Tyland Lannister

In 112 AC Princess Rhaenyra Targaryen traveled all the way to the Westerlands. A feast was held in her honor at Casterly Rock, and there Ser Tyland vied with his own brother for her attention. Jason was the elder of the twins; Tyland, born second, seemed determined not to be left behind.

When King Viserys I died, Ser Tyland joined the other councillors who gathered that same night in Queen Alicent Hightower's chambers. The argument over who should wear the crown dragged on until sunrise. Tyland laid out the numbers: twenty-four years had passed since lords swore to uphold Rhaenyra as heir, and many of the men who had taken that oath were already dead.

Once war broke out, Tyland took charge of the crown's coffers as Master of Coin. He split the royal gold into four shares so no single blow could seize it all: one portion went into safekeeping at the Iron Bank of Braavos, another traveled to Casterly Rock, another to Oldtown. What remained let the Greens buy bribes, gifts, and sellswords.

When Prince Aemond Targaryen, now Protector of the Realm, called his vassals and councillors together to announce he would march against his uncle and crush the rebel lords of the Riverlands, not everyone on the council agreed. Ser Tyland did.

Aemond's departure left King's Landing exposed, and in 130 AC the Blacks took the city. Queen Alicent saw resistance was pointless and left Maegor's Holdfast with her father, Lord Jasper Wylde, and Ser Tyland. Queen Rhaenyra, now holding the Red Keep, handed out favors to her own and punishments to everyone else.

Ser Tyland was handed to the torturers to make him say where the crown's treasure was hidden. He came out of it gelded, maimed, and blind.

The riots that followed forced Rhaenyra to flee, and Trystane Truefyre's men took the keep. They found Tyland alive in the black cells, and the returning Greens put him back in his old post. At one council he pressed for the immediate execution of Prince Aegon, held captive after his mother's death: "The boy will be a danger while there's still breath in him. Cut off his head, and those traitors will have no king, no queen, no prince. The sooner he dies, the sooner this rebellion ends."

He was then sent to the Free Cities to hire sellswords for Aegon II's cause, but the war ended before he came back: the king died, and his son Aegon III took the throne.

Lady Johanna Westerling, Lord Jason's widow, bargained for Tyland's pardon by returning the gold he had stored at Casterly Rock. With the new king still a child, a Council of Regents formed from men of both sides of the war, and Tyland was given the title of Hand of the King.

He sought no revenge for what had been done to him. He gained power and a good name among the regents, though common folk distrusted him, and rumors called him a deformed monster and a sorcerer.

He had to deal with the famine the war and the winter had left behind, get trade moving again, and keep watch over Queen Alicent, whom he confined to her rooms in Maegor's Holdfast. He abolished the taxes Lord Bartimos Celtigar had raised, lent money to lords ruined by the fighting, ordered the Dragonpit rebuilt, had the city gates reinforced, and had fifty war galleys built against the threat of the Triarchy.

In 132 AC, former Grand Maester Orwyle was found hiding in a brothel, and Tyland put off his execution out of old friendship. That same year he had to settle the succession and find husbands for the king's sisters. He betrothed Baela to Lord Thaddeus Rowan, but she fled the capital and married her cousin Alyn Velaryon in secret; Tyland took it with resignation and a touch of amusement. He married Rhaena to Ser Corwyn Corbray and named her heir, for her more docile nature.

Late that year he sent Ser Regis Groves to retake Harrenhal from outlaws, but Alys Rivers's followers killed him before he arrived. Tyland never got to organize the assault: winter fever reached King's Landing and shut the whole city down. He sealed off the Red Keep to protect the king and was among the last to fall ill himself. He died two days later, in 133 AC, with Aegon III holding his hand.

Decades later, after Lord Tywin Lannister was killed by his own son Tyrion, Ser Jaime Lannister searched hidden passages in the Tower of the Hand hoping to find his brother there. Among yellowed bones and skulls he found four sacks of blackened silver coins struck in the time of the first Viserys. They may well have been part of the treasure Tyland hid away during the war.