The Dance of the Dragons is the flowery name bestowed upon the savage internecine struggle for the Iron Throne of Westeros fought between two rival branches of House Targaryen during the years 129 to 131 AC. To characterize the dark, turbulent, bloody doings of this period as a “dance” strikes us as grotesquely inappropriate. No doubt the phrase originated with some singer. “The Dying of the Dragons” would be altogether more fitting, but tradition, time, and Grand Maester Munkun have burned the more poetic usage into the pages of history, so we must dance along with the rest.

There were two principal claimants to the Iron Throne upon the death of King Viserys I Targaryen: his daughter Rhaenyra, the only surviving child of his first marriage, and Aegon, his eldest son by his second wife. Amidst the chaos and carnage brought on by their rivalry, other would-be kings would stake claims as well, strutting about like mummers on a stage for a fortnight or a moon’s turn, only to fall as swiftly as they had arisen.

The Dance split the Seven Kingdoms in two, as lords, knights, and smallfolk declared for one side or the other and took up arms against one another. Even House Targaryen itself was divided, when the kith, kin, and children of each of the claimants became embroiled in the fighting. Over the two years of struggle, a terrible toll was taken on the great lords of Westeros, together with their bannermen, knights, and smallfolk. Whilst the dynasty survived, the end of the fighting saw Targaryen power much diminished, and the world’s last dragons vastly reduced in number.

The Dance was a war unlike any other ever fought in the long history of the Seven Kingdoms. Though armies marched and met in savage battle, much of the slaughter took place on water, and…especially…in the air, as dragon fought dragon with tooth and claw and flame. It was a war marked by stealth, murder, and betrayal as well, a war fought in shadows and stairwells, council chambers and castle yards with knives and lies and poison.

Long simmering, the conflict burst into the open on the third day of the third moon of 129 AC, when the ailing, bedridden King Viserys I Targaryen closed his eyes for a nap in the Red Keep of King’s Landing and died without waking. His body was discovered by a serving man at the hour of the bat, when it was the king’s custom to take a cup of hippocras. The servant ran to inform Queen Alicent, whose apartments were on the floor below the king’s.

Septon Eustace, writing on these events some years later, points out that the manservant delivered his dire tidings directly to the queen, and her alone, without raising a general alarum. Eustace does not believe this was wholly fortuitous; the king’s death had been anticipated for some time, he argues, and Queen Alicent and her party, the so-called greens, had taken care to instruct all of Viserys’s guards and servants in what to do when the day came.

(The dwarf Mushroom suggests a more sinister scenario, whereby Queen Alicent hurried King Viserys on his way with a pinch of poison in his hippocras. It must be noted that Mushroom was not in King’s Landing the night the king died, but rather on Dragonstone, in service with Princess Rhaenyra.)

Queen Alicent went at once to the king’s bedchamber, accompanied by Ser Criston Cole, Lord Commander of the Kingsguard. Once they had confirmed that Viserys was dead, Her Grace ordered his room sealed and placed under guard. The serving man who had found the king’s body was taken into custody, to make certain he did not spread the tale. Ser Criston returned to White Sword Tower and sent his brothers of the Kingsguard to summon the members of the king’s small council. It was the hour of the owl.

Then as now, the Sworn Brotherhood of the Kingsguard consisted of seven knights, men of proven loyalty and undoubted prowess who had taken solemn oaths to devote their lives to defending the king’s person and kin. Only five of the white cloaks were in King’s Landing at the time of Viserys’s death; Ser Criston himself, Ser Arryk Cargyll, Ser Rickard Thorne, Ser Steffon Darklyn, and Ser Willis Fell. Ser Erryk Cargyll (twin to Ser Arryk) and Ser Lorent Marbrand, with Princess Rhaenyra on Dragonstone, remained unaware and uninvolved as their brothers-in-arms went forth into the night to rouse the members of the small council from their beds.

The council convened in the queen’s apartments within Maegor’s Holdfast. Many accounts have come down to us of what was said and done that night. By far the most detailed and authoritative of them is Grand Maester Munkun’s The Dance of the Dragons, A True Telling. Though Munkun’s exhaustive history was not written until a generation later, and drew on many different sorts of materials, including maesters’ chronicles, memoirs, stewards’ records, and interviews with one hundred forty-seven surviving witnesses to the great events of these times, his account of the inner workings of the court relies upon the confessions of Grand Maester Orwyle, as set down before his execution. Unlike Mushroom and Septon Eustace, whose versions derive from rumors, hearsay, and family legend, the Grand Maester was present at the meeting and took part in the council’s deliberations and decisions…though it must be recognized that at the time he wrote, Orwyle was most anxious to show himself in a favorable light and absolve himself of any blame for what was to follow. Munkun’s True Telling therefore paints his predecessor in perhaps too favorable a light.

Gathering in the queen’s chambers as the body of her lord husband grew cold above were Queen Alicent herself; her father, Ser Otto Hightower, Hand of the King; Ser Criston Cole, Lord Commander of the Kingsguard; Grand Maester Orwyle; Lord Lyman Beesbury, master of coin, a man of eighty; Ser Tyland Lannister, master of ships, brother to the Lord of Casterly Rock; Larys Strong, called Larys Clubfoot, Lord of Harrenhal, master of whisperers; and Lord Jasper Wylde, called Ironrod, master of laws. Grand Maester Munken dubs this gathering “the green council” in his True Telling.

Grand Maester Orwyle opened the meeting by reviewing the customary tasks and procedures required at the death of a king. He said, “Septon Eustace should be summoned to perform the last rites and pray for the king’s soul. A raven must needs be sent to Dragonstone at once to inform Princess Rhaenyra of her father’s passing. Mayhaps Her Grace the queen would care to write the message, so as to soften these sad tidings with some words of condolence? The bells are always rung to announce the death of a king, someone should see to that, and of course we must begin to make our preparations for Queen Rhaenyra’s coronation—”

Ser Otto Hightower cut him off. “All this must needs wait,” he declared, “until the question of succession is settled.” As the King’s Hand, he was empowered to speak with the king’s voice, even to sit the Iron Throne in the king’s absence. Viserys had granted him the authority to rule over the Seven Kingdoms, and “until such time as our new king is crowned,” that rule would continue.

“Until our new queen is crowned,” someone said. In Grand Maester Munkun’s account, the words are Orwyle’s, spoken softly, no more than a quibble. But Mushroom and Septon Eustace insist it was Lord Beesbury who spoke up, and in a waspish tone.

“King,” insisted Queen Alicent. “The Iron Throne by rights must pass to His Grace’s eldest trueborn son.”

The discussion that followed lasted nigh unto dawn, Grand Maester Munkun tells us. Mushroom and Septon Eustace concur. In their accounts, only Lord Beesbury spoke on behalf of Princess Rhaenyra. The ancient master of coin, who had served King Viserys for the majority of his reign, and his grandfather, Jaehaerys the Old King, before him, reminded the council that Rhaenyra was older than her brothers and had more Targaryen blood, that the late king had chosen her as his successor, that he had repeatedly refused to alter the succession despite the pleadings of Queen Alicent and her greens, that hundreds of lords and landed knights had done obeisance to the princess in 105 AC, and sworn solemn oaths to defend her rights. (Grand Maester Orwyle’s account differs only in that he puts many of these arguments into his own mouth rather than Beesbury’s, but subsequent events suggest that was not so, as we shall see.)