend Jon Connington, once Lord of Griffin’s Roost and Hand of the King?” (aDwD, Tyrion V)
After Jon’s failure to capture and kill Robert Baratheon at Stoney Sept during Robert’s Rebellion, the Mad King stripped him from his position as Hand, stripped him of his lands and exiled him. In Essos, JonCon joined the Golden Company under the command of Myles Toyne (283 AC) and rose to high ranks in the next five years. Then in 288 AC, the war chest of the Golden Company was stolen and Jon Connington took the blame for it and pretended to have died drinking himself to death in Lys.
Jon Connington might have been one of those successors [of Aegor Rivers] if his exile had gone otherwise. He had spent five years with the company, rising from the ranks to a place of honor at Toyne’s right hand. Had he stayed, it might well have been him the men turned to after Myles died, instead of Harry Strickland. But Griff did not regret the path he’d chosen. (aDwD, The Lost Lord)
Griff wondered how many of them knew who he was. Few enough. Twelve years is a long time. […] So far as most of them were concerned, Connington had drunk himself to death in Lys after being driven from the company in disgrace for stealing from the war chest. The shame of the lie still stuck in his craw, but Varys had insisted it was necessary. “We want no songs about the gallant exile,” the eunuch had tittered, in that mincing voice of his. “Those who die heroic deaths are long remembered, thieves and drunks and cravens soon forgotten.” […] Griff had gone along with the Spider’s scheme for the boy’s sake, but that did not mean he liked it any better. (aDwD, The Lost Lord)
This was Varys’s planned cover story concocted together with Ser Myles Toyne to have Jon Connington raise, tutor and train Aegon in deep secret.
Does [Harry Strickland] know? Griff wondered. How much did Myles tell him? Varys had been adamant about the need for secrecy. The plans that he and Illyrio had made with Blackheart had been known to them alone. The rest of the company had been left ignorant. What they did not know they could not let slip. (aDwD, The Lost Lord)
Varys and Illyrio knew they could trust Jon Connington, because the man not only had been Rhaegar’s best friend. He had been in love with Rhaegar and felt guilty over the crown prince’s demise. And Jon Connington did this for twelve years, before he returned with Aegon to the Golden Company, now led by Harry Strickland in 300 AC.
Anyhow, we can conclude that in 288 AC, Varys recruited Jon Connington to supervise the young prince and made a contract writ in blood with Myles Toyne, the commander of the Golden Company. From the start, the Company was intended to be Aegon’s army, not Viserys’s. Dany remembers that Viserys once attempted to recruit the Golden Company.
Her brother Viserys had once feasted the captains of the Golden Company, in hopes they might take up his cause. They ate his food and heard his pleas and laughed at him. Dany had only been a little girl, but she remembered. (aDwD, Daenerys III)
In 297 AC, Dany is thirteen and had her moon cycles in order for her to be wed to Khal Drogo. By then she has lived almost half a year at Illyrio’s mansion, who took her and Viserys in. For her to be a little girl when Viserys feasted the Golden Company to take up Viserys III Targaryen’s cause, this must have occurred before Myles Toyne’s death in 296 AC. Meanwhile, this must have happened after they were driven out of Braavos. Willem Darry fell ill, when Dany was five, and slowly wasted away. Since, Dany was born in 284 AC, Viserys and her left Braavos after 289 AC. So, the contract with the Golden Company between Varys, Illyrio and Myles Toynce was already agreed to.
It would have been unlikely that Viserys would have even managed to get an audience with the Golden Company, before he reached adulthood (sixteen). Viserys was born 276 AC, so this feasting of the captains of the Golden Company would have happened between 292 AC and (early) 296 AC, or when Dany was between 8 to 11 years old.
So, when Jon Connington refers to the Golden Company as Aegon’s army, then this very much was the case.
Griff would be glad to go back to his own true colors too, though his once red hair had gone to grey. He clapped the lad on the shoulder. “Shall we go? Your army awaits your coming.”
“I like the sound of that. My army.” A smile flashed across his face, then vanished. “Are they, though? They’re sellswords. Yollo warned me to trust no one.”
“There is wisdom in that,” Griff admitted. It might have been different if Blackheart still commanded, but Myles Toyne was four years dead, and Homeless Harry Strickland was a different sort of man. (aDwD, The Lost Lord)
Aegon would have been between 10 or 14 at the time of Viserys’ meeting with Myles Toyne. On top of that Robert’s alliance with the Vale, Westerlands and the North was still too strong. Westeros was united behind Robert I Baratheon after the Greyjoy’s Rebellion of 289 AC, and his queen Cersei had given him three children. If the Golden Company’s contract was tied to Aegon Targaryen, and not the Targaryens as a whole, then Illyrio and Varys would have wanted to wait for the Golden Company to go public at least until Aegon would be considered an adult in the eyes of Westeros. So, not before 298 AC. That timing fits perfectly with Illyrio having arranged for Dany to be wed to Viserys, and set their war plans in motion for Viserys to acquire an army of Dothraki screamers.
Viserys III or Daenerys Targaryen
So, why am I certain that Illyrio wanted Viserys to join Aegon’s Company? Harry Strickland spells it out, when Franklyn Flowers expresses eagerness to agree to Aegon’s plan to sail for Westeros without Dany.
The captain-general looked as if someone had slapped his face. “Has the sun curdled your brains, Flowers? We need the girl. We need the marriage. If Daenerys accepts our princeling and takes him for her consort, the Seven Kingdoms will do the same. Without her, the lords will only mock his claim and brand him a fraud and a pretender. (aDwD, The Lost Lord)
Real or fake, Aegon Targaryen’s “death” was so legendary and well known, that anyone involved in the plot anticipated that lords would rather believe him to be a pretender, over being a true Targaryen. The plotters believed they required at least one undeniable Targaryen to join Aegon’s company to give him the perception of legitimacy. In 300 AC, Illyrio, Jon Connington and Harry Strickland believe Dany to serve that purpose. But by then the plans had altered, because of Viserys’s death. Illyrio’s first plan in 298 AC was for Viserys to extend the Targaryen legitimacy to Aegon. If the exiled king Viserys III Targaryen accepted Young Griff as his surviving nephew and heir, then so would the Seven Kingdoms.
For this legitimacy via Viserys III, Illyrio and Varys needed Viserys and Dany to wander every Free City in Essos for so many years. The Targaryen siblings’ identity and whereabouts needed to be well established and known, so that nobody would ever doubt Viserys’s acceptance of Aegon.
That Illyrio intended for Aegon to join the Targaryen claim along with Viserys is further symbolized by the three dragon eggs that Illyrio gifted Dany. In olden days, when dragons still lived, Targaryens were gifted a dragon egg at birth. Illyrio acquired three of such eggs, not one, not two, but three, because he wanted people to believe that there were three Targaryens when they learned of the tale of Dany’s wedding.
Magister Illyrio murmured a command, and four burly slaves hurried forward, bearing between them a great cedar chest bound in bronze. When she opened it, she found piles of the finest velvets and damasks the Free Cities could produce … and resting on top, nestled in the soft cloth, three huge eggs. Dany gasped. They were the most beautiful things she had ever seen, each different than the others, patterned in such rich colors that at first she thought they were crusted with jewels, and so large it took both of her hands to hold one. She lifted it delicately, expecting that it would be made of some fine porcelain or delicate enamel, or even blown glass, but it was much heavier than that, as if it were all of solid stone. The surface of the shell was covered with tiny scales, and as she turned the egg between her fingers, they shimmered like polished metal in the light of the setting sun. One egg was a deep green, with burnished bronze flecks that came and went depending on how Dany turned it. Another was pale cream streaked with gold. The last was black, as black as a midnight sea, yet alive with scarlet ripples and swirls. “What are they?” she asked, her voice hushed and full of wonder.
“Dragon’s eggs, from the Shadow Lands beyond Asshai,” said Magister Illyrio. “The eons have turned them to stone, yet still they burn bright with beauty.” (aGoT, Daenerys II)
A Bride for Dothraki Screamers
Now let us check this with the conversation between Viserys and Illyrio about when he could expect Khal Drogo to gift him an army of Dothraki in return for gifting Dany as bride.
“Best we get Princess Daenerys wedded quickly before they hand half the wealth of Pentos away to sellswords and bravos,” Ser Jorah Mormont jested.
[…]
Magister Illyrio laughed lightly through his forked beard, but Viserys did not so much as smile. “He can have her tomorrow, if he likes,” her brother said. He glanced over at Dany, and she lowered her eyes. “So long as he pays the price.”
Illyrio waved a languid hand in the air, rings glittering on his fat fingers. “I have told you, all is settled. Trust me. The khal has promised you a crown, and you shall have it.”
“Yes, but when?”
“When the khal chooses,” Illyrio said. “He will have the girl first, and after they are wed he must make his procession across the plains and present her to the dosh khaleen at Vaes Dothrak. After that, perhaps. If the omens favor war.”
Viserys seethed with impatience. “I piss on Dothraki omens. The Usurper sits on my father’s throne. How long must I wait?”
Illyrio gave a massive shrug. “You have waited most of your life, great king. What is another few months, another few years?” (aGoT, Daenerys II)
Dany’s wedding has been timelined by fans to have occurred either late 297 AC or early 298 AC, and it took the Dothraki half a year at least to travel to Vaes Dothrak. In other words, Illyrio did not expect or plan for Khal Drogo to return and gift Viserys an army before early 299 AC.
To Illyrio, Viserys expresses doubts on whether a man like Drogo would want a “woman” that young. Dany is but thirteen years old when she meets and weds Khal Drogo.
“She is a vision, Your Grace, a vision,” he told her brother. “Drogo will be enraptured.”
“She’s too skinny,” Viserys said. […] He rested his hand on the hilt of the sword that Illyrio had lent him, and said, “Are you sure that Khal Drogo likes his women this young?”
“She has had her blood. She is old enough for the khal,” Illyrio told him, not for the first time. (aGoT, Daenerys I)
Illyrio uses the fact that Dany had started to bleed as reason to arrange the wedding, in the same way that Tywin does later on with Sansa when he weds Sansa to Tyrion. Later on, Illyrio reveals to Tyrion how Viserys intended to steal into Dany’s bedroom the night before her wedding to at least claim her maidenhead, if he could not have her as his sister-wife.
“Dothraki neither buy nor sell. Say rather that her brother Viserys gave her to Drogo to win the khal’s friendship. A vain young man, and greedy. Viserys lusted for his father’s throne, but he lusted for Daenerys too, and was loath to give her up. The night before the princess wed he tried to steal into her bed, insisting that if he could not have her hand, he would claim her maidenhead. Had I not taken the precaution of posting guards upon her door, Viserys might have undone years of planning.” (aDwD, Tyrion II)
If Illyrio planned years ahead, then the above implies, he invited Viserys and Dany to live under his roof from the time Illyrio expected her to bleed for the first time. This gave Illyrio the ability to prevent Viserys or others from wedding or bedding her, and ruin the wedding pact with a man of Illyrio’s choosing. Dany turned thirteen in 297 AC.
This is awfully young and dangerously so, not just in our society, but on Planetos as well. While the bodies of girls this young can show signs of fertility, their bodies are mostly still too undeveloped to either survive child birth or for their body not to suffer permanent damage. That is why when nobles wed a girl as young as Dany, the men are often advized to wait with the consummation of it. The main purpose of similar marriage deals in Westeros is to secure the alliance while preserving the girl’s maidenhead.
Illyrio though never urges Khal Drogo to delay the consummation, not through years of engagement or warning Drogo about the likelihood of Dany dying in child birth. The marriage deal between Viserys and Khal Drogo that Illyrio helped set up proves Illyrio had no concern for Dany’s physical well being, survival, or for her to remain fertile. Illyrio admits to this too.
The fat man grew pensive. “Daenerys was half a child when she came to me, yet fairer even than my second wife, so lovely I was tempted to claim her for myself. Such a fearful, furtive thing, however, I knew I should get no joy from coupling with her. Instead I summoned a bedwarmer and fucked her vigorously until the madness passed. If truth be told, I did not think Daenerys would survive for long amongst the horselords.” (aDwD, Tyrion II)
As soon as Dany was wedded and bedded by the Khal, Illyrio expected Drogo to be bound to keep his promise to gift Viserys his army at some point. That Illyrio saw Dany as no other purpose than to be of use as an expendable bride to form a military alliance is later proven when both Illyrio and Varys risk Dany’s life by setting up an assassination attempt. While they did give Jorah a head’s up over it, he saved Dany only in the nick of time. Now, I do not mean to go as far as to say that Illyrio desired her death throughout aGoT, just that her survival was not crucial for Illyrio’s first plan, as much as her maidenhead was to secure a military alliance with the Dothraki, or a threat to her life was to trigger Khal Drogo into wanting to invade Westeros.
Omens of War
It should also be noted that while Illyrio hosted Viserys and Dany in his home, at the other side of the narrow sea, Jon Arryn had begun to study the breeding of hounds and eventually involved Stannis in visiting Robert’s bastards. Varys was certainly aware that the alliance between Robert Baratheon, Jon Arryn and the Lannisters would crack. If the potboy can gossip about it, then Varys knew it too.
The potboy, now cordwainer, had never exchanged so much as a word with Lord Jon, but he was full of oddments of kitchen gossip: the lord had been quarreling with the king, the lord only picked at his food, the lord was sending his boy to be fostered on Dragonstone, the lord had taken a great interest in the breeding of hunting hounds, the lord had visited a master armorer to commission a new suit of plate, wrought all in pale silver with a blue jasper falcon and a mother-of-pearl moon on the breast. The king’s own brother had gone with him to help choose the design, the potboy said. No, not Lord Renly, the other one, Lord Stannis. (aGoT, Eddard VI)
Varys later confirms to Tyrion that Littlefinger pointed the way to discover the truth about Cersei’s children through Robert’s bastard with Jon Arryn and Stannis, aside from Ned Stark. It was after all Jon Arryn who had raised Littlefinger to the position he was in.
“[Stannis] accuses my brother and sister of incest. I wonder how he came by that suspicion.”
“Perhaps he read a book and looked at the color of a bastard’s hair, as Ned Stark did, and Jon Arryn before him. Or perhaps someone whispered it in his ear.” The eunuch’s laugh was not his usual giggle, but deeper and more throaty.
“Someone like you, perchance?”
“Am I suspected? It was not me.”
“If it had been, would you admit it?”
“No. But why should I betray a secret I have kept so long? It is one thing to deceive a king, and quite another to hide from the cricket in the rushes and the little bird in the chimney. Besides, the bastards were there for all to see.”
[…]
“If you were not this whisperer, who was?”
“Some traitor, doubtless.” Varys tightened the cinch.
“Littlefinger?”
“I named no name.” (aCoK, Tyrion IV)
By Varys-speak that is confirmation that besides Ned Stark, Littlefinger who informed Ned Stark. Furthermore, Stannis regards Varys as the cause of the rot of the Mad King’s reign.
“[…] I mean to scour that court clean. As Robert should have done, after the Trident. Ser Barristan once told me that the rot in King Aerys’s reign began with Varys. The eunuch should never have been pardoned. No more than the Kingslayer.” (aSoS, Davos IV)
This all gives us a better understanding of the conversation between Illyrio and Varys that Arya overhears in the tunnels beneath the red keep.
“The fools tried to kill his son, and what’s worse, they made a mummer’s farce of it. He’s not a man to put that aside. I warn you, the wolf and lion will soon be at each other’s throats, whether we will it or no.”
“Too soon, too soon,” the voice with the accent complained. “What good is war now? We are not ready. Delay.” (aGoT, Arya III)
Illyrio wants Varys to delay the civil war that Varys fears is coming soon.
“What would you have me do?” asked the torchbearer, a stout man in a leather half cape. […]
“If one Hand can die, why not a second?” replied the man with the accent and the forked yellow beard. “You have danced the dance before, my friend.”
[…]
“Before is not now, and this Hand is not the other,” the scarred man said as they stepped out into the hall. (aGoT, Arya III)
Since aDwD, we know that Illyrio was talking of Jon Connington, not Jon Arryn. Neither Varys and Illyrio had anything to do with the death of Jon Arryn. It was Lysa Arryn who poisoned her husband through Littlefinger’s manipulations.
“Perhaps so,” the forked beard replied, pausing to catch his breath after the long climb. “Nonetheless, we must have time. The princess is with child. The khal will not bestir himself until his son is born. You know how they are, these savages.” (aGoT, Arya III)
At the time of this meeting between Illyrio and Varys, Illyrio does not expect Khal Drogo and Viserys to return to Pentos before mid 299 AC. Obviously, in the minds of Varys and Illyrio, if Dany were to die or miscarry before the end of the third trimester, then Drogo could be triggered into acting sooner on behalf of Viserys. So, instead of keeping Dany’s pregnancy a secret, Varys informs Robert and the small council, and he supports a public assassination order that Illyrio would ensure would reach Vaes Dothrak, regardless of Robert’s wishes.
“If he does not bestir himself soon, it may be too late,” the stout man in the steel cap said. “This is no longer a game for two players, if ever it was. […] Delay, you say. Make haste, I reply. Even the finest of jugglers cannot keep a hundred balls in the air forever.” (aGoT, Arya III)
The former potboy mentions a fight between Jon Arryn and Robert Baratheon. It was likely Varys’s news that Illyrio had taken in Viserys and Dany. And Varys would have informed Robert of this at a moment of his own convenience, as we witness when he sent a rider to inform Robert of Dany’s marriage to Khal Drogo.
“Well, I did not bring you out here to talk of graves or bicker about your bastard. There was a rider in the night, from Lord Varys in King’s Landing. Here.” The king pulled a paper from his belt and handed it to Ned. (aGoT, Eddard II)
Here we see the nature of Varys’s game with Robert and the Hand. Since the Spider conspired with Illyrio, he knew very well when Dany would wed Khal Drogo. More, the timeline indicators imply that Dany’s wedding took place well before Robert even left for Winterfell. Varys sat on that info as Robert and the whole royal cart train made its way north, including a stay at House Darry (still secret Targaryen royalists). He sat on it during Robert’s extended stay at Winterfell. He sent a speed courier on horse, when Varys was certain Robert would be on the road south with Ned Stark. He could have sent a raven at any given time, much sooner. Instead, he waited until Robert was like to consult with his new Hand, Ned Stark, without any other voice of the Small Council to influence either two. The rider was a mummer’s farce.
It accomplished several things:
- Varys appeared to be giving urgent spy information as soon as possible, while he actually delayed to get the news to Robert.
- He bought time for Dany and the Dothraki to be well out of reach of potential assassins. Around the time that Robert got the news of Dany’s wedding, Dany would have been traversing through the Hills of Norvos or staring at the silver lemures in the forests of Qohor, if she was not already near the edges of the Dothraki Sea.
- He tested how much Ned Stark was able and still willing to resist Robert’s will to assassinate both Viserys, Dany (and potentially Aegon in the future).
“Ser Jorah is now in Pentos, anxious to earn a royal pardon that would allow him to return from exile,” Robert explained. “Lord Varys makes good use of him.” […] “Varys tells me that spies are more useful than corpses,” Robert said. “Jorah aside, what do you make of his report?”
“Daenerys Targaryen has wed some Dothraki horselord. What of it? Shall we send her a wedding gift?” (aGoT, Eddard II)
The claim that Ser Jorah Mormont is “now” in Pentos is a falsehood: the khalasar broke camp the morning after her wedding and started the long trek to Vaes Dothrak. And as “urgent” Varys made this news appear, it does not appear that Stannis packing up and leaving for Dragonstone altogether was newsworthy. Eddard only discovers this when he arrives in King’s Landing. Lysa Arryn fleeing for the Eyrie is more newsworthy and cause of speculation than the king’s own brother decamping to Dragonstone is.
We witness Robert’s irrational anger over Rhaegar during Ned’s exchange with Robert over this tricky wedding news.
“Nonetheless,” Ned said, “the murder of children … it would be vile … unspeakable …”
“Unspeakable?” the king roared. “What Aerys did to your brother Brandon was unspeakable. The way your lord father died, that was unspeakable. And Rhaegar … how many times do you think he raped your sister? How many hundreds of times?” His voice had grown so loud that his horse whinnied nervously beneath him. The king jerked the reins hard, quieting the animal, and pointed an angry finger at Ned. “I will kill every Targaryen I can get my hands on, until they are as dead as their dragons, and then I will piss on their graves.”
Ned knew better than to defy him when the wrath was on him. (aGoT, Eddard II)
Nothing could rile up Robert as much as the news of either Viserys or Dany. And similar new must have been what caused Robert to roar at Jon Arryn in the weeks or months leading up to Jon Arryn’s death.
“You can’t get your hands on this one, can you?” [Ned] said quietly.
The king’s mouth twisted in a bitter grimace. “No, gods be cursed. Some pox-ridden Pentoshi cheesemonger had her brother and her walled up on his estate with pointy-hatted eunuchs all around them, and now he’s handed them over to the Dothraki. I should have had them both killed years ago, when it was easy to get at them, but Jon was as bad as you. More fool I, I listened to him.” (aGoT, Eddard II)
Most likely, Varys delayed giving the info of Illyrio hosting Viserys and Dany the same way he did with Dany’s wedding, and he would have cited the same source for it – Ser Jorah Mormont. The “spy” does not join Viserys and Dany until they meet with Khal Drogo and the marriage pact is agreed to, nigh half a year since Illyrio took them in. This would have been either late 297 AC or early 298 AC just a few weeks before Jon Arryn’s death.
We can conclude that before Illyrio urges Varys beneath the red keep to delay the foreseeable civil war, Varys had been doing this as much as he could for over a year.
Viserys’s intended survival
So, if Dany was expendable, then Viserys was not. I already mentioned that Illyrio and the Golden Company expected Viserys to join Aegon’s Company in order to convince the Lords of Westeros that Aegon’s claim of identity was real. Tristan Rivers’ words about the fat man’s first plan attest to the intended survival of Viserys. But so does the letter that Illyrio writes that warns Jorah just in the nick of time to save Dany from an assassination.
While most readers remember that Ser Jorah read the letter, most misremember it as being addressed to Jorah Mormont. It was in fact addressed to Viserys.
Under the hollow hummock of earth that was her home in Vaes Dothrak, Dany ordered them to leave her—all but Ser Jorah. “Tell me,” she commanded as she lowered herself onto her cushions. “Was it the Usurper?”
“Yes.” The knight drew out a folded parchment. “A letter to Viserys, from Magister Illyrio. Robert Baratheon offers lands and lordships for your death, or your brother’s.”
“My brother?” Her sob was half a laugh. “He does not know yet, does he? The Usurper owes Drogo a lordship.” This time her laugh was half a sob. She hugged herself protectively. “And me, you said. Only me?”
“You and the child,” Ser Jorah said, grim. (aGoT, Daenerys VI)
Both Robert Baratheon and Illyrio were unaware that Viserys had been crowned and killed by Drogo with molten gold. Jorah read the letter, because Viserys was not alive anymore to pick up the letter or read it himself. That Jorah ended up reading it, does not annull the fact that Illyrio attempted to warn Viserys himself of the risk of assassination. Therefore, Illyrio hoped to prevent at least Viserys from getting killed.
So, when Illyrio argued with Viserys to remain in Pentos and not journey with the khalasar to Vaes Dothrak himself, he was not using reverse psychology. Instead, he did indeed intend to keep Viserys safe in Pentos.
Her brother was miserable out here. He ought never have come. Magister Illyrio had urged him to wait in Pentos, had offered him the hospitality of his manse, but Viserys would have none of it. He would stay with Drogo until the debt had been paid, until he had the crown he had been promised. “And if he tries to cheat me, he will learn to his sorrow what it means to wake the dragon,” Viserys had vowed, laying a hand on his borrowed sword. Illyrio had blinked at that and wished him good fortune. (aGoT, Daenerys III)
Even Ser Jorah attests to this.
The knight looked after Viserys doubtfully. “Your brother should have bided his time in Pentos. There is no place for him in a khalasar. Illyrio tried to warn him.”
“He will go as soon as he has his ten thousand. My lord husband promised a golden crown.”
Ser Jorah grunted. “Yes, Khaleesi, but … the Dothraki look on these things differently than we do in the west. I have told him as much, as Illyrio told him, but your brother does not listen.” (aGoT, Daenerys IV)
So, yes, Illyrio wept tears when he learned of Viserys’s death.
“Magister Illyrio has protected me in the past. Strong Belwas says that he wept when he heard my brother was dead.”
“Yes,” said Mormont, “but did he weep for Viserys, or for the plans he had made with him?” (aSoS, Daenerys I)
And Ser Jorah is correct too that Illyrio wept for how he saw the plan he had been years in the making come to ruins, rather than grieving the death of Viserys as a person or even potential Targaryen king. To Tyrion, Illyrio also admits that he considered Viserys a vain and greedy fool, and very much the Mad King’s son.
“He sounds an utter fool.”
“Viserys was Mad Aerys’s son, just so. Daenerys … Daenerys is quite different.” (aDwD, Tyrion II)
So, why would Illyrio want the legally named heir Viserys III to serve as the badge of credibility for Aegon? Viserys would never have stepped aside for his alleged younger nephew to claim the throne. Why risk it?
Well, based on Illyrio’s flattery, generosity and acknowledging Viserys’s claim to the throne, it is quite clear that Illyrio wanted to reduce any of Viserys’s suspicion towards Aegon being a rival to him, before the two were to meet. And indeed, Viserys never suspected Illyrio of any plotting against his claim.
“Illyrio is no fool,” Viserys said. He was a gaunt young man with nervous hands and a feverish look in his pale lilac eyes. “The magister knows that I will not forget my friends when I come into my throne.” (aGoT, Daenerys I)
At every opportunity, Illyrio addresses Viserys as king.
“Look at her. That silver-gold hair, those purple eyes … she is the blood of old Valyria, no doubt, no doubt … and highborn, daughter of the old king, sister to the new, she cannot fail to entrance our Drogo.” (aGoT, Daenerys I)
When Viserys is ired, Illyrio is quick to bow subserviently.
Anger flashed in her brother’s lilac eyes. “Do you take me for a fool?”
The magister bowed slightly. “I take you for a king. Kings lack the caution of common men. My apologies if I have given offense.” He turned away and clapped his hands for his bearers. (aGoT, Daenerys I)
He reassures Viserys’s anxiety over the claim that many houses and smallfolk would want Viserys over Robert.
“We won’t need [Drogo’s] whole khalasar,” Viserys said. His fingers toyed with the hilt of his borrowed blade, though Dany knew he had never used a sword in earnest. “Ten thousand, that would be enough, I could sweep the Seven Kingdoms with ten thousand Dothraki screamers. The realm will rise for its rightful king. Tyrell, Redwyne, Darry, Greyjoy, they have no more love for the Usurper than I do. The Dornishmen burn to avenge Elia and her children. And the smallfolk will be with us. They cry out for their king.” He looked at Illyrio anxiously. “They do, don’t they?”
“They are your people, and they love you well,” Magister Illyrio said amiably. “In holdfasts all across the realm, men lift secret toasts to your health while women sew dragon banners and hide them against the day of your return from across the water.” He gave a massive shrug. “Or so my agents tell me.” (aGoT, Daenerys I)
Like Dany, the reader (and Ned Stark) doubts this initially. From the start of Robert’s ascension to the Iron Throne though, both Jon Arryn and Robert fear that certain Lords would support Viserys III Targaryen.
“[…] I had no wish to marry after Lyanna was taken from me, but Jon [Arryn] said the realm needed an heir. Cersei Lannister would be a good match, he told me, she would bind Lord Tywin to me should Viserys Targaryen ever try to win back his father’s throne,” (aGoT, Eddard VII)
House Darry’s support of the Targaryens never truly disappeared. The evidence for it just went into hiding, behind lock and key in a cellar, as Jaime and Tyrion discover during their stay when the royal procession is going north to Winterfell.
The walls [of Castle Darry] had been bare on his first visit too. Tyrion had pointed out the squares of darker stone where tapestries had once hung. Ser Raymun [Darry] could remove the hangings, but not the marks they’d left. Later, the Imp had slipped a handful of stags to one of Darry’s serving men for the key to the cellar where the missing tapestries were hidden. He showed them to Jaime by the light of a candle, grinning; woven portraits of all the Targaryen kings, from the first Aegon to the second Aenys. “If I tell Robert, mayhaps he’ll make me Lord of Darry,” the dwarf said, chortling. (aFfC, Jaime IV)
When captured by the Mountain and taken to Harrenhal, Arya overhears a peasant speaking of better days under Aerys II. So, some of the smallfolk do toast to the health of Targaryen kings.
“It’s a sin and a shame,” an old man hissed. “When the old king was still alive, he’d not have stood for this.”
“King Robert?” Arya asked, forgetting herself.
“King Aerys, gods grace him,” the old man said, too loudly. A guard came sauntering over to shut them up. The old man lost both his teeth, and there was no more talk that night. (aCoK, Arya VI)
The people of Crackclaw point pride themselves on being Targaryen royalists.
“If [Lord Celitgar] sends enough [tax collectors], a few come back to him . . . elsewise, we bow only to our own lords, and the king. The true king, not Robert and his ilk.” He spat. “There was Crabbs and Brunes and Boggses with Prince Rhaegar on the Trident, and in the Kingsguard too. A Hardy, a Cave, a Pyne, and three Crabbs, Clement and Rupert and Clarence the Short. Six foot tall, he was, but short compared to the real Ser Clarence. We’re all good dragon men, up Crackclaw way.” (aFfC, Brienne IV)
And of course, the major House Martell signed a marriage pact that promised Arianne Martell to Viserys in return for Dorne’s military support of 50 000 spears.
“It is a secret pact,” Dany said, “made in Braavos when I was just a little girl. Ser Willem Darry signed for us, the man who spirited my brother and myself away from Dragonstone before the Usurper’s men could take us. Prince Oberyn Martell signed for Dorne, with the Sealord of Braavos as witness.” She handed the parchment to Ser Barristan, so he might read it for himself. “The alliance is to be sealed by a marriage, it says. In return for Dorne’s help overthrowing the Usurper, my brother Viserys is to take Prince Doran’s daughter Arianne for his queen.” […] “If my brother Viserys had known that he had a Dornish princess waiting for him, he would have crossed to Sunspear as soon as he was old enough to wed.” (aDwD, Daenerys VII)
Prince Doran was happy to wait for Viserys to get an army first, which Illyrio was helping him get.
In contrast to Illyrio continuously acknowledging Viserys as King, or everybody referring to Dany as Queen, nobody addresses Aegon as king yet or speaks of him to others as a king in the present, not even after landing in the Stormlands or any of the victories they had – not Jon Connington, not Lemore, not Haldon, no Company’s serjeant. If they mention kingship it is conditional, or as future pacing.
I suspect that Illyrio intended for Aegon and Viserys to meet, either in Pentos or as Illyrio took Viserys on a tour in the hinterland of Pentos, as his miraculously saved nephew, with all of them recognizing Viserys’ better claim. Viserys was older. He would get the bigger and more fearsome army. And the Lords in Westeros would believe his claim over the boy that everybody believed to have died. More, Aegon would come with a gift through Jon Connington to help Viserys claim his crown and throne – the Golden Company. And it would have been heavily implied that if Viserys III recognized Aegon as his nephew, Dorne’s support would be assured. It would be like Viserys II who was found by Alyn Velaryon in Lys and brought back to Westeros to join his lonely brother Aegon III – a miraculous family reunion.
Viserys was vain enough to fall for the flattery and greedy enough to realize that Dorne, the Golden Company, the Dothraki, House Darry and Crackclaw Point would at least have given him an army of 110 000. This would indeed have been big enough a force to tempt houses in the Reach and Ironborn to join. Renly manages to amass an army of 80 000 men, though a portion are from the Stormlands and the Florents of the Reach are bound to House Baratheon through the marriage between Stannis and Selyse. Still, half of Renly’s army being from the Reach (a conservative estimate) would make an army of 150 000, and at least one fleet with House Redwyne. Viserys’s chances of reconquering the Iron Throne were real, if he had been more patient or had enjoyed the good life in Pentos. Unfortunately, he was his own worst enemy.
Illyrio wanted king Viserys III to conquer Westeros and to make Aegon’s survival legitimate in the eyes of Westeros. But Illyrio also set Viserys up to be hated for it simultaneously. While the 50000 Dothraki screamers would greatly help conquer Westeros, smallfolk and lords alike would soon despise Viserys for using these barbarous savages against his own people, for selling his sister to them. Viserys’s personality would quickly earn him the nickname of the Mad King’s Son. And nobody would shed a tear if he ended up dead (which could be arranged), while his “humbly raised” heir and Rhaegar’s Son was more true to Westerosi values. Aegon’s first popular act would be to banish the Dothraki from ever setting foot on Westeros ever again.
Braavosi Prohibitions
Another often baffling aspect of Illyrio’s methods is the high degree of influence Illyrio uses as well as secrecy in whicb Aegon is raised, but also in the roundabout ways he helps Viserys to an army or Dany to the dragon eggs, the ships and merchandize. For example, when Tyrion points out how Illyrio sold Dany to Khal Drogo, it seems important to Illyrio to correct him – Viserys gifted his sister to Drogo to earn the khal’s friendship.
Most of Illyrio’s manner of manoevring makes sense once we take Braavos into consideration. For this we must delve into the more recent history of Pentos itself. As one of Valyria’s daughters, slavery was a common practice in Pentos. But the last two hundred years, Braavos fought six wars with Pentos to abolish the slave trade practiced by Pentos. Braavos won four of these. The last one in 209 AC,
went so poorly for Pentos that no fewer than four princes were chosen and sacrificed within the span of a single year. The fifth man in this bloody succession, Prince Nevio Narratys, convinced the magisters to sue for peace after a rare victory—one, it was rumored, that Nevio purchased by means of bribes. In the peace accords, Pentos was forced to make certain concessions—most notably the abolition of slavery and a withdrawal from the slave trade. (tWoIaF – The Free Cities: Pentos)
In reality, Pentoshi ships still participate by raising Lysene or Myrish banners (false flags). By law servants are free men and women, and have a right to refuse service as long as they are not in debt to their masters. In practice, servants earn less for their labor, than what they have to pay their master for food, clothing and shelter. And their debt keeps growing. These free bond servants are slaves in all but name.
The abolishing of slave trade was not all that Pentos had to agree to with Braavos.
A further provision of the peace accords between Braavos and Pentos limits the Pentoshi to no more than twenty warships and prohibits them from hiring sellswords, entering into contracts with free companies, or maintaining any army beyond the city watch. (tWoIaF – The Free Cities: Pentos)
Pentos is not allowed to have a larger fleet than twenty warships! They are not allowed to hire sellswords, draft a contract with free companies, or maintain an army.
And this explains really well why Illyrio requires a puppet figure to do it for him or has to fund politicians in other cities. Illyrio is not just any Pentoshi. He is one of the magisters of the city. If Braavos were to have evidence that Illyrio does any of this for his own or Pentos’ gain, the bastard-daughter would have cause to descend on Pentos with their Purple Fleet while it is defenceless. And his fellow magisters would throw Illyrio to the wolves to save their own skin.
- Illyrio cannot personally make a gift trade between himself and a khal for 50000 Dothraki. He needed Viserys III Targaryen to gift his sister to Khal Drogo for the army. That is why Illyrio is adament about correcting Tyrion’s wording.
- Illyrio could not hire Ser Jorah Mormont or any other sellsword to guard even his person or house. He can hire Unsullied though (pointy hatted eunuchs), or a pit fighter (Strong Belwas), or a squire (Barristan Selmy). Meanwhile Jorah was hired by Varys as a spy with possible return as reward, and Jorah had to freely offer his service to Viserys.
- Illyrio cannot hire the Golden Company (or any other free company) with either gold or blood. That is why the contract with the Golden Company is not between himself and them, but between Aegon and the Golden Company.
- Illyrio cannot build or buy any warships. That is why he funds the politicians in Volantis for years, so that they would happily sail the Golden Company to Westeros, or why Varys recruited Aurane Waters to build and steal a fleet of dromonds (see Aurane, the Lord of Waters, Part 1 – The Set Up).
Illyrio’s sentiments for Serra and Aegon
Especially the prohibition of entering into a contract with a free company gives us quite a shocking insight. The Golden Company is the sole free company that will enter a contract for blood reasons, other than gold. Illyrio confirmed to Tyrion that the Golden Company broke their contract paid for in gold by Myr for an older contract writ in blood. This admission by Illyrio has led to speculation since aDwDs publishing about his potential blood relation to Aegon, about Illyrio being a descendant of the female line of Blackfyres or another disgraced Targaryen forebear.
None of these theories take the Braavosi prohibitions into account. This is not so surprising, when the world book is the sole canon materially that mentions them at all. This prohibition against entering a contract with a free company though is enough argument to dismiss the notion that Illyrio is of Targaryen or Blackfyre descent himself. A blood contract between Illyrio and the Golden Company would be cause for Braavosi wrath or Illyrio’s loss of his magistry in Pentos. Only Aegon Targaryen can enter a blood contract with the Golden Company without getting Pentos intro trouble.
This leaves us one more theory to entertain: whether Illyrio is Aegon’s real father. Which brings me to Illyrio’s second wife Serra.
“A maiden? I know the way of that.” Illyrio thrust his right hand up his left sleeve and drew out a silver locket. Inside was a painted likeness of a woman with big blue eyes and pale golden hair streaked by silver. “Serra. I found her in a Lysene pillow house and brought her home to warm my bed, but in the end I wed her. Me, whose first wife had been a cousin of the Prince of Pentos. The palace gates were closed to me thereafter, but I did not care. The price was small enough, for Serra.” (aDwD, Tyrion II)
Illyrio could have kept Serra as his lover and bedwarmer without marrying her. Nevertheless he did wed her, though it angered the Prince of Pentos, and he was forever barred from the Prince’s palace. Even Tyrion notices that Illyrio’s feelings regarding Serra go deeper than lust or status. He was attached to her, loved her. And his preference for bedwarmers who share features with Serra probably stems from this love, just like Jorah seeks Lynesse in Dany and later on lusts after bedslaves that look like Dany.
Serra definitely was Valyrian looking. This should be no surprise if she was from Lys. Many Lysene have Valyrian features of silver or pale hair and either deep blue eyes or even purple eyes.
Lys, the most beautiful of the Free Cities, enjoys what is perhaps the most salubrious climate in all the known world. Bathed by cool breezes, warmed by the sun, on a fertile island where palms and fruit trees grow in profusion, surrounded by blue-green waters teeming with fish, “Lys the Lovely” was founded as a retreat by the dragonlords of old Valyria, a paradise where they might refresh themselves with fine wines and sweet maids and soothing musics before returning to the fires of the Freehold. To this day, Lys remains “a feast for the senses, a balm for the soul.” Its pillow houses are famed through all the world, and sunsets here are said to be more beautiful than anywhere else on earth. The Lyseni themselves are beautiful as well, for here more than anywhere else in the known world the old Valyrian bloodlines still run strong. (tWoIaF – The Free Cities: The Quarrelsome Daughters: Myr, Lys and Tyrosh)
Several Lyseni characters that are featured in the series, such as Salladhor Saan and Lysono Maar look as Valyrian as a Targaryen. And so does Dany’s handmaid Doreah. But was Serra of Targaryen or Blackfyre descent? The Serra name alone in the series, world book and Fire & Blood is an essay on its own.
In theory, Illyrio could have fathered a son upon Serra and pretend that this Valyrian looking boy is actually Rhaegar’s son, Aegon, if he was born close enough to 282 AC. People are less likely to question his age claim by the time the boy reaches adulthood.
Fans and readers who believe this most likely rely on Illyrio’s display of fondness or sentimentality for Aegon in the same manner that he revealed above for Serra. And we are meant to pick up on this as readers. He tells Tyrion for example that there never was a nobler lad, though as far as Tyrion is concerned the mission is to get to Queen Dany and the Golden Company. At this point, Tyrion has no clue who Young Griff is or how important he is.
Illyrio had intended to hold a feast and spend a day with Griff, before the Shy Maid would depart for Volon Therys. He knows Aegon’s favourite candy.
“There is a gift for the boy in one of the chests. Some candied ginger. He was always fond of it.” Illyrio sounded oddly sad. “I thought I might continue on to Ghoyan Drohe with you. A farewell feast before you start downriver …” (aDwD, Tyrion II)
Illyrio expresses this wish, despite mentioning earlier in the chapter that he rarely journeys to his properties and lands in the hinterland, for there are myriad of pleasures more to be had in Pentos. In other words, Illyrio Mopatis went on this journey specifically to see Aegon. Haldon Halfmaester dismisses the notion immediately though.
“We have no time for feasts, my lord,” said Haldon. “Griff means to strike downriver the instant we are back. News has been coming upriver, none of it good. Dothraki have been seen north of Dagger Lake, outriders from old Motho’s khalasar, and Khal Zekko is not far behind him, moving through the Forest of Qohor.”
The fat man made a rude noise. “Zekko visits Qohor every three or four years. The Qohorik give him a sack of gold and he turns east again. As for Motho, his men are near as old as he is, and there are fewer every year. The threat is—” (aDwD, Tyrion II)
Illyrio attempts to argue and makes some rude noise of either disappointment or disgust, to no avail. Eventually he says his goodbye, again with a specific message for Aegon.
“Good fortune,” Illyrio called after them. “Tell the boy I am sorry that I will not be with him for his wedding. I will rejoin you in Westeros. That I swear, by my sweet Serra’s hands.” The last that Tyrion Lannister saw of Illyrio Mopatis, the magister was standing by his litter in his brocade robes, his massive shoulders slumped. As his figure dwindled in their dust, the lord of cheese looked almost small. (aDwD, Tyrion II)
This goodbye scene almost evokes sympathy for Illyrio with the reader. This man is not just mercenary alone. He knows love as well as loss.
We can also deduce that Aegon must have grown up the first years of his life at Illyrio’s mansion in Pentos. When Tyrion explores the home, he discovers clothes of a small boy in one of the chests. As they are musty and moths have been at them, despite being kept in a cedar chest, the boy these clothes belonged to is not small anymore.
The magister had invited him to explore the manse. He found clean clothes in a cedar chest inlaid with lapis and mother-of-pearl. The clothes had been made for a small boy, he realized as he struggled into them. The fabrics were rich enough, if a little musty, but the cut was too long in the legs and too short in the arms, with a collar that would have turned his face as black as Joffrey’s had he somehow contrived to get it fastened. Moths had been at them too. At least they do not stink of vomit. (aDwD, Tyrion I)
But is Illyrio’s sentimentality over Aegon and Serra sufficient evidence to determine he is Aegon’s biological father? No. Both his relation to Varys and Serra prove that in rare cases Illyrio is capable of attachment and loyalty, while neither are blood relatives. If he fostered Aegon for the first five years, and was otherwise childless, Illyrio may have grown as attached to the child as he is to Varys and Serra. The novels feature several examples of confirmed foster parents and or foster children developing deep emotional attachment bonds that supercede the actual blood or family ties: Jon Arryn, Jon Connington … So, I do not believe that Aegon has to be Illyrio’s true son, for him to develop sentimental fatherly feelings toward him.
Revenge
“Tell me,” Tyrion said as he drank, “why should a magister of Pentos give three figs who wears the crown in Westeros? Where is the gain for you in this venture, my lord?” (aDwD, Tyrion II)
Now, you may ask – if Illyrio is not a Blackfyre, not a Targaryen and not Aegon’s father, then why is he so motivated to go to such expenses and manouevring to see him ascend the Iron Throne? Aside from the fatherly sentiment towards a foster son, I would also add another motive – revenge. Love, hatred and revenge are huge motivators in the series, often bringing people together without any blood or family tie. Heck, it even brings the dead back to life with Lady Stoneheart. In Illyrio’s case it is his love for Serra that motivates him to avenge her death.
“How did she die?” Tyrion knew that she was dead; no man spoke so fondly of a woman who had abandoned him.
“A Braavosi trading galley called at Pentos on her way back from the Jade Sea. The Treasure carried cloves and saffron, jet and jade, scarlet samite, green silk … and the grey death. We slew her oarsmen as they came ashore and burned the ship at anchor, but the rats crept down the oars and paddled to the quay on cold stone feet. The plague took two thousand before it ran its course.” Magister Illyrio closed the locket. “I keep her hands in my bedchamber. Her hands that were so soft …” (aDwD, Tyrion II)
The grey death or grey plague is a terrible, deadly swift cousin of greyscale. Where children afflicted with the slower greyscale can survive, albeit disfigured or scarred as Stannis’s daughter Shyreen is, the much swifter grey death is deadlier. Pycelle witnessed its impact in Oldtown once when he was a boy.
“Ser Jaime, I have seen terrible things in my time,” the old [Pycelle] said. “Wars, battles, murders most foul . . . I was a boy in Oldtown when the grey plague took half the city and three-quarters of the Citadel. Lord Hightower burned every ship in port, closed the gates, and commanded his guards to slay all those who tried to flee, be they men, women, or babes in arms. They killed him when the plague had run its course. On the very day he reopened the port, they dragged him from his horse and slit his throat, and his young son’s as well. To this day the ignorant in Oldtown will spit at the sound of his name, but Quenton Hightower did what was needed. […]” (aFfC, Jaime I)
Illyrio’s beloved Serra was one of the casualties of this deadly and terrible disease. It turned her hands into stone, and these Illyrio still keeps in his bedchamber. It is not just a sentimental reminder of the woman he loved like the silver locket with her portrait, but a reminder to what and who killed her – a Braavosi galley. And he swears on those hands when he tells Haldon what message to deliver to Aegon. In other words, all this effort to get Aegon on the Iron Throne is tied to his plans to exact revenge, not just on Robert and his allies in Westeros, but also on Braavos.
If Aegon grew up for the first five years at Illyrio’s mansion while Serra lived, we can see why both missions have become so closely tied together, and why Illyrio has this rarely seen fondness for Aegon. Aegon simply reminds him of happier times when for a short period, Illyrio was a content rich man enjoying a family unit – something a one time street kid never ever had before in his life.
The enemy of a friend
We have not been given any direct date when this grey plague impacted Pentos, but we can establish a rough timing, based on Illyrio’s history with Varys. Illyrio implies he regards Varys as a lifelong friend and that he feels obligated to repay Varys out of affection.
Illyrio bit the egg in half. “I told you, my little friend, not all that a man does is done for gain. Believe as you wish, but even fat old fools like me have friends, and debts of affection to repay.”
Liar, thought Tyrion. There is something in this venture worth more to you than coin or castles. “You meet so few men who value friendship over gold these days.”
“Too true,” the fat man said, deaf to the irony. (aDwD, Tyrion II)
“How is it that the Spider became so dear to you?”
Even if both Tyrion and the reader are sceptical of this, I want to stress that Illyrio is deaf to Tyrion’s irony. Illyrio proceeds to explain how both of them teamed up as young and poor boys in Pentos, after Varys fled from Myr. Illyrio informs Tyrion that the painted marble statue of the youth at his mansion was him at sixteen. In this tale of how the two became friends, we get a portrayal of thieves with a heart of gold – Varys stole what lesser thieves had taken, while Illyrio delivered them back to the owners for a fee. Both grew rich with this scheme, and altered their tactics in finding, stealing and keeping secrets. Illyrio grew so respectable that a cousin of the Prince of Pentos let him wed his daughter. He married into one of the forty noble families of Pentos.
“I grew so respectable that a cousin of the Prince of Pentos let me wed his maiden daughter, whilst whispers of a certain eunuch’s talents crossed the narrow sea and reached the ears of a certain king. A very anxious king, who did not wholly trust his son, nor his wife, nor his Hand, a friend of his youth who had grown arrogant and overproud. I do believe that you know the rest of this tale, is that not so?” (aDwD, Tyrion II)
This was the very same Prince who would later bar Illyrio from his palace, after he weds Serra. Meanwhile, Varys moved to King’s Landing and became the Mad King’s master of whisperers. The world book tells us Varys was recruited by the Mad King some time following Steffon Baratheon’s death (278 AC).
Steffon Baratheon’s mission ended in failure, and on his return from Volantis, his ship foundered and sank in Shipbreaker Bay, within sight of Storm’s End. […] In the years that followed, the king’s madness deepened. Though Tywin Lannister continued as Hand, Aerys no longer met with him save in the presence of all seven Kingsguard. Convinced that the smallfolk and lords were plotting against his life and fearing that even Queen Rhaella and Prince Rhaegar might be part of these plots, he reached across the narrow sea to Pentos and imported a eunuch named Varys to serve as his spymaster, reasoning that only a man without friends, family, or ties in Westeros could be relied upon for the truth. (tWoIaF – The Targaryen Kings: Aerys II)
The world book mentions the Mad King distrusting his sister wife Rhaella and Rhaegar, but also the ommission of Elia Martell. A few paragraphs later it relates how Rhaegar was betrothed to Elia Martell early in the year of 279 AC and wed her a year later. And thus Varys was hired some time in 278 AC to early 279 AC.
Illyrio found Serra in Lys in the years after, and she was likely Aegon’s foster (or real) mother. Aegon’s removal from Pentos into the care of Jon Connington in 288 AC may even have been born out of necessity to save Aegon’s life and prevent him from catching the grey death that struck Pentos. While Quenton Hightower burned every ship and instructed any man, woman or child to be killed if they attempted to flee when the same disease hit Oldtown, Pentos only burned the one Braavosi galley.
What Illyrio’s background story with Varys reveals to us, if taken at face value (including them being lowborn streetkids of no particular desccent), is that they both reached their peak career-wise by 278 AC. They were rich and they both had access and influence at a court. The hedonistic, good natured Illyrio Mopatis had maried into one of the forty noble families, that of the Prince of Pentos. Varys became a landless Lord to a King with a crown’s treasury at his disposal to create a network of reading street children and find out every little secret in the entirety of Westeros to his professional heart’s delight.
Then Varys witnessed how his talent ripped a continent apart when that king is madly paranoid of his own heir even. It ended with the butchery of innocent children. Shockingly, the new king said, “Good riddance!” (paraphrasing). Varys managed to save a baby prince though (or so he believes) and shipped him to his most trusted friend Illyrio, who promised to protect the boy’s life.
The following scenario is as speculative as the next one, but a sensible one, if the above is true. Illyrio needed to acquire a silver-haired mother for the baby boy to cover for his identity. The best and easiest place to find such a one was in the pillow houses of Lys, and so he brought Serra to Pentos. For a few years, Illyrio had the perfect make-shift family life and lacked for nothing. He was happy and perhaps even fulfilled. That is why he wed her and shrugged at not having access to the Prince’s court anymore. And then a deadly awful disease that came from a Braavosi ship destroyed the hapiness he chose over access, power and influence.
Illyrio’s few years of happiness, and later his grief and hatred were bound to Varys’s desire for Aegon as well as his revenge against Robert Baratheon and House Lannister. Though each had a different target. Illyrio wanted Braavos to pay for Serra’s death, and Varys wanted to put the innocent babe he saved on the Iron Throne. This would have been the tit-for-tat pact formed between both men. Between Varys and Illyrio we have “The enemy of my friend is my enemy”, which is different from “The enemy of my enemy is a friend”. In the latter situation, allies are tools, not actual friends, and includes inherent distrust. Of course it must be said that both Varys and Illyrio cherry picked their recruited exiles on the latter principle as well as how far they would go for revenge. And Varys and Illyrio alike use these recruits as tools.
Take a look at this small exchange between Viserys and Illyrio in Dany’s first chapter.
“I shall kill the Usurper myself,” he promised, who had never killed anyone, “as he killed my brother Rhaegar. And Lannister too, the Kingslayer, for what he did to my father.”
“That would be most fitting,” Magister Illyrio said. Dany saw the smallest hint of a smile playing around his full lips, but her brother did not notice. (aGoT, Daenerys)
Robert Baratheon and Jaime Lannister would be on the top of Varys’s revenge list, and who better than a returned Targaryen king doing it. Readers may be suspicious of Illyrio’s smile here, just like Dany. But once we accept that revenge is what binds Illyrio and Varys, it simply reveals how Illyrio enjoys the internal vision of it happening.
Varys and Illyrio hasten Khal Drogo into action by triggering the exact same emotion in him with the assassination attempt on Dany and her unborn child. Drogo cared not one bit about the Iron Throne, until he learned some king at the other side of the world would see his beloved wife and unborn child dead, simply for existing. Then, he desired nothing else but to have the money to buy ships asap, sail his khalasar across the poisonous waters and take that king’s throne away from him.
When Dany told him what had happened at the market, all laughter stopped, and Khal Drogo grew very quiet. “This poisoner was the first,” Ser Jorah Mormont warned him, “but he will not be the last. Men will risk much for a lordship.”
[…]
His voice rose, and he lifted his fist to the sky. “I will take my khalasar west to where the world ends, and ride the wooden horses across the black salt water as no khal has done before. I will kill the men in the iron suits and tear down their stone houses. I will rape their women, take their children as slaves, and bring their broken gods back to Vaes Dothrak to bow down beneath the Mother of Mountains.” (aGoT, Daenerys VI)
Ser Jorah Mormont hates Ned Stark deeply, blaming him for all he lost (though it was all his own damn fault).
“Your khal would tell you that only a coward hides behind stone walls instead of facing his enemy with a blade in hand. The Usurper would agree. He is a strong man, brave … and rash enough to meet a Dothraki horde in the open field. But the men around him, well, their pipers play a different tune. His brother Stannis, Lord Tywin Lannister, Eddard Stark …” He spat.
“You hate this Lord Stark,” Dany said.
“He took from me all I loved, for the sake of a few lice-ridden poachers and his precious honor,” Ser Jorah said bitterly. From his tone, she could tell the loss still pained him. (aGoT, Daenerys IV)
Obviously, these three illustrate how irrational people become when they hate or blame someone for their pain and loss or even threat of loss.
- Drogo does not just want to take the Iron Throne from Robert Baratheon. He wants to destroy, kill, rape and enslave the whole of Westeros for it.
- Jorah ruined himself, his marriage and his house financially without any of Ned Stark’s help. It is just easier for him to blame and hate Ned Stark than to face himself. This is not unlike Varys who never recognizes how he served a mad man, brought out the worst in Aerys II and helped destroy the king’s peace.
- Viserys who never wielded a sword in his life believed he could kill Jaime Lannister in a duel like a bravo. And though a former bravo like Illyrio knows this to be an illusion, he still enjoys the vision of it and calls it “most fitting”.
Death, he knew, but slow. I still have time. A year. Two years. Five. Some stone men live for ten. Time enough to cross the sea, to see Griffin’s Roost again. To end the Usurper’s line for good and all, and put Rhaegar’s son upon the Iron Throne. Then Lord Jon Connington could die content. (aDwD, The Lost Lord)
The list goes on of course, at least for the confirmed recruits: Jon Connington, Tyrion Lannister who killed his father Tywin, many of the Golden Company such as Franklyn Flowers who’s happy as long as he gets to kill some Fossoways, Rolly Duckfield who broke the ribs and arms of Lord Caswell’s son with a hammer when the noble insulted him and commandeered the longsword Rolly’s father made for Duck, … And of course Jon Connington hopes that the thirst for vengeance will make Dorne natural allies (without a marriage pact).
“What sort of gods make rats and plagues and dwarfs?”, Tyrion asks out loud to Illyrio when he learns how Serra died. The grey plague could have come from any ship that returned from the Jade Sea. And none of the Braavosi prohibitions could have prevented such a thing. No army, no free company, no warships could protect a port city from rats and plagues (or a vengeful kinslaying dwarf). The conversation that follows right after hints at the Braavosii prohibitions, when Tyrion advizes Illyrio that Pentos could protect itself from the Dothraki scourging their hinterland farms with an army.
“We have seen no towns since Pentos.”
“There are ruins.” Illyrio waved a chicken leg toward the curtains. “The horselords come this way, whenever some khal takes it into his head to gaze upon the sea. The Dothraki are not fond of towns, you will know this even in Westeros.”
“Fall upon one of these khalasars and destroy it, and you may find that the Dothraki are not so quick to cross the Rhoyne.”
“It is cheaper to buy off foes with food and gifts.”
If only I had thought to bring a nice cheese to the battle on the Blackwater, I might still have all my nose. Lord Tywin had always held the Free Cities in contempt. They fight with coins instead of swords, he used to say. Gold has its uses, but wars are won with iron. “Give gold to a foe and he will just come back for more, my father always said.”
“Is this the selfsame father that you murdered?” Illyrio tossed his chicken bone from the litter. “Sellswords will not stand against Dothraki screamers. That was proved at Qohor.” (aDwD, Tyrion II)
Tyrion betrays here how little he knows of Essos and Pentos in particular. He is unaware that Pentos is prohibited from creating or hiring an army by Braavos. Nor does Illyrio enlighten him to this or that the cost would be the Braavos war fleet descending on their defenceless port. Likely out of Pentoshi pride? And that we should frame this useless debate in Illyrio’s mind as tied to vengeance is highlighted by Illyrio reminding Tyrion of his own act of revenge when he killed Tywin on the privy.
A similar pattern emerges in Dany’s chapter when she is about to be introduced to Drogo. In a similar setting – a palanquin – Viserys has just voiced his wish to kill the Kingslayer personally, Illyrio considers it most fitting, and then he points out Drogo’s manse and why the magisters of Pentos gifted it to the Khal.
The nine-towered manse of Khal Drogo sat beside the waters of the bay, its high brick walls overgrown with pale ivy. It had been given to the khal by the magisters of Pentos, Illyrio told them. The Free Cities were always generous with the horselords. “It is not that we fear these barbarians,” Illyrio would explain with a smile. “The Lord of Light would hold our city walls against a million Dothraki, or so the red priests promise … yet why take chances, when their friendship comes so cheap?” (aGoT, Daenerys I)
The world book does tie the Pentoshi way of handling the Dothraki threat to the Braavosi prohibitions on Pentoshi’s military options.
Undoubtedly these are among the reasons that the Pentoshi are now notably less belligerent than the people of Tyrosh, Myr, and Lys. Despite its massive walls, Pentos is oft seen as the most vulnerable of the Free Cities. For this reason, its magisters have adopted a conciliatory attitude not only toward the other Free Cities but also with the Dothraki horselords, cultivating a precarious friendship with a series of strong khals over the years, and showering lavish gifts and chests of gold upon any who brought their khalasars east of the Rhoyne. (tWoIaF – The Free Cities: Pentos)
I admit that I will not yet provide any further evidence for Illyrio’s intentions against Braavos, or what evidence there exists that he may have messed with Braavos in the past.
Illyrio himself only mentions Braavos twice: when he mentions the galley that brought the grey death and when he explains their law about slaves.
“Slaves?” the dwarf asked pointedly.
The fat man stroked one of the prongs of his oiled yellow beard, a gesture Tyrion found remarkably obscene. “Slavery is forbidden in Pentos, by the terms of the treaty the Braavosi imposed on us a hundred years ago. Still, they will not refuse you.” Illyrio gave a ponderous half bow. “But now my little friend must excuse me. I have the honor to be a magister of this great city, and the prince has summoned us to session.” (aDwD, Tyrion I)
But Illyrio would be as loathe to say anything negative about Braavos within hearing, as much as he avoids revealing the reason why Pentos does not hire sellswords or free companies against the Dothraki. All Illyrio ever admits to is that Viserys had agreed to make him master of coin at his small council, and he swears he will join Aegon’s Company in Westeros.
“Are we back to that again? You are a persistent little man.” Illyrio gave a laugh and slapped his belly. “As you will. The Beggar King swore that I should be his master of coin, and a lordly lord as well. Once he wore his golden crown, I should have my choice of castles … even Casterly Rock, if I desired.”
Tyrion snorted wine back up the scarred stump that had been his nose. “My father would have loved to hear that.”
“Your lord father had no cause for concern. Why would I want a rock? My manse is large enough for any man, and more comfortable than your drafty Westerosi castles. Master of coin, though …” The fat man peeled another egg. “I am fond of coins. Is there any sound as sweet as the clink of gold on gold?” (aDwD, Tyrion II)
That seems to have nothing to do with Braavos at all, except that Westeros has lent large sums of money from the Iron Bank over the course of Robert’s entire reign and Cersei has halted payments to Braavos.
I would caution against full dismissal of the notion of Illyrio’s plans involving harm to Braavos though. Because we do see that Illyrio lies about the reasons why Pentos deals with the Dothraki in the way they do. He also regularly asserts the belief in an inalienable right of masters to do with their chattel as they please.
Finally, I want to leave the reader with something to think about. When we look at the wedding of Dany to Khal Drogo, we are basically looking at a festival the size of Woodstock: forty thousand Dothraki warriors, plus the women, children and slaves of the khalasar.
Drogo had called his khalasar to attend him and they had come, forty thousand Dothraki warriors and uncounted numbers of women, children, and slaves. Outside the city walls they camped with their vast herds, raising palaces of woven grass, eating everything in sight, and making the good folk of Pentos more anxious with every passing day. “My fellow magisters have doubled the size of the city guard,” Illyrio told them over platters of honey duck and orange snap peppers one night at the manse that had been Drogo’s. (aGoT, Daenerys II)
I do not believe the other magisters would allow Illyrio to mediate between Viserys and Khal Drogo in such a manner as he did, so publically, without some backing. They certainly would not care one bit about who sits the Iron Throne of Westeros. But they would care about sticking it to Braavos and regain at least a military defense power.
In 2019, John Suburb’s proposed Illyrio intends to destroy the Iron Bank with a bank run, and break Braavos’ power over Pentos in this way. I certainly am not the sole one who suspects that Illyrio’s plan involves harming or weakening Braavos. There are many assertions in this theory I disagree with though, such as Littlefinger being Illyrio’s agent or even that he intends a bank run. The OP fails to provide any textual evidence for most of his assertions, while there is much evidence against both of these. I have come to other conclusions, based on text, but they require an extensive essay on both the MO of team Varys-Illyrio versus Littlefinger, and other Braavos and Vale characters, that would more than double this essay, if not triple it in length. So, for now, you must content yourself with the ideas and evidence I provided in here.
Conclusion
If we take the little textual information we have of Illyrio’s plans at least towards the surviving Targaryen siblings and what little we have for his background story at face value and match it with other timelines and/or confirmed contradictions, the following story emerges.
As an orphansed streetkid and bravo Illyrio bonds with young Varys in Pentos. They grow rich with a scheme where Varys steals from lesser thieves, initially valuables but over time secrets and information, while Illyrio returns the goods to the original owners. Eventually, Illyrio grows so respectable that he weds into one of the 40 noble families of Pentos – a cousin of the Prince of Pentos. He enjoys the good hedonistic life. Meanwhile Varys’ network of mice and his ability to find out secrets reach the ears of the Mad King and he is hired by Aerys II in 278 AC, having a whole treasury at his disposal to further his network of now little birds. Each seem to continue their career and life separately.
Varys’s blazing of the Mad King’s paranoia against his hand Tywin Lannister and his son Rhaegar Targaryen leads to the high lords beginning to form marriage alliances, which both Rhaegar and Aerys II disrupt. Once the Mad King arbitrarily executes such lords, picks heirs for his kingsguard or orders their execution, the lords rebel. The Targaryen dynasty is destroyed with some of the worst crimes such as kingslaying and the butchery of toddlers and babes in 283 AC. The new king of a new dynasty, Robert Baratheon, never offers any justice.
Varys manages to save Rhaegar’s son Aegon and smuggles him to his longtime friend Illyrio in Pentos. Illyrio requires a Valyrian looking foster mother for the baby so not to draw attention and avoid questions. He finds Serra and falls in love with her. Together with the baby he finally experiences a simple happiness, and on top of that he has all the wealth he needs to maintain such a life. He weds Serra and does not care even if the Prince of Pentos is angry with him and barrs him from the Palace.
But then disaster strikes. A Braavosi galley coming from the Jade Sea brings the grey death to Pentos in 288 AC, and Serra is one of the two thousands victims. Luckily, Illyrio manages to protect his ward/foster son from the deadly threat. Varys finds another foster father for him – the exiled Jon Connington, who was Rhaegar’s best friend, who is the right hand man of Myles Toyne, commander of the Golden Company. A blood contract is signed between Myles Toyne and the young Aegon Targaryen, that binds the Golden Company to helping Aegon regain the throne. A cover story is concocted for Jon Connington where he allegedly drunk himself to death over being caught at stealing the treasure chest of the Free Company. In reality he becomes Aegon’s new foster father. Over time, a septa, a halfmaester and a squire are picked to train the boy, who lives on a barge traveling estuaries of the Rhoyne in complete anonymity.
Aegon Targaryen is not the sole Targaryen survivor though – the siblings of his father were smuggled to Braavos in 284 AC by the faithful Ser Willem Darry of the royalist House Darry. There they lived until 289 AC. When Willem Darry died though, the children were robbed and put out by the servants. They flee and roam the Free Cities: an orphaned young Viserys Targaryen who has to take care of his little sister Daenerys Targaryen.
Varys can keep tabs on them, as they live as guests with archons and princes in various Free Cities. But it is too dangerous to have anyone appear to be backing their claim. After the Greyjoy Rebellion of 289 AC all of Westeros is joined behind Robert Baratheon who appears to have secured his legacy, not only with peace, but also three heirs and tightly bound to House Lannister of Casterly Rock.
The world and Westeros only know of the survival of Viserys and Daenerys Targaryen, while they believe Aegon to be dead. The babe that he was swapped for Varys to smuggle him out of King’s Landing had been killed by smashing his head against the wall. And Tywin had presented the dead bodies of the babe and his sister Rhaenys before the new king Robert and the court, in 283 AC. If Illyrio and Varys wish to bring Aegon Targaryen home and on the Iron Throne, they must need at least one of the known Targaryen siblings to join Aegon and proclaim him the true Aegon Targaryen. Otherwise even the willing royalists would doubt Aegon’s claim. So, it is best for all involved that the known Targaryen siblings travel widely, so that their identity can never be questioned.
Illyrio and Varys decide that the eldest of the Targaryen siblings is their best chance on accomplishing the recognition of Aegon’s survival. Though poor and exiled now, Viserys’ late mother declared him king Viserys III in 283 AC. He therefore has the right to choose his heir. They intend for Aegon to be Viserys III’s recognized heir. The captains of the Golden Company meet with Viserys between 292 and 296 AC. They find him laughable.
Meanwhile, Illyrio has come up with a plan to provide Viserys with his own army. Due to the Braavosi military restrictions on Pentos for nigh on a century almost, the city has learned to create good relations with Dothraki khals whenever they ride west to get a glimpse of the sea. Though the khalasars trample any town in the hinterland of Pentos, they leave the city alone as long as Pentos offers them gifts. One of those khals, Khal Drogo has a curiosity for Old Valyria, and Illyrio believes he might be interested in acquiring a true Targaryen bride. He convinces his fellow magisters to gift a manse inside the city to Khal Drogo. From the Golden Company he learns what Viserys has grown into.
As Daenerys nears the age of having her first menses in 297 AC and Targaryens often expect to wed their sibling, Illyrio finally invites Viserys and Dany to live with him in Pentos to prevent such a thing. He offers Viserys to help him with his claim and informs him that he can help introduce him and his sister to the khal. He explains to Viserys how in exchange for Dany as a bride, the khal who has never lost a fight or battle in his life would gift him an army of 40 to 50000 Dothraki screamers. Though Viserys is loathe to part with his sister (he wanted to take for his wife, per Targaryen tradition), the young man knows of no other viable alternative.
Illyrio doubts that Dany will survive this marriage or life with the Dothraki, which is unfortunate, but the best chances at successfully regaining the Iron Throne is with a large army. He hopes to introduce the miraculously discovered Aegon to Viserys, once Khal Drogo has his Targaryen bride and leaves with her for Vaes Dothrak. Eventually the khal will return with an army for Viserys. In the meantime, Viserys can bond with Aegon and certainly if Dany died, Viserys would declare Aegon his heir. And while Illyrio believes the Dothraki screamers are necessary to help reconquer Westeros, they will automatically handicap Viserys. For the lords and smallfolk will resent him for letting such savages loose on them, and they will willingly turn to his heir Aegon instead.
But Viserys ruins that plan by insisting on joining his sister and the khalasar to Vaes Dothrak. There he ends up not surviving, while Dany does. More, the three petrified dragon eggs that Illyrio gave her to represent the three surviving Targaryens (in his mind) hatch and Dany becomes the Mother of Dragons and Queen of Slaver’s Bay. But no worries, now Aegon has to join Dany, and can offer marriage and the Golden Company to her. And then he trusts a dwarf to help him accomplish it, because Tyrion understands “revenge”, which is what Illyrio and Varys both crave deeply.