By itself, the royal fleet lacked the strength to break the Sea Snake’s chokehold on the Gullet, and King Aegon’s overtures to Dalton Greyjoy of Pyke had thus far failed to win the Iron Islands to his side. The combined fleets of Tyrosh, Lys, and Myr would be more than a match for the Velaryons, however. Ser Otto sent word to the magisters, promising exclusive trading rights at King’s Landing if they would clear the Gullet of the Sea Snake’s ships and open the sea lanes once again. To add savor to the stew, he also promised to cede the Stepstones to the Three Daughters, though in truth the Iron Throne had never claimed those isles.

The Triarchy was never quick to move, however. Lacking a true king, all important decisions in this three-headed “kingdom” were decided by the High Council. Eleven magisters from each city made up its membership, every man of them intent on demonstrating his own sagacity, shrewdness, and importance, and winning every possible advantage for his own city. Grand Maester Greydon, who wrote the definitive history of the Kingdom of the Three Daughters fifty years later, described it as “thirty-three horses, each pulling in his own direction.” Even issues as timely as war, peace, and alliance were subject to endless debate…and the High Council was not even in session when Ser Otto’s envoys arrived.

The delay did not sit well with the young king. Aegon II had run short of patience with his grandfather’s prevarications. Though his mother, the Dowager Queen Alicent, spoke up in Ser Otto’s defense, His Grace turned a deaf ear to her pleading. Summoning Ser Otto to the throne room, he tore the chain of office from his neck and tossed it to Ser Criston Cole. “My new Hand is a steel fist,” he boasted. “We are done with writing letters.”

Ser Criston wasted no time in proving his mettle. “It is not for you to plead for support from your lords, like a beggar pleading for alms,” he told Aegon. “You are the lawful king of Westeros, and those who deny it are traitors. It is past time they learned the price of treason.”

First to pay that price were the captive lords languishing in the dungeons under the Red Keep, men who had once sworn to defend the rights of Princess Rhaenyra and still stubbornly refused to bend the knee to King Aegon. One by one they were dragged out into the castle ward, where the King’s Justice awaited them with his axe. Each man was given one final chance to swear fealty to His Grace; only Lord Butterwell, Lord Stokeworth, and Lord Rosby chose to do so. Lord Hayford, Lord Merryweather, Lord Harte, Lord Buckler, Lord Caswell, and Lady Fell valued their sworn word more than their lives, and were beheaded each in turn, along with eight landed knights and twoscore servants and retainers. Their heads were mounted on spikes above the city’s gates.

   King Aegon also desired to avenge the murder of his heir by Blood and Cheese by means of an attack on Dragonstone, descending on the island citadel on dragonback to seize or slay his half-sister and her “bastard sons.” It took all of the green council to dissuade him. Ser Criston Cole urged a different course. The pretender princess had made use of stealth and treachery to kill Prince Jaehaerys, Cole said; let them do the same. “We will pay the princess back in her own bloody coin,” he told the king. The instrument the Lord Commander of the Kingsguard chose for the king’s vengeance was his Sworn Brother, Ser Arryk Cargyll.

Ser Arryk was intimately familiar with the ancient seat of House Targaryen, having visited there often during the reign of King Viserys. Many fishermen still plied the waters of Blackwater Bay, for Dragonstone depended on the sea for sustenance; it would be a simple thing to deliver Cargyll to the fishing village under the castle. From there he could make his own way to the queen. And Ser Arryk and his brother Ser Erryk were twins, identical in all respects; not even their fellows of the Kingsguard could tell the two apart, both Mushroom and Septon Eustace assert. Once clad in white, Ser Arryk should be able to move freely about Dragonstone, Ser Criston suggested; any guards who chanced to encounter him would surely mistake him for his brother.

Ser Arryk did not undertake this mission happily. Indeed, Septon Eustace tells us, the troubled knight visited the Red Keep’s sept on the night he was to sail, to pray for forgiveness to our Mother Above. Yet as Kingsguard, sworn to obey king and commander, he had no choice in honor but to make his way to Dragonstone, clad in the salt-stained garb of a simple fisherman.

   The true purpose of Ser Arryk’s mission remains a matter of some contention. Grand Maester Munkun tells us that Cargyll had been commanded to slay Rhaenyra, putting an end to her rebellion at a stroke, whilst Mushroom insists that her sons were Cargyll’s prey, that Aegon II wished to wash out the blood of his murdered son with that of his bastard nephews, Jacaerys and Joffrey “Strong.”

Ser Arryk came ashore without hindrance, donned his armor and white cloak, and had no trouble gaining entrance to the castle in the guise of his twin brother, just as Criston Cole had planned. Deep in the heart of Dragonstone, however, as he was making his way to the royal apartments, the gods brought him face-to-face with Ser Erryk himself, who knew at once what his brother’s presence meant. The singers tell us that Ser Erryk said, “I love you, brother,” as he unsheathed his blade, and that Ser Arryk replied, “And I you, brother,” as he drew his own.

The twins battled for the best part of an hour, Grand Maester Munkun says; the clash of steel on steel woke half of the queen’s court, but the onlookers could only stand by helplessly and watch, for no man there could tell which brother was which. In the end, Ser Arryk and Ser Erryk dealt each other mortal wounds, and died in one another’s arms with tears upon their cheeks.

Mushroom’s account is shorter, saltier, and altogether nastier. The fight lasted only moments, our fool says. There were no declarations of brotherly love; each Cargyll denounced the other as a traitor as they clashed. Ser Erryk, standing above his twin on the spiral steps, struck the first mortal blow, a savage downward cut that nigh took his brother’s sword arm off at the shoulder, but as he collapsed Ser Arryk grasped his slayer’s white cloak and pulled him close enough to drive a dagger deep into his belly. Ser Arryk was dead before the first guards arrived, but Ser Erryk took four days to die of his gut wound, screaming in horrible pain and cursing his traitor brother all the while.

For obvious reasons, singers and storytellers have shown a marked preference for the tale as told by Munkun. Maesters and other scholars must make their own determination as to which version is more likely. All that Septon Eustace says upon the matter is that the Cargyll twins slew each other, and there we must leave it.

   Back in King’s Landing, King Aegon’s master of whisperers, Larys Strong the Clubfoot, had drawn up a list of all those lords who gathered on Dragonstone to attend Queen Rhaenyra’s coronation and sit on her black council. Lords Celtigar and Velaryon had their seats on islands; as Aegon II had no strength at sea, they were beyond the reach of his wroth. Those black lords whose lands were on the mainland enjoyed no such protection, however.

With a hundred knights and five hundred men-at-arms of the royal household, augmented by three times as many hardened sellswords, Ser Criston marched on Rosby and Stokeworth, whose lords had only recently repented of their allegiance to the queen, commanding them to prove their loyalty by adding their power to his own. Thus augmented, Cole’s host advanced upon the walled harbor town of Duskendale, where they took the defenders by surprise. The town was sacked, the ships in the harbor set afire, Lord Darklyn beheaded. His household knights and garrison were given the choice between swearing their swords to King Aegon or sharing their lord’s fate. Most chose the former.