On the western shores of Blackwater Bay, meanwhile, the Moon of the Three Kings came to a sudden end when an army appeared outside the walls of King’s Landing. For more than half a year the city had lived in fear of Ormund Hightower’s advancing host…but when the assault came, it came not from Oldtown by way of Bitterbridge and Tumbleton, but up the kingsroad from Storm’s End. Borros Baratheon, on hearing of the queen’s death, had left his newly pregnant wife and four daughters to strike north through the kingswood with six hundred knights and four thousand foot.

When the Baratheon vanguard was seen across the Blackwater Rush, the Shepherd commanded his followers to rush the river to keep Lord Borros from coming ashore. But only hundreds now came to listen to this beggar who’d once preached to tens of thousands, and few obeyed. Atop Aegon’s High Hill, the squire now calling himself King Trystane Truefyre stood on the battlements with Larys Strong and Ser Perkin the Flea, gazing at the swelling ranks of stormlanders. “We do not have the strength to oppose such a host, sire,” Lord Larys told the boy, “but perhaps words can succeed where swords must fail. Send me to parley with them.” And so the Clubfoot was dispatched across the river under a flag of truce, accompanied by Grand Maester Orwyle and the Dowager Queen Alicent.

   The Lord of Storm’s End received them in a pavilion on the edge of the kingswood, as his men felled trees to build rafts for the river crossing. There Queen Alicent received the glad news that her grandaughter Jaehaera, the only surviving child of her son Aegon and daughter Helaena, had been delivered safely to Storm’s End by Ser Willis Fell of the Kingsguard. The Dowager Queen wept tears of joy.

Betrayals and betrothals followed, until an accord was reached between Lord Borros, Lord Larys, and Queen Alicent, with Grand Maester Orwyle as witness. The Clubfoot promised that Ser Perkin and his gutter knights would join the stormlanders in restoring King Aegon II to the Iron Throne, on the condition that all of them save the pretender Trystane would be pardoned for any and all offenses, including high treason, rebellion, robbery, murder, and rape. Queen Alicent agreed that her son King Aegon would make Lady Cassandra, Lord Borros’s eldest daughter, his new queen. Lady Floris, another of his lordship’s daughters, was to be betrothed to Larys Strong.

The problem posed by the Velaryon fleet was discussed at some length. “We must bring the Sea Snake into this,” Lord Baratheon is reported to have said. “Perhaps the old man would like a new young wife. I have two daughters not yet spoken for.”

“He is traitor thrice over,” Queen Alicent said. “Rhaenyra could never have taken King’s Landing but for him. His Grace my son will not have forgotten. I want him dead.”

“He will die soon enough in any case,” replied Lord Larys Strong. “Let us make our peace with him now, and make what use of him we can. Once all is safely settled, if we have no further need of House Velaryon, we can always lend the Stranger a hand.”

And so it was agreed, most shamefully. The envoys returned to King’s Landing, and the stormlanders soon followed, crossing the Blackwater Rush without incident. Lord Borros found the city walls unmanned, the gates undefended, the streets and squares empty save for corpses. As he climbed Aegon’s High Hill with his banner-bearer and household shields, he saw the ragged banners of the squire Trystane hauled down from the gatehouse battlements, and the golden dragon banner of King Aegon II raised in their stead. Queen Alicent herself emerged from the Red Keep to bid him welcome, with Ser Perkin the Flea beside her. “Where is the pretender?” Lord Borros asked, as he dismounted in the outer ward. “Taken and in chains,” replied Ser Perkin.

   Seasoned by countless border clashes with the Dornish and his recent victorious campaign against a new Vulture King, Lord Borros Baratheon wasted no time in restoring order to King’s Landing. After a night of quiet celebration in the Red Keep, he rode forth the next day against Visenya’s Hill and the “Cunny King,” Gaemon Palehair. Columns of armored knights climbed the hill from three directions, riding down the street scum, sellswords, and drunkards who had gathered round the little king and putting them to rout. The young monarch, who had celebrated his fifth nameday only two days previous, was carried back to the Red Keep slung over the back of a horse, chained and weeping. His mother walked behind him, clutching the hand of the Dornishwoman Sylvenna Sand and leading a long column of whores, witch women, cutpurses, sneaks, and sots, the surviving remnants of the Palehair “court.”

The Shepherd’s turn came the next night. Forewarned by the fate of the whores and their little king, the prophet had called upon his “barefoot army” to assemble around the Dragonpit, and defend the Hill of Rhaenys “with blood and iron.” But the Shepherd’s star had fallen. Fewer than three hundred came in answer to his call, and many of those fled when the assault began. Lord Borros led his knights up the hill from the west, whilst Ser Perkin and his gutter knights climbed the steeper southern slope from Flea Bottom. Crashing through the thin ranks of defenders into the ruins of the Dragonpit, they found the prophet amongst the dragon heads (now far gone in rot), surrounded by a ring of torches, still preaching of doom and devastation. When he spied Lord Borros on his warhorse, the Shepherd pointed his stump at him and cursed him. “We shall meet in hell before this year is done,” the begging brother proclaimed. Like Gaemon Palehair, he was taken alive and carried back to the Red Keep bound in chains.

Thus did peace return to King’s Landing, after a fashion. In the name of her son, “our true king, Aegon, Second of His Name,” Queen Alicent proclaimed a curfew, making it unlawful to be on the city streets after dark. The City Watch was re-formed under the command of Ser Perkin the Flea to enforce the curfew, whilst Lord Borros and his stormlanders manned the city’s gates and battlements. Pulled down from their three hills, the three false “kings” languished in the dungeons, awaiting the true king’s return. That return hinged upon the Velaryons of Driftmark, however. Behind the walls of the Red Keep, the Dowager Queen Alicent and Lord Larys Strong had offered the Sea Snake his freedom, a full pardon for his treasons, and a place on the king’s small council if he would bend his knee to Aegon II as his king and deliver them the swords and sails of Driftmark. The old man had proved to be surprisingly intractable, however. “My knees are old and stiff and do not bend easily,” Lord Corlys responded, before setting forth terms of his own. He wanted pardons not only for himself, but for all those who had fought for Queen Rhaenyra, and demanded further that Aegon the Younger be given Princess Jaehaera’s hand in marriage, so the two of them might jointly be proclaimed King Aegon’s heirs. “The realm has been split asunder,” he said. “We must needs join it back together.” Lord Baratheon’s daughters did not interest him, but he wanted Lady Baela freed at once.

   Queen Alicent was outraged by Lord Velaryon’s “arrogance,” Munkun tells us, especially his demand that Queen Rhaenyra’s Aegon be named as heir to her own Aegon. She had suffered the loss of two of her three sons and her only daughter during the Dance, and could not bear the thought that any of her rival’s sons should live. Angrily, Her Grace reminded Lord Corlys that she had twice proposed terms of peace to Rhaenyra, only to have her overtures rejected with scorn. It fell to Lord Larys the Clubfoot to pour oil on the troubled waters, calming the queen with a quiet reminder of all they had discussed in Lord Baratheon’s tent, and persuading her to consent to the Sea Snake’s proposals.