On the morning of the twelfth day of the secret siege, Thaddeus Rowan was brought forth in chains to confess to his offenses.

Septon Bernard detailed Lord Rowan’s alleged crimes: he had taken bribes in the form of gold and girls (exotic creatures from the Mermaid, says Mushroom, the younger the better), had sent Moredo Rogare to the Vale to dispossess Ser Arnold Arryn of his rightful inheritance, had conspired with Oakenfist to remove Unwin Peake as the King’s Hand, had helped to loot the Rogare Bank of Lys, thereby defrauding and impoverishing many “good and leal men of Westeros of noble birth and high station,” had appointed his own son to a command “for which he was manifestly unworthy,” leading to the death of thousands in the Mountains of the Moon.

Most terrible of all, his lordship was accused of having plotted with the three Rogares to poison King Aegon and his queen, so as to place Prince Viserys on the Iron Throne with Larra of Lys as his queen. “The poison used is called the Tears of Lys,” Bernard declared, an assertion that Grand Maester Munkun then confirmed. “Though the Seven spared you, sire,” Bernard concluded, “Lord Rowan’s foul plot took the life of your young friend Gaemon.”

   When the septon had completed his recitation, Ser Marston Waters said, “Lord Rowan has confessed to all these crimes,” and beckoned to the Lord Confessor, George Graceford, to bring the prisoner forward. Manacled at ankle with heavy chains, his face so bruised and swollen as to be unrecognizable, Lord Thaddeus did not move at first, until Lord Graceford pricked him with the point of his dagger, whereupon he said in a thick voice, “Ser Marston speaks truly, Your Grace. I have confessed to all. Lotho promised me fifty thousand dragons when the deed was done, and another fifty when Viserys took the throne. The poison was given to me by Roggerio.” So halting was this speech, so slurred the words, that some upon the battlements thought his lordship must be drunk, until Mushroom pointed out that all his teeth were missing.

The confession left King Aegon III bereft of speech. All that the boy could do was stand and stare, with such despair upon his face that Mushroom feared His Grace might be about to leap from the battlements onto the spikes below, to rejoin his first queen.

It fell to Prince Viserys to make answer. “And my wife, Lady Larra,” he shouted down, “was she a part of this plot too, my lord?” Lord Rowan gave a heavy nod. “She was,” he said. “And what of me?” asked the prince. “Aye, you as well,” his lordship answered dully…an answer that seemed to surprise Marston Waters, whilst greatly displeasing Lord George Graceford. “And Gaemon Palehair, ’twas he who put the poison in the tart, I’ll venture,” Viserys went on glibly. “If it please my prince,” mumbled Thaddeus Rowan. Whereupon the prince turned to the king his brother and said, “Gaemon was as guilty as the rest of us…of nothing,” and the dwarf Mushroom called down, “Lord Rowan, was it you who poisoned King Viserys?” To which the old Hand nodded, saying, “It was, my lord. I do confess it.”

The king’s face grew hard. “Ser Marston,” he said, “this man is my Hand and innocent of treason. The traitors here are those who tortured him to bring forth this false confession. Seize the Lord Confessor, if you love your king…else I will know that you are as false as he is.” His words rang across the inner ward, and in that moment, the broken boy Aegon III seemed every inch a king.

   To this very day, some assert that Ser Marston Waters was no more than a catspaw, a simple honest knight used and deceived by men more subtle than himself, whilst others argue that Waters was part of the plot from the beginning, but turned upon his fellows when he sensed the tide turning against them.

Whatever the truth, Ser Marston did as the king had commanded. Lord Graceford was seized by the Kingsguard and dragged away to the very dungeon he himself had ruled when he awoke that day. Lord Rowan’s chains were removed, and all his knights and serving men were brought up from the dungeons into the sunlight.

It did not prove necessary to subject the Lord Confessor to torment; the sight of the instruments was all that was required for him to give up the names of the other conspirators. Amongst those he named were the late Ser Amaury Peake and Ser Mervyn Flowers of the Kingsguard, Tessario the Tiger, Septon Bernard, Ser Gareth Long, Ser Victor Risley, Ser Lucas Leygood of the gold cloaks with six of the seven captains of the city gates, and even three of the queen’s ladies.

Not all surrendered peacefully. A short, savage battle was fought at the Gate of the Gods when men came for Lucas Leygood, leaving nine dead, amongst them Leygood himself. Three of the accused captains fled before they could be taken, with a dozen of their men. Tessario the Tiger chose to flee as well, but was taken in a dockside tavern near the River Gate as he was dickering with the captain of an Ibbenese whaler for passage to the Port of Ibben.

Ser Marston chose to confront Mervyn Flowers himself. “We are the both of us bastards and Sworn Brothers besides,” he was heard to tell Ser Raynard Ruskyn. When told of Graceford’s accusation, Ser Mervyn said, “You will be wanting my steel,” drawing his longsword from its sheath and offering its hilt to Marston Waters. Yet as Ser Marston grasped it, Ser Mervyn seized his wrist, drew a dagger with his other hand, and plunged it into Waters’s belly. Flowers got no farther than the stables, where a drunken man-at-arms and two young stableboys found him saddling his courser. He killed them all, but the noise brought others running, and the bastard knight was finally overwhelmed and beaten to death, still clad in the white cloak that he had shamed.

   His lord commander, Ser Marston Waters, did not long outlive him. He was found in White Sword Tower in a pool of his own blood and carried to Grand Maester Munkun, who examined him and pronounced the wound mortal. Though Munkun sewed him up as best he could and gave him milk of the poppy, Waters expired that same night.

Lord Graceford had named Ser Marston as one of the conspirators as well, insisting that “that bloody turncloak” had been with them from the start, a charge Waters was no longer able to dispute. The rest of the plotters were consigned to the black cells to await trial. Some protested their innocence, whilst others claimed, as Ser Marston had, that they had acted from the honest belief that Thaddeus Rowan and the Lyseni were the traitors. A few proved more forthcoming, however. Ser Gareth Long was the most voluable, declaring loudly that Aegon III was a weakling unfit to hold a sword, much less sit the Iron Throne. Septon Bernard argued from his Faith; the Lyseni and their queer foreign gods had no place in the Seven Kingdoms. It was always intended that Lady Larra should die together with her brothers, he said, so Viserys would be free to take a proper Westerosi queen.

The frankest of the plotters was Tessario the Thumb. He had done it for gold and girls and vengeance, he said. Roggerio Rogare had banned him from the Mermaid for striking one of his whores, so he had demanded the brothel and Roggerio’s manhood for his price, and these things had been promised to him. But when his inquisitors asked who had made this promise, Tessario had no answer but a grin…a grin that turned into a grimace, and thence a scream, when he was asked again under torture. The first name he gave was that of Marston Waters, but on further questioning he named George Graceford, and still later Mervyn Flowers. Mushroom tells us that the Tiger was on the point of giving a fourth name, mayhaps the true name, when he expired.