Jaehaerys I Targaryen and Rego Draz

Jaehaerys Targaryen and Rego Draz were joined by the practical demands of rule: the king needed revenue to restore the Crown’s finances and complete major works, while Draz was charged with finding the money. Their relationship was one of royal trust in an unusually capable, conspicuous adviser, but it also exposed the costs of that trust. Draz’s policies paid for public projects and brought the Crown substantial income; their burdens, and the resentment they provoked, fell heavily on him. His violent death left Jaehaerys to defend his servant’s memory and punish his killers, even as the king later struggled to find an acceptable successor.

Appointment and Financial Inheritance

The financial difficulties that shaped their partnership were already severe when Jaehaerys came to power. Maegor’s wars had exhausted the royal treasury, and the taxes imposed under the previous regime had brought in less than expected while worsening the lords’ hostility toward the Crown. The splendid coronation of Jaehaerys and the Golden Wedding of his mother, Alyssa, had won affection, but also added to royal expenditure. Lord Rogar intended to finish the Dragonpit before handing the kingdom over to the young king, although funds for the work were lacking.

Edwell Celtigar, serving as master of coin during the regency, had tried to raise money through charges on the people and commerce of King’s Landing. Port fees were tripled; some goods were taxed both as they entered and as they left the city; innkeepers and builders faced new levies. Instead of filling the treasury, these measures slowed construction, emptied inns, and diverted merchant ships to ports such as Driftmark, Duskendale, and Maidenpool. Work on the Dragonpit stopped when the Crown could no longer pay its builders. This was the fiscal situation Rego inherited when he became Jaehaerys’s new master of coin.

Loans, Taxes, and Public Works

Rego first addressed the immediate shortage through borrowing. He approached the Iron Bank of Braavos and competing banks in Tyrosh and Myr, securing three substantial loans by playing the lenders against one another. The money allowed construction to resume on the Dragonpit, where builders and stonemasons again worked on the great structure. Both Rego and Jaehaerys understood that borrowing could buy time but would not, by itself, repair the Crown’s finances.

Jaehaerys rejected a return to Celtigar’s unpopular charges and was wary of simply demanding money from the great lords, since excessive demands risked rebellion. Instead, the king chose to tax costly imported goods, including fine cloth, gemstones, lace, tapestries, wines, horses, armor, and spices. The policy sought revenue from goods associated with wealth rather than imposing the same broad pressure on ordinary city trade. Rego, whose own fortune had been made in commerce, helped administer a plan that taxed many of the luxuries from which he had profited.

The costs of the king’s building program continued to press on the treasury. Jaehaerys began reshaping King’s Landing in 52 AC, widening and paving streets, removing some of the worst hovels, and laying out a central square and broad roads. Completing the Dragonpit and improving the city required more money than the taxes on silk, spices, and crenellations could provide. Rego therefore introduced a fee for entering or leaving the city, along with charges on animals and a heavier tax on wagons and carts. Because traffic through the gates was extensive, this levy brought in more than enough to meet the immediate need. It also multiplied the complaints directed at the master of coin.

Rego’s ability was widely acknowledged, including by those who disliked him, but his methods and public manner made him a conspicuous target. He was accused of corruption, although he dismissed the charge by pointing to his own wealth. His Pentoshi origin and religion also drew suspicion, while his silk robes, ruby rings, and gilded palanquin displayed the riches that many resented. His effectiveness in office thus coexisted with deep unpopularity: the Crown gained revenue, while the official associated with collecting it bore much of the public anger.

Service to the King and the City

Rego’s position involved more than devising taxes. He was a trusted councillor who could interpret events beyond the immediate reach of the court. When deaths on Dragonstone were discussed, he examined Maester Anselm’s accounts and was the first to suspect that the victims had been poisoned with Tears of Lys. He also suspected that the maester had been killed because he might have recognized the poison. Jaehaerys reacted with shock, and Rego drew on his knowledge of the Free Cities to explain his conclusion. The episode presented the master of coin as a source of expertise whose usefulness extended beyond managing royal income.

The relationship was not free of the political pressures surrounding the king. In a later succession struggle, Otto Hightower argued against Prince Daemon’s ascent to the throne and had earlier persuaded Viserys to remove Daemon from offices that included master of coin. This earlier episode does not involve Rego, but it illustrates how the office he held belonged to a wider contest over access to royal power. Rego’s own tenure under Jaehaerys rested on the king’s confidence in his financial skill, even as the consequences of his policies exposed that officeholder to public hostility.

Death and the King’s Response

During the Shivers epidemic of 59 AC, lawlessness spread through King’s Landing as members of the City Watch fell ill and its commander died. Jaehaerys sent household knights and members of the Kingsguard to restore order, but their numbers were insufficient. Rego, who had never taken up residence in the Red Keep despite the king’s repeated offers, continued to travel between his own manse and the castle in his palanquin. On a journey through Flea Bottom, a group of hungry and drunken residents attacked him. They blamed him for the high cost of bread and accused people from Pentos of bringing the disease. The assailants killed him and took his clothes and rings.

Jaehaerys rode out with his Kingsguard to claim Rego’s body. On seeing the dead man, the king’s anger was so marked that Ser Joffrey Doggett later compared his expression to that of Maegor. Jaehaerys demanded that the onlookers identify the attackers, promising a reward to anyone who spoke and threatening those who remained silent. A barefoot girl came forward with a name and led the king’s knights to the first suspect. The captured man had Rego’s rings; questioning him revealed the identities of the other attackers, who were also arrested. Jaehaerys refused one man’s request to take the black, judging the crime incompatible with service in the Night’s Watch, and ordered severe punishment for the group.

The king’s response was both a demand for justice and a public assertion that Rego’s murder would not be excused by popular resentment. It followed years in which the master of coin had become a visible symbol of taxation and royal expense. The attack therefore connected the costs of governing to the vulnerability of the official who made those costs tangible. Jaehaerys’s intervention defended the authority of the Crown, but it could not undo the hostility that had made Rego an object of blame.

Legacy in the Treasury

After the epidemic, Jaehaerys found Rego difficult to replace. He acknowledged that men of comparable ability were not easy to find, and considered whether one of Rego’s three bastard sons, each trained in his business, might succeed him. The king concluded that the realm would not accept another Pentoshi in the post and that the office would need to go to a lord. He considered familiar wealthy houses, including the Lannisters, Velaryons, and Hightowers, but judged them too proud; Septon Barth instead proposed Martyn Tyrell as a possible councillor.

Rego’s financial legacy also outlasted his tenure in office. When Rhaenyra later sought revenue after taking King’s Landing, her master of coin restored taxes associated with the earlier Celtigar regime and brought back Rego’s city entry and exit fees, tripling them. After Aegon III’s accession, Tyland Lannister abolished the taxes enacted by Rhaenyra and Celtigar. These later reversals show how readily fiscal measures could be revived or rejected as rulers changed, while the underlying need to fund government and reconstruction remained. Under Jaehaerys, Rego’s loans and levies helped sustain the Crown’s works; in public memory, the same revenue-raising role helped make him a focus for anger that ultimately turned lethal.