“None the Citadel can confirm from the printed page, whatever a knight this colorfully dressed may have preferred to claim for himself.”
The seat, the words, the line, and the tale of House Caron — drawn from the novels and the Citadel's fuller histories, with the television series set aside wherever it parts from the books.
Seat
Nightsong
Region
The Stormlands
Founder
Unnamed. A marcher house of the Dornish Marches dating, by its own account, to the Age of Heroes — old enough that the Carons style themselves the eldest of the marcher lords, a seniority House Swann of Stonehelm has never once let stand unchallenged.
Nightsong sits close enough to Dorne that its lords have spent centuries fighting, marrying, and occasionally just squinting suspiciously across the Boneway at their southern neighbors, and the house's arms — black nightingales on yellow — are, this chronicle notes, a rare piece of stormlands heraldry pretty enough to have been designed by someone who wasn't expecting to use it in a war. It is also, as of this chronicle's own war, heraldry with nowhere left to fly: Nightsong passed out of Caron hands entirely in 299 AC, and this chronicle records that loss rather than pretend the name still holds its own castle.
I
Nightingales on the Marches
The Carons of Nightsong hold their castle at the edge of the Dornish Marches, a stretch of country the stormlands and Dorne have disputed, raided, and occasionally intermarried across for longer than either side's chroniclers care to add up. The Carons claim the honorific title Lord of the Marches as the oldest of the marcher lords, a seniority House Swann of Stonehelm disputes and has never once conceded — a quarrel the Citadel records as more a matter of pride than of administration, since the title has never conferred any real authority over the Carons' fellow marcher lords at Blackhaven and Harvest Hall.
II
Bryce the Orange at Bitterbridge
Ser Bryce Caron, Lord of Nightsong — called the Orange for a taste in dress this chronicle will describe only as memorable — joined Renly Baratheon's household knights at Bitterbridge as the young king by acclaim gathered the largest host the stormlands and the Reach together could muster. Catelyn Stark, arriving at that camp on her own errand, noted the Caron banner among the crowded field of stormlander sigils without any particular sense that its bearer would shortly become notorious for something other than his wardrobe.
In the chronicle
III
A Grudge He Never Settled
When Renly died in his own tent, Bryce Caron accepted the loudest and least examined explanation on offer — that Brienne of Tarth, last seen in the tent and covered in the king's blood, had murdered him — and appears to have carried that conviction, unrevised, for the rest of his life. Whatever reckoning he intended never reached her: Bryce fought instead for the Iron Throne he had lately opposed, and died at the Battle of the Blackwater in single combat against Ser Philip Foote.
This chronicle records the irony without particular relish. A man convinced a woman had murdered his king went to his own death still convinced of it, on a battlefield that had nothing to do with her at all, and the truth of Renly's death — whatever this chronicle can and cannot confirm about a shadow with Stannis Baratheon's face — outlived him regardless. What Foote's victory cost House Caron went well beyond one lord: the crown granted him Bryce's lands, titles, and incomes entire, Nightsong included, and Ser Philip took up residence as Lord of Nightsong in a Caron's stead — a succession this chronicle notes Bryce's own bastard half-brother, Ser Rolland Storm, has not accepted without challenge.
In the chronicle
The people of House Caron
The lords, ladies, and branches of Caron the books name — the notable, the infamous, and the merely unlucky.
Bryce Caron, "the Orange"
Lord of Nightsong; household knight to Renly Baratheon, later sworn to the Iron Throne; the last of his line to hold Nightsong
d. 299 AC, at the Battle of the Blackwater
What is House Caron known for?
Nightsong sits close enough to Dorne that its lords have spent centuries fighting, marrying, and occasionally just squinting suspiciously across the Boneway at their southern neighbors, and the house's arms — black nightingales on yellow — are, this chronicle notes, a rare piece of stormlands heraldry pretty enough to have been designed by someone who wasn't expecting to use it in a war. It is also, as of this chronicle's own war, heraldry with nowhere left to fly: Nightsong passed out of Caron hands entirely in 299 AC, and this chronicle records that loss rather than pretend the name still holds its own castle.
Where is the seat of House Caron?
House Caron holds Nightsong, in The Stormlands. The chronicle traces the house from its founding down to its part in the present tale, marking legend as legend wherever the songs run ahead of the record.
Is House Caron in the books or only the show?
Book canon. This history follows George R. R. Martin's novels first, then the histories — Fire & Blood and The World of Ice & Fire — and does not follow the television series where it diverges.