Cassella Vaith

Cassella Vaith
Cassella Vaith, by Rae Lavergne ©
Title	Lady
Allegiance	House Vaith
Culture	Dornishmen
Father	Lord Vaith
Lover	King Aegon IV Targaryen
Books	The World of Ice & Fire (mentioned) The Sworn Sword (mentioned) The Mystery Knight (mentioned)
TV series	A Knight of the Seven Kingdoms: Season 2

Cassella Vaith was a member of House Vaith and a Lady of Vaith. She was the third mistress of King Aegon IV Targaryen, although prior to his ascent to the Iron Throne.

In the television adaptation A Knight of the Seven Kingdoms, Lady Vaith will be portrayed by Kathryn Hunter.

Appearance and Character

See also: Images of Cassella Vaith

When she was young, Cassella was a willowy maid with green eyes and pale white-blond hair.

Ser Duncan the Tall and his squire, Prince Aegon Targaryen, considered the older Lady Vaith to be mad, and Duncan also found her to be sad.

History

In 158 AC, after the Submission of Sunspear during the conquest of Dorne, Cassella was one of the hostages sent to King's Landing, as she was the daughter of Lord Vaith. She was escorted by Prince Aegon Targaryen, who kept Cassella a "hostage" in his own chambers.

After the Dornishmen revolted and killed King Daeron I Targaryen, all the hostages were to be killed. Aegon, by then bored of her, returned Cassella to her place with the other prisoners. The new king, Baelor I Targaryen, pardoned all the hostages and personally took them back to Dorne.

Cassella never wed or had children. In her old age, the deluded Lady Vaith believed she had been Aegon's one true love and that he would soon send for her.

Ser Duncan the Tall accidentally upsets Lady Vaith, frustrating his squire, Egg. Art by Jota Saraiva ©

At Vaith circa 209–210 AC, Ser Duncan the Tall met an aged Lady Vaith, and spoke to her with such lack of grace that he put his own life and Egg's, his squire, in danger. According to Egg, Lady Vaith was mad, so it is unclear if that danger could have been avoided, but that Duncan could have been more gallant.

For a brief time before he met Rohanne Webber, Lady of Coldmoat, Duncan worried that she was as old as Lady Vaith.

After taking a blow to the head during a joust with Ser Uthor Underleaf, Dunk sees the faces of many people he'd met on his travels when he wakes up, including Lady Vaith.

Quotes

After the Submission of Sunspear, Aegon escorted the hostages that the king had gathered from the lords of Dorne back to King's Landing. Among them was Cassella Vaith, a willowy maid with green eyes and pale white-blond hair, whom Aegon ended up keeping "hostage" in his own chambers.

—writings of Yandel

Duncan: I don't know how to talk with highborn ladies. We both might have been killed in Dorne, on account of what I said to Lady Vaith.
Aegon: Lady Vaith was mad, but you could have been more gallant. Ladies like it when you're gallant.

—Duncan the Tall and Aegon V Targaryen

Behind the scenes

While the final published version of The Sworn Sword does not explicitly link the Lady Vaith Dunk and Egg encountered with Cassella Vaith, a January 2003 draft of the novella did. The draft describes her history as a mistress of Aegon IV. It also details how, at the time of Dunk and Egg's visit, Lady Vaith would sit upon a bone throne and would not allow a blade in her presence, so her nails and hair both grew long. She also supposedly once nursed an orphan leopard cub in the place of a stillborn daughter, though not one fathered by Aegon. Lady Vaith looked as old as the Crone, but could not have been much more than seventy, which would have placed her birth near 140 AC or so. The draft also mentions that Dunk and Egg had lingered at Vaith longer than they intended before finally making an escape, possibly hinting at their being held there under duress in this earlier version of the story.