Whence came this poisonous calumny, one might ask (for a calumny it most certainly is)? Grand Maester Munkun places it at the door of the Shepherd, for thousands heard him decry both crime and queen. But did he originate the lie, or was he merely giving echo to words heard from other lips? The latter, Mushroom would have us believe. A slander so vile could only have been the work of Larys Strong, the dwarf asserts…for the Clubfoot had never left King’s Landing (as would soon be revealed), but only slipped into its shadows, from whence he continued to plot and whisper.

Could Helaena’s death have been murder? Possibly…but it seems unlikely Queen Rhaenyra was behind it. Helaena Targaryen was a broken creature who posed no threat to Her Grace. Nor do our sources speak of any special enmity between them. If Rhaenyra were intent on murder, surely it would have been the Dowager Queen Alicent flung down onto the spikes. Moreover, at the time of Queen Helaena’s death, we have abundant proof that Ser Luthor Largent, the purported killer, was eating with three hundred of his gold cloaks at the barracks by the Gate of the Gods.

All the same, the rumor of Queen Helaena’s “murder” was soon on the lips of half King’s Landing. That it was so quickly believed shows how utterly the city had turned against their once-beloved queen. Rhaenyra was hated; Helaena had been loved. Nor had the common folk of the city forgotten the cruel murder of Prince Jaehaerys by Blood and Cheese, and the terrible death of Prince Maelor at Bitterbridge. Helaena’s end had been mercifully swift; one of the spikes took her through the throat and she died without a sound. At the moment of her death, across the city atop the Hill of Rhaenys, her dragon, Dreamfyre, rose suddenly with a roar that shook the Dragonpit, snapping two of the chains that bound her. When Dowager Queen Alicent was informed of her daughter’s passing, she rent her garments and pronounced a dire curse upon her rival.

That night King’s Landing rose in bloody riot.

The rioting began amidst the alleys and wynds of Flea Bottom, as men and women poured from the wine sinks, rat pits, and pot shops by the hundreds, angry, drunken, and afraid. From there the rioters spread throughout the city, shouting for justice for the dead princes and their murdered mother. Carts and wagons were overturned, shops looted, homes plundered and set afire. Gold cloaks attempting to quell the disturbances were set upon and beaten bloody. No one was spared, of high birth or low. Lords were pelted with rubbish, knights pulled from their saddles. Lady Darla Deddings saw her brother Davos stabbed through the eye when he tried to defend her from three drunken ostlers intent on raping her. Sailors unable to return to their ships attacked the River Gate and fought a pitched battle with the City Watch. It took Ser Luthor Largent and four hundred spears to disperse them. By then the gate had been hacked half to pieces and a hundred men were dead or dying, a quarter of them gold cloaks.

No such rescuers came for Lord Bartimos Celtigar, whose walled manse was defended only by six guardsmen and a few hastily armed servants. When rioters came swarming over the walls, these dubious defenders threw down their weapons and ran, or joined the attackers. Arthor Celtigar, a boy of fifteen, made a brave stand in a doorway, sword in hand, and kept the howling mob at bay for a few moments…until a treacherous serving girl let the rioters in through a back way. The brave lad was slain by a spear thrust through the back. Lord Bartimos himself fought his way to the stables, only to find all his horses dead or stolen. Taken, the queen’s despised master of coin was bound to a post and tortured until he revealed where all his wealth was hidden. Then a tanner called Wat announced that his lordship had failed to pay his “cock tax,” and must yield his manhood to the Crown as forfeit.

At Cobbler’s Square the sounds of the riot could be heard from every quarter. The Shepherd drank deep of the anger, proclaiming that the day of doom was nigh at hand, just as he had foretold, and calling down the wroth of the gods upon “this unnatural queen who sits bleeding on the Iron Throne, her whore’s lips glistening and red with the blood of her sweet sister.” When a septa in the crowd cried out, pleading for him to save the city, the Shepherd said, “Only the Mother’s mercy can save you, but you drove your Mother from this city with your pride and lust and avarice. Now it is the Stranger who comes. On a dark horse with burning eyes he comes, a scourge of fire in his hand to cleanse this pit of sin of demons and all who bow before them. Listen! Can you hear the sound of burning hooves? He comes! He comes!!”

The crowd took up the cry, wailing, “He comes! He comes!!” as a thousand torches filled the square with pools of smoky yellow light. Soon enough the shouts died away, and through the night the sound of iron hooves on cobblestones grew louder. “Not one Stranger, but five hundred,” Mushroom says in his Testimony.

The City Watch had come in strength, five hundred men clad in black ringmail, steel caps, and long golden cloaks, armed with short swords, spears, and spiked cudgels. They formed up on the south side of the square, behind a wall of shields and spears. At their head rode Ser Luthor Largent upon an armored warhorse, a longsword in his hand. The mere sight of him was enough to send hundreds streaming away into the wynds and alleys and side streets. Hundreds more fled when Ser Luthor ordered the gold cloaks to advance.

Ten thousand remained, however. The press was so thick that many who might gladly have fled found themselves unable to move, pushed and shoved and trod upon. Others surged forward, locked arms, and began to shout and curse, as the spears advanced to the slow beat of a drum. “Make way, you bloody fools,” Ser Luthor roared at the Shepherd’s lambs. “Go home. No harm will come to you. Go home. We only want this Shepherd.”

Some say the first man to die was a baker, who grunted in surprise when a spearpoint pierced his flesh and he saw his apron turning red. Others claim it was a little girl, trodden under by Ser Luthor’s warhorse. A rock came flying from the crowd, striking a spearman on the brow. Shouts and curses were heard, sticks and stones and chamber pots came raining down from rooftops, an archer across the square began to loose his shafts. A torch was thrust at a watchman, and quick as that his golden cloak was burning.

On the far side of Cobbler’s Square, the Shepherd was bundled away by his acolytes. “Stop him,” Ser Luthor shouted. “Seize him! Stop him!” He spurred his horse, cutting his way through the throng, and his gold cloaks followed, discarding their spears to draw swords and cudgels. The Shepherd’s followers were screaming, falling, running. Others produced weapons of their own, dirks and daggers, mauls and clubs, broken spears and rusted swords.

The gold cloaks were large men, young, strong, disciplined, well armed and well armored. For twenty yards or more their shield wall held, and they cut a bloody road through the crowd, leaving dead and dying all around them. But they numbered only five hundred, and ten thousand had gathered to hear the Shepherd. One watchman went down, then another. Suddenly smallfolk were slipping through the gaps in the line. Screaming curses, the Shepherd’s flock attacked with knives and stones, even teeth, swarming over the City Watch and around their flanks, attacking from behind, flinging tiles down from roofs and balconies.

Battle turned to riot turned to slaughter. Surrounded on all sides, the gold cloaks found themselves hemmed in and swept under, with no room to wield their weapons. Many died on the points of their own swords. Others were torn to pieces, kicked to death, trampled underfoot, hacked apart with hoes and butcher’s cleavers. Even the fearsome Ser Luthor Largent could not escape the carnage. His sword torn from his grasp, Largent was pulled from his saddle, stabbed in the belly, and bludgeoned to death with a cobblestone, his helm and head so crushed that it was only by its size that his body was recognized when the corpse wagons came the next day.