Roy Connington
Roy Connington, called Roy the Red, was Lord of Griffin's Roost and head of House Connington during the reign of Jaehaerys I Targaryen.
He is remembered chiefly for his friendship with Princess Saera Targaryen, a bond that dragged him into one of the scandals of Jaehaerys's court and ended in his exile.
Chapter 1
The princess's friends
82 ACBooks only
In 82 AC, Roy Connington belonged to Princess Saera Targaryen's inner circle of friends, alongside Jonah Mooton, Braxton Beesbury, Alys Turnberry, and Perianne Moore. They shared feasts, hunts, and nights out around King's Landing.
Once they sailed across the bay of Blackwater to Dragonstone, an escapade that hints at how freely this group moved through Jaehaerys I's court.
Chapter 2
The fool at the Blue Pearl
84 ACBooks only
In 84 AC, the City Watch found Roy, Jonah Mooton, and Braxton Beesbury drunk at the Blue Pearl, a King's Landing brothel, laughing as they watched the king's fool, Tom Nabo, surrounded by whores. Roy admitted they had thought it funny; Jonah added that the idea had been Princess Saera's.
Questioning Perianne Moore and Alys Turnberry uncovered something worse: Alys was pregnant, and Saera had forced both girls to sleep with her friends. Jonah, Roy, and Braxton were thrown in the dungeons.
Chapter 3
Saera's confession
84 ACBooks only
Before King Jaehaerys I and Queen Alysanne, Saera defended herself by claiming Roy Connington wanted to marry her. She then confessed she had given herself to all three friends, each of whom believed he had been the first.
As a way out, she proposed marrying all three at once, as King Maegor I had done with his six wives. The comparison only deepened Jaehaerys's fury.
Chapter 4
Exile and death in Myr
84–94 ACBooks only
A hasty marriage was arranged between Roy and Alys Turnberry, but he refused to take her as his wife, insisting the child she carried belonged to Stinger and refusing to let a bastard inherit Griffin's Roost or be raised as his own. Alys was sent to a motherhouse on an island off Gulltown, where she bore a girl with hair as red as Roy's.
Roy was given two choices: take the black in the Night's Watch or spend ten years away from Westeros. He chose exile, sailing first to Pentos and then to Myr, where he took service with companies of sellswords.
He was stabbed to death by a whore in a Myrish gambling house, half a year before the term that would have let him return.