House Corbray of Heart's Home

When the Andals carved up the Vale by sword and fire, Corwyn Corbray beat back Houses Brightstone and Shell and claimed the Fingers for himself, crowning himself Lord of the Fingers.

The Corbrays maintain it was Ser Jaime Corbray who slew King Robar II Royce at the Battle of the Seven Stars, after Robar himself had killed Qyle Corbray, the last King of the Fingers. No one else backs the claim; it is the story they tell about themselves.

Generations later, when Prince Aegon rose against his uncle, King Maegor I Targaryen, a Lord Corbray was among the few lords who marched with him. Beneath the Gods Eye, wielding Lady Forlorn, he cut down Ser Davos Darklyn.

Later still, Ser Corwyn Corbray sat among the regents who ruled in the name of the young King Aegon III.

During the Blackfyre Rebellion, a Kingsguard knight born a Corbray met Daemon Blackfyre at Redgrass Field. The duel between Lady Forlorn and the sword Blackfyre ran nearly an hour, until Daemon unhorsed him and then dismounted himself so the maesters could see to his fallen foe. That gesture cost him: it gave the archers of Raventree Hall time to find their ground and loose the arrows that killed him.

It was also a Lord Corbray who, sometime in those years, hired a sellsword in Braavos to serve in the Vale: Petyr Baelish's great-grandfather, the man who first set his family's foot in these lands.

When Robert Baratheon rose against the Iron Throne, Lyn Corbray fought on the loyalist side, clashing with Lord Jon Arryn at the gates of Gulltown.

Before the end he switched sides and made it to the Battle of the Trident alongside Jon Arryn himself, where he killed Prince Lewyn Martell. There he took up Lady Forlorn, after his father was wounded in the fighting; when his father died, the sword stayed in his hands for good.

Lady Lysa Tully never forgave Lord Lyonel Corbray for asking that her son Robert Arryn be sent to Heart's Home as a ward; to her mind it was no innocent request, but proof that no one wanted the boy for himself.

Petyr Baelish, newly married to Lysa, left his wife and Sansa Stark at the Eyrie to spend four days in council with the Corbrays.

Lord Lyonel seemed content with Petyr Baelish's rule over the Vale, but his heir, Ser Lyn Corbray, went another way and joined the Lords Declarant. Even as Petyr's guest at the Eyrie, he did not hesitate to threaten him with his sword during the parley between the two sides.

Sansa eventually worked out that Lyn had been bought by Littlefinger from the start, planted there to undermine the Declarants from within. Petyr himself admitted what the payment was made of: gold and young boys.

Around the same time, Lord Lyonel, now a widower, married again: a sixteen-year-old girl, daughter of a wealthy Gulltown merchant, with a generous dowry that made up for her common birth. The wedding, also arranged by Littlefinger, drew a large crowd and, to everyone's surprise, Lord Benedar Belmore, freshly reconciled with him.