Garth Greenhand had many more descendants.
Among them were:
"Oak" John, ancestor of House Oakheart;
"Archer" Foss, ancestor of House Fossoway;
"Hunter" Harlon and "Horn" Hareth, ancestors of House Tarly;
Ellen "the Sweetest," ancestor of House Beesbury;
Borros "the Breaker," ancestor of House Bulwer;
Owen "Oak Shield," who had conquered the Shield Islands single-handedly...
To this day, these houses, great and small, remained active across the vast lands of the Reach.
Titus considered the most noteworthy of Garth Greenhand's many children to be Brandon "Bloodraven," whose descendants had not, in fact, spread throughout the Reach.
Brandon "Bloodraven" was famed for driving the giants out of the Reach. In his wars against the continent's native inhabitants, he had slain so many Children of the Forest armed with obsidian that his enemies' blood had turned Blue Lake into what was now Red Lake.
In some legends, he was the ancestor or father of Bran the Builder, making him the progenitor of House Stark of the North.
The renowned Bran the Builder was Westeros's first master architect, as well as the lifelong idol of Earl Emmerick Peake, "The Avenger."
Winterfell, the ancestral seat of House Stark;
The Wall, roughly a hundred leagues long, which cut off the lands beyond it;
the two-hundred-foot Hightower on Whispering Bay in Oldtown;
Storm's End, which had sheltered the first Storm King, Durran "Godsgrief," against the assaults of the sea god and the goddess of the wind, and more.
These great structures, which by ordinary reckoning could hardly have been built by human hands, were all masterpieces of Bran the Builder.
Titus had his own views on the man's stories and achievements.
Considering an ordinary human lifespan and the time construction took in ancient times, he rationally concluded that "the Builder" was probably not one person.
Rather, several "Brandons" had worked together to accomplish the feats above.
Earl Paxter Redwyne, who led the Reach's delegation this time, also descended from a son of Garth Greenhand.
Their ancestor Gilbert "Vinegar" had taught the people of the Arbor how to make wine.
This was also the foundation of House Redwyne's wealth.
Their lands produced the finest vintages in all Westeros, superior sweet reds and golden wines, which gave the Redwynes immense wealth.
The Arbor sold these wines as far as the great city of Qarth, the "center of the world," west of the Summer Sea. To protect their trade routes, they had specifically established the Redwyne Fleet, comparable to the royal fleet and the Iron Fleet, making it one of the kingdom's three great fleets.
This also set the Earl of Starpike thinking about whether he could follow the same path.
A large island isolated overseas had accumulated immense wealth by selling wine, while also building a powerful naval force along the way, becoming one of the wealthiest regions in Westeros and one of its strongest naval powers.
However he looked at it, there was real potential there...
As Titus schemed over ways to rake in money, the pleasure boat carrying him sailed east along the Mander River, heading upstream.
Before the Faith Militant's uprising, this place had been called Stonebridge, after an ancient stone arch bridge spanning the Mander River. Only after nine thousand soldiers of the Poor Fellows, led by Watt "Woodcutter," had been slaughtered here had it been renamed Bitterbridge.
Here, the Mander River remained broad, but travel by boat had become noticeably slower.
Hidden sandbars and shallows filled the upstream channel, making it unsuitable for large vessels. Only shallow-draft boats could continue farther upstream through the muddy, uneven channels and turbid waters, all the way to the Mander River's source.
The difficult river channel was no reason for the delegation to stop advancing. At Bitterbridge, they would switch to land travel and follow the Roseroad to the kingdom's capital.
In fact, at the Mander River's source stood a small town called Tumbleton, the northeasternmost town in the Reach, ruled by House Fossoway.
As the current owner of Orphan-Maker, Titus had also rather maliciously questioned that house's bloodline. He knew that Tumbleton had two famous inns, Bloodbriar and The Leaky Badger, which had witnessed the tale of Earl Unwin Peake's plot against two dragonseeds.
Dragonseeds generally referred to the bastards born after members of House Targaryen exercised the right of the first night on Dragonstone... the brides were considered blessed and envied; the term also broadly referred to men and women around the Crownlands who bore traits of Valyrian ancestry.
During House Targaryen's civil war, Prince Jacaerys Velaryon realized that his mother's Blacks possessed many dragons, but most had empty backs, leaving their advantage entirely unexploited. He therefore promised land, wealth, and knighthoods in search of dragonseeds capable of riding dragons.
Most who went to Dragonstone to attempt to ride a dragon met a miserable end, either killed or burned.
Those who succeeded, naturally, rose to greatness in a single bound.
Their leading examples were Hugh Hammer and Ulf "White Hair," who successfully tamed Vermithor and Silverwing and rode their dragons to perform great services for the Blacks.
Someone proposed granting the rebel faction's castles to the two lowborn dragonriders as rewards. Queen Rhaenyra Targaryen flatly refused.
During the First Battle of Tumbleton, the two dragonriders just as decisively defected from the Blacks to the Greens, riding their two great dragons to destroy the Black-aligned town of Tumbleton with dragonfire.
After a brief period of closeness, Hugh Hammer, a huge man with thick arms who could supposedly bend iron bars with his bare hands, revealed his intention to become king, for he had received a prophecy: once the hammer fell upon the dragon, a new king would arise.
Likewise, Ulf no longer concealed his covetous desire for Highgarden.
This naturally earned them the hostility of the Reach's nobles on the Greens' side. Thirteen nobles gathered at the Bloodbriar inn to plot in hushed voices. This temporary organization, called the "Briars," intended to kill the two dragonseeds and give the dragons two new riders.
Then came the time for Ser Jon Roxton "the Bold," Orphan-Maker's original owner, to take the stage.
He first asked Hugh Hammer, "By what right do you call yourself king?"
Hugh Hammer answered him, "The same as the Conqueror. I've got a dragon between my legs."
"My condolences, Lord Hammer."
"For what?"
"For your unfortunate death in battle."
Having delivered his flourish, Jon Roxton successfully killed Hugh Hammer before he could mount his dragon.
Ser Hobert of House Hightower also finished off Ulf "White Hair" with a cup of poisoned wine, at the cost of his own life.
In the great battle this provoked, the newly formed "Briars" lost ten members at once, leaving only three alive.
In Tumbleton's two inns, Bloodbriar and The Leaky Badger, the Briars' secret plotting directly brought about the brutal dragon battle above the town, in which several dragons and their riders died one after another...
It counted as indirect dragonslaying, an outstanding contribution to the Targaryen royal family's "de-dragonization."
After the battle between the "Briars" and the "dragonriders."
Lady Sharis, who had once been violated by Jon Roxton, boldly displayed the skulls of the dragons Vermithor, the "Bronze Fury," and Seasmoke in Tumbleton's ruined forecourt.
Passing visitors and travelers could pay a copper penny to view the dragons' remains. If they wished to pay another copper star, they could even approach and touch them.
From this, it was clear that unfortunate Tumbleton was not the only thing ruined by House Targaryen's civil war.
As their dragons kept dying, the Targaryens had also unwittingly revealed their own "health bar" to ambitious people across the continent, gradually losing their former exalted status and "divinity."
The Leaky Badger inn:
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