Aemon Targaryen

Aemon was born in King's Landing the night before the feast of the Smith in 136 AC, a big, healthy-looking baby. His elder brother Aegon, barely a year and a half old, is said to have climbed into his cradle and tried to strike him with a toy dragon egg someone had left there; the baby was unharmed, since their mother reached the crib in time after hearing him cry.

He grew into a strong, good-looking young man, skilled at jousting and so able with a sword that he was thought worthy of wielding Dark Sister. He was knighted very young, and at seventeen, in 153 AC, joined the Kingsguard of his uncle, King Aegon III.

That same year his sister Naerys married Aegon, Viserys II's other son; the songs say Aemon wept at the wedding, and it was after the ceremony that he took the white cloak. Historians add that the two brothers, Aegon and Aemon, quarrelled during the feast and again at the bedding.

From those years there is also a remembered duel against Lord Cregan Stark: Aemon himself admitted afterward that he had never crossed swords with so seasoned an opponent.

When his cousin King Daeron I set out to conquer Dorne, Aemon rode with him as his closest protector. During an attempt on the Young Dragon's life, he threw himself into the path of a poisoned arrow meant for the king; he survived the poison, though he had to be sent back to King's Landing to recover.

Once healed, he returned to Dorne at his king's side and won renown by defeating a Dornish champion in single combat. But the conquest collapsed when a rebellion broke out, killing Daeron I, and Aemon — after killing two men who had betrayed their own side — was taken prisoner.

Lord Wyl of Wyl had him stripped and locked in a crow's cage suspended over a pit swarming with vipers.

Daeron's successor, King Baelor I, made peace with the Prince of Dorne and, on the road back from Sunspear, tried to free his cousin from that cage. The Wyls set a condition: that the king himself climb down into the pit. Aemon begged him to give up the idea, but Baelor went in regardless.

Some say the snakes refused to bite the king through the grace of the gods, though accounts differ on how many times they tried: certain maesters speak of six bites before Baelor reached the cage, while the Dornish claim as many as fifty before he managed to work the lock. Free at last, Aemon carried him on his back while Lord Wyl took wagers on how long the two of them would last.

The poison left Baelor comatose, and Aemon had to carry him out of Dorne alone. In a village along the Boneway a septon gave them clothes and a donkey to bear the king, and together they reached Blackhaven, where the castle's maester was able to treat him. Baelor woke on the road to Storm's End, though the full journey back to King's Landing would take half a year.

Back at court, Aemon served his own father, Viserys II, during the brief time he held the throne, between 171 and 172 AC. On his death the crown passed to Aemon's elder brother, Aegon IV, alongside whom he remained in the Kingsguard, eventually rising to Lord Commander — a post some sources say he had already held before.

When Ser Morgil Hastwyck accused Queen Naerys, Aemon's sister, of adultery and treason, Aemon defended her honour in a trial by combat and killed his opponent. The feat was turned into song and only added to his fame, to the king's open displeasure.

Rumours that Aemon was in truth the father of Prince Daeron were never proven, but they led some to favor one of Aegon's bastard sons as heir instead. Maester Kaeth's writings claim it was Aegon IV himself who secretly spread the accusation against Naerys, right after an argument with Daeron, who opposed the king's plan for an unprovoked war in Dorne.

When the birth of Princess Daenerys nearly cost Naerys her life, the Hand of the King, Lord Bracken, seized the moment to put forward his own daughter Barba as a new wife for Aegon. As soon as the queen recovered, Aemon and Prince Daeron forced Barba to return to Stone Hedge with her son Aegor.

Things went differently with the king's next mistress, Melissa Blackwood, who got along amicably with Aemon, Naerys, and Daeron alike.

Disguised as a mystery knight, Aemon defied his own brother's ban and entered a tournament for the sole purpose of crowning Naerys queen of love and beauty. Fighting under the name of the Knight of Tears, he won the tournament and achieved what he had set out to do.

Despite the resentment Aegon IV felt toward him, Aemon died defending his brother from an assassination attempt by two brothers of House Toyne, who sought revenge for the torture and execution of their third brother, Ser Terrence Toyne.

Naerys never recovered from the loss and died a year later. Aegon IV did little to honour his brother's memory, and even tried to blacken his name, but the attempt failed: Aemon was remembered as a heroic figure, respected throughout Westeros, while posterity nicknamed the king himself the Unworthy. Years later, Ser Arys Oakheart summed up the episode plainly, calling the accusation against Naerys "just that, a tale, a lie" that Aegon had invented to set aside his legitimate son in favor of a bastard.

King Daeron II, Aemon's nephew — or, by some accounts, his son, in a question that was never settled — named his own grandson Aemon in the Dragonknight's honour. Grown old, that grandson would one day tell Jon Snow: "My grandfather named me for the Prince Aemon, the Dragonknight, who was his uncle or his father, depending on which story you believe."