When he had read those accounts before, he had always felt that the numbers and descriptions had been exaggerated, embellished by the imaginations of later generations.
Aegon had landed in Westeros with only a few thousand men. House Gardener's cavalry alone had outnumbered his entire force dozens of times over, and they had even more infantry, along with tens of thousands of elite Lannister troops.
How had an army of a few thousand, with nothing more than three dragons added to its ranks, won a battle against a force dozens of times its size?
Yet now, standing here, looking at the three-headed dragon's claws, each as tall as a person, and the warm white vapor streaming from her nostrils with every breath, he suddenly realized that those accounts might not have been embellished at all.
Viserys did not answer Olenna immediately. He merely glanced at her, a hint of an amused smile in his eyes.
The old woman was indeed as shrewd as the rumors claimed. With a single phrase, "too old," she had both given herself an excuse to avoid hosting them and conveniently pushed Willas and Margaery to the fore. If anything happened later, it would also mean that it had little to do with her.
Viserys had no intention of exposing her so openly on an occasion like this, but he did intend to indulge in a little verbal jab. After a slight nod, he said, "Since the Queen of Thorns is in poor health, Dany and I won't trouble you for now. With Duke Willas and Lady Margaery here, I'm sure they'll take good care of us."
Although everyone in Westeros knew that the "Queen of Thorns" referred to Olenna Tyrell, she herself disliked the title intensely. After all, she had earned it through her sharp,