Jon Connington

Jon was the only son of Armond Connington, Lord of Griffin's Roost, and as a boy he was sent to court in King's Landing to serve as a squire, first around Prince Rhaegar Targaryen and later formally sworn to the crown prince. Among the young lords who courted Rhaegar's favour, some thought him the most stubborn of the bunch.

Once, while his father still lived, Rhaegar was returning from a journey to Dorne and stopped at Griffin's Roost for a fortnight. At the welcoming feast he played a tune on his harp that drew tears from every woman in the hall — no man wept, as Jon remembers it — and afterward took him up to the castle's highest tower, where he praised the beauty of those lands.

When Armond died, the lordship passed to Jon, who left Griffin's Roost in the hands of his cousin Ronald Connington and returned to royal service. In 280 AC he was present when Rhaegar married Princess Elia Martell, and the following year he danced with Ashara Dayne at the tourney at Harrenhal. At another tourney, at Storm's End, a joust unhorsed him.

When Robert Baratheon's rebellion broke out, Aerys II dismissed his Hand, Lord Owen Merryweather, whom he judged weak and perhaps disloyal, and looked for someone young and fierce enough to match Robert himself. He chose Jon. Lord Tywin Lannister thought him too young and too rash for the office.

Jon promised the king Robert's head and rode out at the head of an army. After the battle of Ashford he took over the hunt for Robert, wounded and hidden among the Tyrell forces, and tracked him to Stoney Sept in the Riverlands. He put a price on his head, caged hostages in crow cages, and had his men search the town house by house, but they never found him before Eddard Stark and Hoster Tully arrived to drive Jon's forces out.

In the fighting he killed Ser Denys Arryn, nephew and heir to Lord Jon Arryn, and wounded Hoster Tully, and came close to killing Robert himself inside the town's sept. When he saw the Battle of the Bells was lost, he pulled back. Aerys blamed him for the whole defeat: he stripped him of titles, lands, and wealth, handed Griffin's Roost to his cousin Ronald, and exiled him.

Not long after, Rhaegar died at Robert's hand on the Trident, and Aerys fell in the sack of King's Landing. Jon carried both deaths as though they were his own doing: he believed that if he had killed Robert in time, that battle would never have had to be fought at all.

The new king, Robert Baratheon, had no intention of lifting the exile of a man who had been so close to Rhaegar. He let Ronald Connington keep the castle but reduced the Connington family from lords to plain landed knights, kept its treasury, and handed out nine-tenths of its lands to his own supporters.

Jon joined the Golden Company and rose quickly, earning a seat of honour beside Ser Myles Toyne, the company's captain-general. Brooding on the Battle of the Bells during that first year of exile, he told Myles that not even Tywin Lannister could have done more to catch Robert; Myles answered that Tywin would simply have burned Stoney Sept to the ground, townsfolk and all.

Five years later, Illyrio Mopatis and Lord Varys came to Jon and Myles with news: Rhaegar's infant son, Aegon Targaryen, had survived the sack of King's Landing. To pull Jon out of the Golden Company without raising suspicion, they staged a scheme — he was accused of stealing from the war chest, cast out, and word was later spread that he had drunk himself to death in Lys. The rest of the company never learned the truth.

Jon went along with the lie for the prince's sake, though he felt it as a disgrace, and for twelve years he raised and protected the boy under the name Griff the Younger, passing himself off as the child's own father.

Griff and the boy he passes off as his son have dyed their hair blue, supposedly in memory of a Tyroshi mother who never existed, and travel down the Rhoyne aboard the Shy Maid with Haldon, Rolly Duckfield, Lemore, Ysilla, and Yandry. Jon's plan is to wait at Volantis until Daenerys Targaryen, already ruling several cities in Slaver's Bay, has to pass through on her way to Westeros.

Illyrio also sends them Tyrion Lannister, fleeing Westeros after killing his father, though the rest of the company only knows him as Yollo or Hugor Hill. Jon bans him from wine after one drunken night and sets him to writing down everything he remembers about dragons. Tyrion, who has worked out exactly who Griff and the boy really are, tells him plainly that he should be glad to have Varys on his side, because a name like 'Griff' would never have fooled the Spider. When the Stone Men attack the boat at Chroyane, Jon dives in to save Tyrion and catches greyscale on his hand, which he hides for fear of being cast aside.

At Selhorys, Jon sends Haldon and Tyrion ahead for word of Daenerys; on the way, Jorah Mormont abducts Tyrion, though Jon simply assumes he has run off to drink. The queen is still in Meereen, so the company presses on to Volon Therys, where the Golden Company is camped. Once the officers, already briefed by their captain-general Harry Strickland, confirm the boy truly is Rhaegar's son, they decide not to wait for Daenerys any longer: they will land in Westeros and trust she will come west to join them once she hears of it. With the greyscale creeping up his hand, Jon hopes only to live long enough to see him seated on the Iron Throne.

Storms scatter the fleet and complicate the crossing, but Jon manages to take Griffin's Roost, his old home, with the men he has left. He is glad to learn his cousin Ronald is dead and that Ronald's son, Red Ronnet, is away; the rest of his kin he keeps under guard. He has a letter sent to Doran Martell telling him his sister Elia's son is alive, and refuses to promise the boy in marriage before Daenerys can claim him. When the prince reaches Griffin's Roost, Jon proposes taking Storm's End within ten days, and at the prince's own insistence agrees to lead the attack himself.