Saera’s Failed Attempt to Escape to the Dragonpit

Saera’s failed attempt to escape to the Dragonpit was the turning point that made reconciliation with Jaehaerys far less likely. After he ordered her to remain in her chambers, she tried to slip away in disguise and reach a dragon; her capture ended not in escape, but in confinement under constant guard.

The possibility of reconciliation

The attempt followed a day of deliberations over what to do with the six sinners, especially Saera. Jaehaerys was angry and unyielding, and said more than once, “She is no longer my daughter.” Yet Septon Barth’s account leaves open the possibility that she might still have been forgiven and restored to favor if she had obeyed, remained in her chambers, reflected on her sins, and prayed for forgiveness.

Alysanne argued that punishment need not rule out redemption. She reminded Jaehaerys of earlier reconciliations—with lords who had fought for Maegor, men who had ridden with Septon Moon, the Faith, and Lord Rogar after his attempt to divide them—and urged him to extend the same possibility to their daughter. Her gentle persistence moved the king, and, given time, might have softened his position. Saera’s escape attempt came before that time could pass.

The escape attempt

That night, instead of staying in her rooms, Saera slipped away while visiting the privy. She put on a washerwoman’s robes, stole a horse from the stables, and made it halfway across the city to the Hill of Rhaenys. Her destination was the Dragonpit on Rhaenys’s Hill, but Dragonkeepers found her as she tried to enter and took her back to the Red Keep.

The disguise and stolen horse made this more than a failed appeal for leniency: Saera was actively trying to get out of her father’s control and reach a dragon. Jaehaerys reduced the episode to the danger he believed that would pose, asking, “Would she have taken Balerion as well, I wonder?” His words cast the attempted escape as a threat, not merely an act of disobedience.

Confinement and consequence

Alysanne wept when she learned what had happened, convinced that her effort to secure Saera’s forgiveness was now hopeless. This time Saera was not returned to her own chambers. She was confined in a tower cell, with Jonquil Darke guarding her day and night—even when she went to the privy.

The failed attempt thus changed the terms of Saera’s punishment: the possibility of remaining under ordinary household restraint gave way to imprisonment and unceasing supervision. In the account, her brief journey across the city closes off the reconciliation that Alysanne had hoped to win, while the Dragonpit—her intended destination—marks how far she was prepared to go in seeking a dragon.