Great Spring Sickness

The sickness followed the Great Spring of 209 AC and swept the Seven Kingdoms, killing by the tens of thousands. The big cities suffered worst. Lannisport was hit hard; Oldtown harder still; and in King's Landing, death claimed four people out of every ten.

It was said a man could wake healthy in the morning and be dead by nightfall. Dorne and the Vale shut their roads and their ports to travelers, and the sickness never crossed their borders. Ser Duncan the Tall and his squire, Prince Aegon, happened to be in Dorne at the time, and so escaped it without meaning to.

It made no distinctions of birth: among its victims were Lord Bracken's eldest son and heir, and Lord Ambrose Butterwell's heir as well. In King's Landing nearly all the Silent Sisters died, along with a third of the Most Devout. Lord Brynden Rivers, the Hand of the King, ordered the pyromancers to burn the bodies; by night the wildfire pyres lit the city like a lamp, and a quarter of King's Landing burned.

The disease spared not even the Red Keep. King Daeron II Targaryen died during the epidemic, and with him two of his sons, Princes Valarr and Matarys. The crown then passed to Aerys I Targaryen.

Among the hostages the Crown had held since Daemon I Blackfyre's rebellion, nearly all kin of his former supporters, many died "during the spring." With those hostages already in the ground, Lord Gormon Peake and Daemon II Blackfyre found themselves freer to plot the second Blackfyre rebellion.