Recaps

Euron Greyjoy sailed away from Pyke toward Valyria, abandoning Balon Greyjoy’s plan to trap Robert Baratheon. Facing defeat and unrest, Robert admitted the Crown’s failures, rallied his lords with vows to reform and abstain from drinking, and prepared to leave for the Westerlands to rebuild and fight Suleiman.

• Euron Greyjoy turned the Silence east toward Valyria instead of returning with a fleet to aid Balon Greyjoy.
• Balon Greyjoy learned Euron had sailed south, banished him, and demanded negotiations with Robert Baratheon for Iron Islands independence and Maron’s return.
• Robert Baratheon rejected his nobles’ calls for an immediate counterattack, listed the military and political reasons they could not defeat Suleiman, and accepted blame for the kingdom’s crisis.
• Robert Baratheon chose to negotiate with Balon Greyjoy and lead his forces to the Westerlands, but refused Balon’s envoy’s demand to hand over Maron Greyjoy.
• Robert Baratheon smashed his wine jug, swore off drinking until the war was won, and pledged to reform the government; Stormlands, Northern, and Crownlands nobles then swore to fight for him.
• Robert Baratheon and Eddard Stark clasped hands and resolved to fight together again.

Walter He An and Gyles Leger plotted to kill Suleiman by raising a mutiny, while Arwood Halton pretended to agree. Arwood left the Seven Swords Inn to warn Suleiman of the rebellion plot.

• Gyles Leger and Walter He An argued that Suleiman’s influence would die with him and justified killing him as serving the crown.
• Arwood Halton proposed poison or assassination, but Walter He An and Gyles Leger pushed for a swift mutiny with other Riverlords.
• Arwood called the two men fools and silently let them believe he had accepted their plan.
• Walter He An and Gyles Leger left the inn, and Arwood ordered a knight to tell Suleiman they were plotting a rebellion.

Walter Haigh tried to persuade his household knights to rebel against Suleiman, but they rejected him and chose to report his plans. In Brownfort, Taicho Nestoris urged Suleiman to deposit a vast fortune with the Iron Bank while confirming that Braavos was likely to accept Suleiman’s trade alliance proposal.

• Walter Haigh told his twelve household knights that Suleiman planned to seize the throne and ordered them to launch an uprising and kill him.
• Ser Derrick and the other knights refused, arguing that Suleiman had never shown rebellious intent and that the Riverlands depended on him.
• Walter Haigh drew his sword and declared that he would act at once, so the knights left his tent in opposition.
• Ser Derrick decided to report Lord Hean to Lord Suleiman, and one knight rode to Duskold Town while the others affirmed their loyalty to the Riverlands and its people.
• Taicho Nestoris asked Suleiman about his wealth, and Suleiman said he had access to two and a half million from Faith donations and Crownlands nobles’ property.
• Taicho Nestoris proposed that Suleiman deposit the money in the Iron Bank and said Braavos would likely accept his trade alliance proposal.

Suleiman revealed his plans to use Braavosi trade and soldiers’ wealth to transform the Riverlands, then learned that Walter He An and Gyles Leger were plotting a rebellion. He greeted the news with exhilaration, seeing betrayal as proof that his changes were reshaping the world.

• Suleiman rejected Taicho Nestoris’s praise of his reforms and bluntly described the oppression underlying both Westeros and Braavos.
• Suleiman agreed to a proposed price for 30,000 warhorses, then clarified that he planned to distribute 600,000 Gold Dragons among his soldiers so they could buy goods from Braavos themselves.
• Suleiman proposed that Braavos and the Riverlands jointly manage the Targaryen Dynasty’s treasury, leaving Taicho Nestoris stunned.
• Rosso Brune reported that Walter He An and Gyles Leger were plotting a rebellion, with lords and knights supplying information against them.
• Suleiman laughed at the report and told Taicho Nestoris that the changes he had made to the world made his heart race.

Suleiman used a troop withdrawal and a sudden summons to provoke Walter He An into revealing his planned rebellion. Walter He An ordered House Whent’s forces to attack Duskendale and kill Suleiman, despite his knights’ desperate attempts to stop him.

• Suleiman refused Rosso Brune’s request to arrest the conspirators and ordered most of the troops moved out of Duskendale to lure the nobles into acting.
• Walter He An hesitated as the Riverlords withdrew their support and his knights urged him not to rebel.
• Suleiman ordered messengers to summon Walter He An and Gyles Leger urgently without explaining why.
• After receiving Suleiman’s summons, Walter He An feared that the plot had been exposed and decided to rebel immediately.
• Walter He An ordered his troops to attack Duskendale and kill Suleiman, ignoring Ser Derrick and the other knights as they tried to restrain him.

Walter Haigh and Gyles Leger marched on Duskold Town, but their soldiers rallied behind Suleiman instead of attacking. Walter was knocked unconscious as his attempted rebellion collapsed.

• Walter Haigh mustered House Haigh's forces and told them the enemy was in Duskold Town, then rode out to fight Suleiman.
• Suleiman ordered his forces and allied Riverlands armies to assemble outside Duskold Town while Rosso Brune's thousand men formed up at the gates.
• Walter Haigh and Gyles Leger advanced with nearly five thousand troops as Arwood Halton's army followed at a distance, and crowds gathered along the road cheering for Suleiman.
• Walter Haigh ordered his army to advance, but the soldiers hesitated, then joined Rosso Brune in shouting, "Long live Suleiman!"
• Walter Haigh ordered his cavalry to charge, but a horn sounded and the riders turned back to steady the ranks and denounce him as a traitor.
• An angry soldier accused Walter Haigh of betraying them and struck him, knocking him from his horse and rendering him unconscious.

Bronn watched House Mooton’s army erupt into demands to relieve Duskold Town after Walter He An, Gyles Leger, and Arwood Halton rebelled. William Mooton ordered his army to crush the rebellion, but the opposing soldiers laid down their weapons and reconciled, while Suleiman observed the bloodless end from Brownfort.

• Bronn heard reports that Walter He An, Gyles Leger, and Arwood Halton had mobilized, and rumors spread that they were rebelling against Suleiman.
• Scouts reported that the rebel armies were converging on Duskold Town, prompting William Mooton’s soldiers to demand immediate reinforcements.
• William Mooton learned that Valion Roote and Quincy Cox had been contacted by the rebels while he had been excluded, and he ordered his army to muster and crush the rebellion.
• Outside Duskold Town, soldiers from the opposing armies dropped their weapons, joined one another, and ended the conflict without a battle; Arwood Halton watched as Walter He An was helped up and Gyles Leger fled.
• Suleiman watched the armies reunite from Brownfort, and Taicho Nestoris remarked that a young Riverlands stood tall in Westeros.

Suleiman used a banquet and a fabricated list of Riverlords who had considered supporting Walter He An to frighten them, then burned the ledger and presented himself as merciful. As the lords celebrated his clemency, Rosso Brune slipped out after exchanging a silent signal with Suleiman.

• Suleiman told Taicho Nestoris that the Riverlords would understand his plans at a feast in Brownfort.
• William Mooton bragged about his loyalty while the Riverlords celebrated, and Rosso Brune reported that Walter He An and Gyles Leger had been captured.
• Rosso Brune presented a supposed record of the Riverlords’ replies to Walter He An, and Suleiman asked William Mooton how the suspected lords should be punished.
• William Mooton urged Suleiman to strip the lords of their titles and execute them, but Suleiman dismissed the ledger as a fabrication and burned it.
• The Riverlords praised Suleiman’s mercy, while Taicho Nestoris noticed Suleiman signal Rosso Brune, who quietly left the hall.

Outside Duskendale, Rosso Brune revealed four hundred thousand Gold Dragons as Suleiman’s promised spoils, stirring the Riverlands soldiers into a frenzy of loyalty. At Brownfort, Suleiman told the gathered lords that he would relocate their fiefs to the Crownlands to prevent further bloodshed.

• Rosso Brune assembled the Riverlands troops outside Duskendale and opened chests containing four hundred thousand Gold Dragons.
• Rosso Brune declared the gold was Suleiman’s promised share of the spoils, and the soldiers roared their support for Suleiman.
• At Brownfort, Suleiman told the lords that the Riverlands were ravaged and filled with armed Peasant Militias and rogue soldiers.
• Suleiman said he would relocate the lords’ fiefs to the Crownlands to prevent conflict and further bloodshed.

Suleiman presented the Riverlands lords with a plan to relocate loyal houses to seized Crownlands territory, offering them larger holdings and revealing that defeated western houses had already agreed to surrender their lands. As the lords began claiming land on a map, the roar of tens of thousands of supporters outside showed the scale of Suleiman’s power, and Jonos Bracken condemned the gathering as a feast that had opened Westeros’s eyes.

• Suleiman rejected Jonos Bracken’s request to let lords choose whether to relocate and declared that he would prevent civil war over land disputes.
• Suleiman offered loyal eastern Riverlands houses two or three times more fertile land in the Crownlands and revealed an agreement that made defeated western houses give up their lands and castles.
• Suleiman named House Deddings first to choose land, and Dain Deddings marked Duskendale and its surrounding lands on the map.
• William Mooton, Lymond Guburk, and other lesser lords claimed Crownlands holdings, while many great lords stayed seated and doubted Suleiman would force them to move.
• Tens of thousands outside Brownfort roared their support for Suleiman, and Jonos Bracken returned to the hall and denounced the gathering.

At a banquet in Brownfort, Suleiman revealed how he would resettle Riverlands lords in the Crownlands, and Arwood Halton realized the plan was designed to make the nobles dependent on Suleiman. The lords began claiming new lands, while Suleiman proclaimed that his authority came from his soldiers and the Riverlands, who answered with cheers.

• Arwood Halton challenged Suleiman’s plan, warning that Crownlands peasant militias would resist the Riverlands lords as outsiders.
• Suleiman said he would offer two hundred thousand Gold Dragons to ransom castles, suppress holdouts if needed, and urge the lords to grant land and lighter taxes to local farmers.
• Arwood Halton and the other lords understood that Suleiman had engineered the war and relocation to uproot them from the Riverlands and make them dependent on him.
• Jonos Bracken claimed the Kingswood and surrounding lands for House Bracken, prompting the Riverlands lords to scramble over the Crownlands map.
• Suleiman addressed the soldiers from Brownfort’s balcony, declared himself their friend and leader, and proclaimed that his power was bound to the Riverlands.
• The soldiers raised their swords and shields and roared, “Long live the Riverlands!”