So What’s With the Master of Whisperers in ‘House of the Dragon’
Shhh … you’re not supposed to know! I really shouldn’t be telling you this, but since you asked about the Master of Whisperers, I suppose I will share my intimate knowledge of all the privy secrets of House of the Dragon. In return I ask one thing … your loyalty.
Who is the Master of Whisperers?
The Master of Whisperers is many things. He is the servant that lingers at the chamber door to hear the secrets that the lords are discussing therein. He is the quiet patron in the tavern who overhears a political plot against the king spoken in secret. He is the everywhere and nowhere all at once. He is the King’s spymaster. His informant. The person who has the tea on highborns, lowborns, and I guess any and all mediumborns too. It is the Master of Whisperers job to gather intelligence from the far lands across the Narrow Sea and the King’s own backyard.
A History of Whisperers
Unlike the other official titles in the King’s small council (i.e. “Master of Coin,” ” Master of Ships”) the Master of Whisperers was not established during the rule of Aegon the Conqueror. While its not exactly certain when monarchs began to employ Masters and Mistresses of Whisperers, the first recorded usage of the term comes during the rule of King Maegor I Targaryen. This hardly comes as a surprise, since political espionage seems perfectly within the wheelhouse of the paranoid Maegor the Cruel.
The first holder of the office was one of Maegor’s wives, Tyanna of the Tower. Tyanna was beautiful courtesan of Pentos that become Maegor’s third of wife out of six. Tyanna’s interests included long walks on Pentoshi beaches, the dark arts, and torture. She was the perfect candidate for the job. Maegor installed Tyanna as his personal Mistress of Whispers, and she was damn good at it. The saying at the time went that it was foolish to speak secrets in the Red Keep, because even the rats and vermin of the castle were Tyanna’s spies.
Tyanna imprisoned and tortured dozens of people during her tenure in office, including Maegor’s second wife Alys Harroway. Alys had previously given birth to a hideously deformed stillborn child, and Tyanna claimed that the child was not Maegor’s seed, but the product of an affair. Tyanna had countless men tortured into falsely confessing that they were lovers of Queen Alys, and Alys herself met her death after two weeks of agonizing torture until she was finally cut into seven pieces and her body parts mounted on the spikes of gates in King’s Landing.
The kicker? Tynna herself had poisoned Alys’ unborn child. But don’t worry, Tyanna got hers. After Maegor found out about her poisoning habit, he had her heart cut out and fed to dogs. What goes around comes around.
The next recorded Master of Whisperers was Larys Strong, who was equally as much as a bastard as Tyanna of the Tower. The man was a snake in the grass even before he got the job from Aegon II, orchestrating the fire at Harrehal that killed his own brother and father. Larys went to have an illustriously lurid career as Aegon II’s spymaster until it was (quite literally) cut short by Cregan Stark during the Hour of the Wolf at the end of the Dance of the Dragons. For his crimes of conspiracy, Larys’ head was mounted on a spike in King’s Landing. I’m sensing a trend here.
The next holder of the title was none other than Bryndon Rivers (aka Lord Bloodraven) the bastard son of King Aegon VI and his mistress Lady Melissa Blackwood. He was the rare bird to be named both Master of Whisperers and The Hand of the King to his nephew Aerys I Targaryen. But the most iconic holder of the title? No man can compete with the tea-spilling majesty that was Lord Varys “The Spider,” Master of Whisperers for The Mad King Aerys II Targayen, along with Robert I Baratheon, Joffery Baratheon, and finally Daenerys Targaryen.
How did he last so long? He was the best at his job. A trained mummer, he was able to alter has voice and gait in order to personally spy on targets. He was assisted by his flock of “little birds,” informants of all shapes and sizes who assisted him in all things espionage. If there was ever someone to take invisible ink notes on, it’d be him.
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