The Summer Sickness

Plague / Epidemic

The shaking sickness strikes Westeros while the kingdom tries to recover from war. It would take many over the course of it's resurgence, including Tywin Lannister and the babe Aegon Targaryen.

It would take a year, but soon a ship from Pentos came to dock in King’s Landing, with Barristan Selmy, Oswell Whent and the Lord-in-Exile, Jon Connington, aboard. The Kingsguard had been successful in their mission to bring the Griffin home from Essos. Rhaegar embraced his old friend as brother and restored his titles and lands, and naming him Hand of the King once more. Jon was more than happy to accept the role of ruling by Rhaegar’s side.   More than just a Hand and white cloaks came with the Pentoshi vessel, however.   The shaking sickness had once been one of the most devastating plagues to strike Westeros, and now it struck again. It spread from the docks to Flea Bottom and panic sparked. There was not a soul alive who recalled what damage the illness did during the time of Jaehaerys the Conciliator, but it struck hard all the same. It was only by the mercy of the Seven that the illness did not spread far past the Crownlands, as Rhaegar was swift in trying to contain the disease. His efforts would not help those within the city and beyond its walls, however.   Crown Prince Aegon Targaryen, a boy of two, succumbed to the sickness, and Queen Elia began to show symptoms herself. It would also take Jon Connington, Barristan Selmy and Oswell Whent, the men who had been aboard the diseased vessel and who had no doubt spread it to the Red Keep. Jon Connington thus was likely the shortest-serving Hand of the King, having only held the office for mere days before he died in the Tower of the Hand, clutching his pin in trembling fingers. King’s Landing was a ghost town as men shook in their beds and women tried to heat themselves to no avail. Even those who had only been King's Landing for a few nights, such as Lord Tywin Lannister, fell to the disease while fleeing the infected city. When the disease finally passed, unspeakable damage was left in its wake, and not everyone immediately noticed what had occurred in the Royal Family.   The Prince of Dragonstone, a Targaryen, had died from mere mortal illness.   It was said that a daughter of Jaehaerys and Alysanne had been carried off too, in their time, and the same doubts of the power of Valyrian blood that is said to prevent sickness were raised once more by the baser folk. Though, some refuted that by claiming that the boy prince had only been ‘Half-Valyrian’, and that it was his salty Dornish blood that had doomed him to death by the plague -- Dorne was deeply insulted by this rumour and refuted it violently, and when word reached Queen Elia she was utterly distraught at the mere idea.   Rhaegar, stoic in his grief, was more pragmatic than shaken. He named his son Aemon, by Queen Lyanna, as his heir, and betrothed him to his sister Daenerys, the Realm’s Delight, who had barely escaped the sickness with her life herself. Elia had already been a frail woman, and her brush with the shaking sickness combined with her distress had left her completely bedridden. The Summer Queen, as she would come to be known, would not rise from it for months, and even so, with great difficulty. Some say this was the beginning of the end of summer itself; when the Martell sun hid behind the clouds of grief.   With Jon Connington dead, Rhaegar searched for a new Hand and found one in Doran Martell, his first wife’s brother. He was a learned man and strong, and wished to come to the Capital regardless to see Elia. His eldest was only nine, and his youngest in the womb -- Doran was loathed to leave them and Dorne, but answered the call of Rhaegar Targaryen to the office of Hand.   The West also had to cope with the second notorious demise of the Summer Sickness, Tywin Lannister. Kevan, his brother, assumed regency of the Rock as Tyrion was only a boy of ten at the time. Cersei, Tywin's elder daughter, was a beautiful maiden of seventeen and ambitious, too, she demanded her uncle end his regency and give her rulership of the West. She did not have her twin or her father to champion, her, though, and Kevan only laughed and sent his niece to be a ward of House Westerling. She hated it, and Tyrion was treated gently by his uncle as he was groomed for leadership, all the while knowing his Princess Rhaenys awaited the day she would be joined with him in the light of the Seven. The two had met on occasion and found each-other very agreeable.