Fourth son and seventh child of King Jaehaerys I and Queen Alysanne, born in 63 AC with the silver-gold hair and purple eyes of his line but with a long sour face and round shoulders even in his boyhood, and a pinched cast to his mouth that never came off it. Books were his only friends — he was a miserable swordsman, took no joy in the play of squires and pages, and could be found in the library when his sister Daella, whom his parents had named to be his wife, was looking for him. He insulted Daella publicly when a lady-in-waiting asked when they would be wed, telling her she needed a husband who would want stupid children for those were the only ones she would be able to bear, after which his sister Alyssa emptied a flagon of Arbor gold over his head — the waste of the wine he found more grievous than the insult of the act. When at last Grand Maester Elysar told the king and queen that the boy could not be a maester but might in time make an archmaester, Jaehaerys sent him to Oldtown within the fortnight, and there he made his life: ring, rod, and mask of yellow gold, devoted to alchemy and astronomy and the arts arcane, his letters to his parents dutiful and warmthless. After Prince Baelon's death the old king called him back to King's Landing to advise on the succession; some say the king offered him the throne and he refused it, others that he only suggested the Great Council that was after held at Harrenhal in 101 AC to settle the matter, and so passed the choice from his blood-line to the lords of the realm.
