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