not cowardice, that led White and Hammer to betrayal. Honor meant little and less to them; it was wealth and power they lusted for. After the Gullet and the fall of King’s Landing, they had been granted knighthood…but they aspired to be lords and scorned the modest holdings bestowed on them by Queen Rhaenyra. When Lords Rosby and Stokeworth were executed, it was proposed that White and Hammer be given their lands and castles through marriage to their daughters, but Her Grace had allowed the traitors’ sons to inherit instead. Then Storm’s End and Casterly Rock were dangled before them, but these rewards as well the ungrateful queen had denied them.
No doubt they hoped that King Aegon II might reward them better, should they help return the Iron Throne to him. It might even be that certain promises were made to them in this regard, possibly through Lord Larys the Clubfoot or one of his agents, though this remains unproven and unprovable. As neither man could read nor write, we shall never know what drove the Two Betrayers (as history has named them) to do what they did.
Of the Battle of Tumbleton we know much and more, however. Six thousand of the queen’s men formed up to face Lord Hightower in the field, under the command of Ser Garibald Grey. They fought bravely for a time, but a withering rain of arrows from Lord Ormund’s archers thinned their ranks, and a thunderous charge by his heavy horse broke them, sending the survivors running back toward the town walls. There Red Robb Rivers and his bowmen stood, covering the retreat with their own longbows.
When most of the survivors were safe inside the gates, Roddy the Ruin and his Winter Wolves sallied forth from a postern gate, screaming their terrifying northern war cries as they swept around the left flank of the attackers. In the chaos that ensued, the northmen fought their way through ten times their own number to where Lord Ormund Hightower sat his warhorse beneath King Aegon’s golden dragon and the banners of Oldtown and the Hightower.
As the singers tell it, Lord Roderick was bloody from head to heel as he came on, with splintered shield and cracked helm, yet so drunk with battle that he did not even seem to feel his wounds. Ser Bryndon Hightower, Lord Ormund’s cousin, put himself between the northman and his liege, taking off the Ruin’s shield arm at the shoulder with one terrible blow of his longaxe…yet the savage Lord of Barrowton fought on, slaying both Ser Bryndon and Lord Ormund before he died. Lord Hightower’s banners toppled, and the townsfolk gave a great cheer, thinking the tide of battle turned. Even the appearance of Tessarion across the field did not dismay them, for they knew they had two dragons of their own…but when Vermithor and Silverwing climbed into the sky and loosed their fires upon Tumbleton, those cheers changed to screams.
It was the Field of Fire writ small, Grand Maester Munkun wrote.
Tumbleton went up in flame: shops, homes, septs, people, all. Men fell burning from gatehouse and battlements, or stumbled shrieking through the streets like so many living torches. Outside the walls, Prince Daeron swooped down upon Tessarion. Pate of Longleaf was unhorsed and trampled, Ser Garibald Grey pierced by a crossbow bolt, then engulfed by dragonflame. The Two Betrayers scourged the town with whips of flame from one end to the other.
Ser Roger Corne and his men chose that moment to show their true colors, cutting down defenders on the town gates and throwing them open to the attackers. Lord Owain Bourney did the same within the castle, driving a spear through the back of Ser Merrell the Bold.
The sack that followed was as savage as any in the history of Westeros. Tumbleton, that prosperous market town, was reduced to ash and embers. Thousands burned, and as many died by drowning as they tried to swim the river. Some would later say they were the fortunate ones, for no mercy was shown the survivors. Lord Footly’s men threw down their swords and yielded, only to be bound and beheaded. Such townswomen as survived the fires were raped repeatedly, even girls as young as eight and ten. Old men and boys were put to the sword, whilst the dragons fed upon the twisted, smoking carcasses of their victims. Tumbleton was never to recover; though later Footlys would attempt to rebuild atop the ruins, their “new town” would never be a