Moon of the Three Kings

Aegon II fled King's Landing once the city turned to Rhaenyra, his half-sister and rival for the Iron Throne. The queen moved into the Red Keep, but she did not stay long either — the riots already running through the streets pushed her out in turn.

Before that double flight, a mad prophet known as the Shepherd had already stirred the crowds into storming the Dragonpit. He preached that his followers should give up their possessions and live humbly, and for a while much of King's Landing listened. By the time Rhaenyra left, his hold was already slipping — but the throne he'd helped empty was still there, open to whoever wanted it.

A hedge knight named Ser Perkin had spent time gathering support for his own squire, a boy called Trystane he presented as a bastard son of the late King Viserys I. The moment the capital was left without a queen, he installed the boy in the Red Keep and crowned him.

Trystane's reign ran on blood and calculated mercy. Perkin executed several knights who stood against him, had Mysaria whipped naked through the streets in a punishment that would kill her, and at the same time opened the dungeons — out came Grand Maester Orwyle, Lord Corlys Velaryon, Ser Tyland Lannister, and the dowager queen Alicent Hightower, who had been held there. Behind that mix of cruelty and clemency stood Lord Larys Strong, who lent Perkin his help.

While Trystane reigned from the Red Keep, a second pretender rose on Visenya's Hill. Gaemon was four years old, the son of a prostitute named Essie, who claimed the father was Aegon II himself — plausible enough, given the king's reputation. Gaemon Palehair ruled from the House of the Kissing, and thousands of followers gathered around him.

Edicts went out in his name, among them one granting daughters equal standing with sons in matters of inheritance. Mushroom, who left his own account of those days, claimed the orders came not from the child but from Sylvenna Sand, a Dornish lover of Essie's.

Lord Borros Baratheon marched his men out of the Stormlands to restore order in King's Landing in Aegon II's name, and the king returned to the Red Keep after Rhaenyra's death at Dragonstone. Trystane was executed, though not before his last wish was granted — he was knighted first. Gaemon's mother confessed on the scaffold that the boy's father was a Lyseni oarsman, not the king; even so, Gaemon was taken into Aegon II's court rather than punished. The Shepherd had his tongue torn out on the king's order, then was burned alive along with his most devoted followers.

Borros had been promised his eldest daughter would marry Aegon II, but he never saw it happen — he died at the Battle of the Kingsroad. Aegon II himself was poisoned soon after, as Lord Cregan Stark's men and the Riverlands forces reached the capital.