With King Robert Baratheon dead, the Iron Throne falls to his heir Steffon Baratheon. From our perspective, the good news is that though only 4 years old, he is visibly inbred and plainly retarded. This means that just about everyone hates the idea of him being king. Due to our previous plots, many of the lords of the realm also harbour suspicions that he is not the legitimate scion of King Robert. The bad news is that he is deathly ill and will likely not live long. This means that the Kingship will probably pass to his heir, Prince Gulian, who does not as yet show such traits. So we have a narrow window of opportunity during which the Baratheon royal line will be extremely unpopular.
It turns out that we cannot even count on Grance Lannister, the previous heir who was disinherited and declared a bastard due to our machinations, to mount a challenge for the throne. A brief investigation reveals that young Grance was murdered in mid-293 upon the orders of Septon Cressen of Summersept. The child was seven years old at the time. Was the septon acting on his own or on behalf of some other party? The late King Robert perhaps out of rage towards this spawn of adultery and incest? Or House Lannister itself to forestall just such a succession challenge? We shall never know but it reminds us of the old saying that when you play the game of thrones, you win or you die.
We also discover that House Lannister is so ruthless at this game that just months after the death of King Robert, Cersei Lannister has remarried. This time to Garlan Tyrell, the eldest surviving son of Lord Paramount Mace Tyrell following the death of the sickly Willas Tyrell some time ago, and therefore heir to The Reach and Highgarden.
While we are pondering what to do, Lord Paramount Edmund Tully of The Riverlands takes the initiative. Recall that he was also imprisoned by the late king. Unlike Tywin Lannister however, he was never released and he remains a prisoner at King’s Landing under King Steffon Baratheon. Apparently having had enough of this Baratheon-Lannister rule, he starts a faction to push for Princess Daenerys Targaryen, the youngest child of the Mad King Aerys II and his sister-wife Rhaella, to be crowned queen. Note that at this point she is a child of 9 years. He could have chosen Prince Viserys Targeryen, Daernerys’ older brother, who yet lives and, together with her, is a ward of the Sealord Lotho of Braavos but apparently he believes that Viserys’ insanity makes him a poor monarch.
Mere days later, Lord Mace Tyrell lends his considerable influence towards this faction as well. We are initially surprised by this decision, given his heir’s marriage to Cersei Lannister, but after some consideration it is a shrewd move. After all, while Mace Tyrell would certainly be happy to have a Tyrell-Lannister ruler on the Iron Throne, he would accept neither a Baratheon-Lannister ruler nor, given the evidence Doran Martell had earlier unearthed about King Steffon’s paternity, a purely Lannister ruler. We have no reason to believe that either the Tullys or the Tyrells have any special love for the Targaryens. It is only a matter of supporting the best possible candidate of the moment to replace the current king.
Still, We can’t let this opportunity go by regardless of the depth of the support the Tullys or the Tyrells are prepared to give to Daenerys Targaryen, so we put our own plans into action. First, we secure our own interests by proposing a betrothal between the son of Doran Martell, Prince Quentyn Martell and Princess Daenerys Targaryen. Her Braavosi guardian doesn’t seem to be too fond of us but quickly agrees to the union anyway, perhaps recognizing as well as we do that this is the best path towards the restoration of the Targaryens. Then we also add our support to the faction.
In an apparent attempt to derail this budding alliance, Lord Renly Baratheon of the Stormlands proposes to marry our heir, Arianne Martell. We decline. As a non-matrilineal marriage, this would mean that any children born of this union would be considered part of the Baratheon dynasty and not the Martell dynasty. We will only consider those marriage partners for Arianne whose families agree to a matrilineal marriage, that is the groom must leave their own dynasty to join ours, rather than Arianne leaving our dynasty to join another one.
Near the end of 293, we receive an invitation to the coronation ceremony of King Steffon. We of course deliberately snub this invitation. Meanwhile we renew our efforts to convince the realm that Steffon is not the child of King Robert Baratheon and indeed has no Baratheon blood at all. If successful, this should deprive this king of the support of Lord Renly Baratheon and Lord Stannis Baratheon.
But before this latest intrigue of ours has time to run its course and further discredit this king, Lord Edmure Tully once again takes the initiative. He declares war on the Iron Throne to place Princess Daenerys Targaryen on it and as the leader of the faction supporting her pulls the other faction members into the war, including us. The realm is now in revolt and war has begun!
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