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For years afterward, every time his brothers or Jon Arryn told Robert Baratheon that he spent too much time in brothels, he would argue about how they had at least led him to one of the finest advisors he would ever have. Said advisor would make a humble, self-deprecating smile and think about the unusually clear and accurate greensight he had been born with.

The tents and stands for the Tourney at Harrenhal where two days away from being constructed the morning Robert had come downstairs from a rather long and rigorous tryst with a petite redhead and a fresh thirst to drown at the bar by the door. He had downed a flagon of rich, cool ale, and been reaching for the coin to pay for it when one went flying past him and into the startled barkeep’s outstretched hand.

"Never let it be said that Lord Walder Frey wouldn’t pay tribute to a fellow lord who has what it takes to make young Ohlindaa there scream that loud and that long,” Walder Frey said, slapping Robert on the back with a beaming nod. "Being Jon Arryn's ward, and Ned Stark's third brother of sorts, tell these old ears you've heard of old Walder Frey, although perhaps not my best traits. Or what Ohlindaa would call my best." He glanced down at his belt while making a pelvic thrust.

"Some perhaps, but none that can take this mind away from this sight," said Robert with a laugh, gesturing around at all the scantily-clad women.

"Have to be changing that, then," Walder declared pompously, as Robert downed his flagon. "Don’t suppose you could take me to Ned Stark. I’ve got a little something to say to him as heir to the heir of the North. If you help me say it to him, that Arryn will start toasting you as the next Conciliator and I’ll show my gratitude by introducing you to some twins who fuck in ways that would make Ohlindaa blush."

Robert’s ears perked up in excitement, but he was cautious about this. "First go telling me what it is you want with Ned and why. I owe him better than to go showing in every Garth, Pate, and Damon."

"A smart man and a good friend you are," said Walder. “If anyone hears of what the Freys are up to these days, I'll offer you better than even odds it’s about our feuds with the Reeds. Those Stark bannersmen some of my coarser boys’ call ‘frog-eaters’. I'm sick and tired of all that fighting. Got a way to put a stop to that in mind by donating a bit of my lands as a wedding present to some distant kin of my Blackwood wife, the Seven watch over her soul. Not a big patch of land, but enough to put someone between me and the Reeds so that we don’t have any reason to fight. For a gift like that, I’d want some Northern lads to foster at the Twins, of course, plus some of their grand lords to take on some of my grandsons and great-grandsons as squires and pages."

"So just ask Lord Stark," said Robert. "Or your own liege, Tully."

"Stark hates me because the Reeds hate me. The Tullys want to marry one of their daughters to your Ned's brother, so they’re the same way. Keep thinking I just want to get them on their side for something and won't even hear me out. But if it's another Stark bringing it up to them, well then, they'd listen closer."

Robert was looking skeptical at this convoluted excuse. Or maybe just bored with politics in general. He changed his tune when Walder told him that he'd heard the bartender had a wine for special customers that tasted five times sweeter than the ale Robert had just drank. He paid for Robert to sample that, and while it may not have been quite five times as good, it came close.

Robert happily made his introduction to Ned, who relayed Walder's proposal to his kin. They were impressed by the sacrifice Walder was willing to make for peace in such a relatively minor conflict, especially when he didn’t back out after they cut down on the number of Frey scions he wanted to go North. Seals were stamped onto parchment, and soon Crannogmen were actually buying drinks for Freys as the house’s lands were diminished ever so slightly. It was worth it to Walder, though, for the bonds forming with Robert Baratheon. Bonds that would only strengthen when he and his sons applauded loudest for Robert at the melee and were quick to shower him with beer, wine, and well-paid girls.

Most of their fellow attendees barely noticed the new friendship, with everything else going on at that Tourney. Those that did could only shake their heads in amazement during Robert’s Rebellion, when that casual tavern friendship became the basis of a quite fateful alliance….

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On the heels of establishing ties to the North Walder dispatched his sons Symond, Danwell, and Martyn, along with their families, to King’s Landing. Sons who were smart on their feet, knew which way political winds were blowing, and could follow specific instructions. One of those instructions was for Symond to recruit spies whose word would be trusted impeccably and have them spy on Lord Commander Hightower and young Jaime Lannister at certain times.

Another was for Martyn to suggest that, in honor of Prince Aegon’s birth, the king consider offering amnesty to any female line Blackfyres on the condition that they always keep 2/3rds of their children as hostages in the Maidenvault at any one time. This was rejected by Aerys, but it did get some people thinking and, more importantly, it made Varys a friend of the Freys.

Then came the disappearance of Lyanna Stark, and her brother Brandon’s ill-fated trip to the capitol. When the city Watch arrested him and his companions Elbert Arryn and Jefforey Mallister tried to fight their way out. In another timeline, that would have failed. But a few spies Symond had planted on the watch deliberately made way for the two men to make it past them and vanish into the crowds.

Jefforey was caught two days later, but Elbert Arryn made it to the docks and escaped on a hull that a Braavosi friend of Symond’s wife had approached him in a bar to recommend. A black-sailed ship owned by one Davos Seaworth.

Elbert’s escape made no difference in the fates of Brandon, Jefforey, Kyle Royce, their fathers, or the young squire Ethan Glover’s father. They all still died screaming screams that would echo throughout history. But Elbert's good fortune was a ripple. Elbert would wed a Grafton and rapidly conceive twin sons to secure the succession (and part of that house’s loyalty) as the rebellion continued. He would save his cousin Denys from death and capture Jon Connington at the Battle of the Bells. His uncle Jon would never marry Lysa Tully.

None of that had been planned or intended by Walder when he sent his sons to King’s Landing. But knowing that Elbert and indirectly Denys (and his wife and babe, as the mother would not succumb to the depression that doomed her and her child to deaths of neglect) still breathed because of Symond Frey made Jon Arryn view old Walder in a new light.

But all of that would come later. First were the executions of Lord Stark, Brandon, and all the rest. Only Ethan Glover was able to wiggle his way out of the death trap he was placed in, but it wasn’t fast enough to save his father. Lord Frey wasted no time ordering his kin to muster levies and in sending ravens North declaring that, to honor the late Lord Rickard, House Frey would take the unprecedent move of waiving any resistance or toll for Northerners coming south to "Pay whatever respects you deem appropriate for your lord’s sad end," for the rest of the year.

When Robert officially struck his banners in rebellion, the Freys had a head start and sent loud messages crowing their support for the campaign the king who had murdered their beloved Lord Paramount’s intended goodson. The long-mocked Walder Frey taking such a stand was a big enough upset to get many other lords started on training their own smallfolk much faster than they otherwise would have been. The feeling of being shamed by a Frey’s honor was even enough to see a few Darry, Goodbrook, and Ryger relatives and smallfolk into going against their house and racing their steeds toward rebel lines.

More perceptive lords would note that, for all his speeches about the injuries to Lord Tully that his bannersmen must avenge, Lord Frey was far from servile when the political Lord Tully and his troops arrived to join the growing Riverlands muster after his own indecision about whether it would be more advantageous to sit the war out.

"Another week and you’d have been almost as late as your father," said Walder with a laugh. Hoster Tully would never be able to be in the same room with Frey again without gritting his teeth. Once upon a time, that attitude would have merely secured House Tully’s popularity and sway with the Riverlords. But the day was coming when it would decrease that popularity and influence instead.

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It was barely two days before Robert sailed off for the Battle of Summerhall that the knights of the Vale and Stormlands joined their Northern and Riverlands brethren in knowing and respecting the name Frey. Robert, Ned Stark, and Jon Arryn were overseeing the loading of their ships when Symond and Danwell Frey, Martyn Rivers, and the delegation that had escaped King’s Landing with them sailed into port with their brothers Stevron and Geremy and nephew Arwood.

Dozens of stone-faced rebel lords, knights, Septons and maesters listened to the respected duo of a Septon and a merchant who Symond had set to spying recount the conversation they had heard between Gerold Hightower and Jaime Lannister after the burning of Rickard and Brandon Stark. Angry shouts and curses filled the air as they listened to the dismissive and cold-hearted way that the famed White Bull had bullied his young sworn brother for daring to blanche in shock at the truly horrific murder that had doubled as a profanation of the sacred trial by combat to boot.

Ravens would go flying across the continent with that story, and the hate Hoster Tully felt for the Freys was truly insignificant compared to what Gerold Hightower would experience. Their actions had led to half the Westeros cursing his name and even many on his own side looking at him with disgust or disappointment.

Gerold might have eventually moved past that by telling himself how he was serving the righteous cause and that those who disagreed with him were treasonous vermin. But that was not an option after the proclamation that Robert made after reading the first of several suggestions in the letter Stevron and Arwood carried from Robert’s good friend and loyal new bannersman Walder Frey. In that letter, Walder expressed his own harsh contempt at the idea of how Robert could end up stuck with a man like Gerold Hightower on his Kingsguard if the man surrendered at the end of the war and suggested that if Robert was a new king, then might he consider a new Kingsguard, and perhaps even new conditions for that Kingsguard’s service.

Robert liked the idea, as did Ned Stark and Jon Arryn. After an hour of discussion between them and their maesters and most renowned knights, they made the decree that, should they take the throne, Kingsguard would no longer serve for their own lives, but for those of the king who first gave them their white cloaks. To deter any Kingsguard from neglecting their duties or even personally assassinating a monarch to bring a faster end to their vows of celibacy and non-inheritance, Robert decreed that any time a king died by violence (including suicide or potential poisoning), his Kingsguard must continue to serve for seven more sacred years to make up for their failure.

The idea of going down in history as so unchivalrous of a knight that he inspired the reformation of the Kingsguard drove Gerold Hightower into a berserker rage. He did not ride to the Tower of Joy after Arthur Dayne and Oswell Whent but instead rode to the Trident and positioned himself directly across from the Frey lines (and the Umber and Hunter armies flanking the Freys).

Rage turned Gerold Hightower into the greatest warrior (although no better of a man) of his time for thirty short minutes. He would go on to kill Walton, Lyonel, Aenys, Tytos, and Jared Frey, along with Lord Eon Hunter, and almost twenty smallfolk conscripts from one of the three houses or another, while also wounding Ryman, Raymund, Rhaeger, and Merrett Frey, Mors Umber’s sons, Lord Hunter, and an additional five conscripts. In the end, though, he was brought down by a combined offensive from Hosteen, Danwell, and Geremy Frey, and Mors and Greatjon Umber.

The new Kinsguard rules and the altered fates of Gerold Hightower, Gerold’s victims at the Trident, and Gerold’s never-to-be Tower of Joy victims Lord Dustin and Ethan Glover were not small things, but they paled in significance next to the impact of the second letter Stevron Frey gave Lords Baratheon, Stark, and Arryn that day. He had not known exactly what they would suggest regarding the Kingsguard reformation and had known it would be presumptuous and doomed to tell them what to do from afar. But he had gambled that his words might trigger some circumstances that could lead to Jaime Lannister leaving the Kingsguard. Stevron was under instructions to surrender the second letter if that happened. That second letter that he was to be opened only in front of the three lords paramount and away from any bannersmen who could let the truth slip to unfriendly ears.

The letter began with Walder asking if Robert had tasted a vintage of Shield Islands wine that Walder has started sampling given the reduced appeal of staying sober nonstop in times like these. Then he got down to business, describing a message his second son Emmon had been instructed to relay to House Lannister.

Robert and Ned had never heard about Tywin Lannister’s hatred for his heir Tyrion and strong desire for Jaime to rule the Westerlands, but Jon Arryn had seen enough to confirm those ugly truths. He agreed that a Kingsguard reform which saw Jaime Lannister eventually relieved of his vows would be in Tywin’s interest, but that it would be condemning the boy to a worse fate than Rickard Stark if Tywin openly raised his banners for Robert. In addition to the promise of a chance-not a certainty, just a chance-that his firstborn son might succeed him as Warden of the West, Tywin also wanted a betrothal between his daughter Cersei and a Stark, Baratheon, or Arryn no more distantly related to the current lords than second cousin.

If he got these promises, then as far as King’s Landing was concerned, Tywin Lannister and his brothers, daughter, nephews, and favorite cousins would be locked in the darkest dungeons of their ancestral hall. Houses Banefort, Payne, Swyft, Brax, Crakehall, Falwell, Sarsfield, Prester, Foote, Clegane, Lorch, and Plumm flocking to Robert’s banners. In return for this supposed defiance of Tywin Lannister, Varys’ spies would be led to think that the Baneforts would be the new lord’s paramount while the other houses would each receive several extra villages from neighboring lordships.

Ned’s jaw dropped with shock, Jon Arryn nodded his head in thoughtful approval, and Robert roared with the laughter of a pirate who’d been gifted the keys to the Iron Bank of Braavos. Walder’s letter went on to say that the deception would also include Tyrion Lannister being raised up as lord of Casterly Rock and Lannisport several decades younger than expected and being betrothed to Lord Brax’s niece. Walder assured them that Tyrion’s skills in building and logistics would be a great boon to their cause.

Walder stressed that he had not agreed to any of these terms, as that would not be his place. He had merely discussed what it would take to get the Westerlands on their side from the Rebellion’s beginning and would be happy to use his lines of communication to renegotiate if they weren’t satisfied. The only way they could have been any less unsatisfied was if they had been marching up to the Iron Throne already and welcoming all their dead relatives back from the dead.

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The wisdom of securing the Westerlands as allies became apparent when their vanguard arrived just in time for the Battle of Summerhall. Randyll Tarly still won the day, but it was a much, much closer affair. Gregor and Sandor Clegane led a charge that killed the Lords of Ashford, Smithyton, Sunhouse, Cider Hall, Oakenshield, Risley Glade, Darkdell, Starpike, Dustonbury, Leafy Lake, and Holyhall, as well as many lesser nobles. Neither sword, flail, spear, nor arrow seemed able to stop the Mountain’s onslaught, but flaming arrows did the trick, and Sandor Clegane ordered a retreat and left the floundering Gregor to his doom with rather suspicious haste that provoked decades of ugly whispers that he cared not one lick about.

Tyrion Lannister and the baggage train arrived a bit late, but Tyrion would gain fame throughout the war as a quartermaster who not only safeguarded supplies but was innovative with them as well. He had men assembling scorpion devices from the back of moving wagons. As Robert’s army was forced into retreat, a good many more of them got away then otherwise might have due to Tyrion and his men firing those scorpion bolts.

The very edge of the blades sticking out the side of one such bolt grazed Randyll Tarly’s head. His helmet took most of the impact, but he was still roughly unhorsed and spent half a day unconscious before awakening with head trauma that would gradually rob him of his hearing over the next several years. This disability led to his death by alcoholism a few weeks after his son Dickon’s seventh Name Day and also made Tarly far less intolerant of a bookish heir when reading and writing were suddenly much more precious to him.

Walder and Robert would have their first face-to-face meeting of the Rebellion soon afterward, a week after Ned Stark’s wedding to Catelyn Tully. Ned was rather miffed by how Robert and Walder departed the ceremonies soon after the bedding, in search of a bedding of their own. After a night of sated lusted, the two sent away their prostitute companions and spent the next two hours hunched over a table in the back room of an inn in whispered discussion. Anyone who tried to come close enough to listen or talk to them departed after a wave of either Robert’s hand or his famous warhammer.

The next morning, Robert shocked everyone by announcing that, as Ned’s wedding and the absence of his own betrothed weighed so keenly in his heart, then he was pledging before the Seven, his brothers back at Storm’s End, and the love Jon Arryn held for him not to even consider marriage for at least a decade if his Lyanna did not survive the war. He would not dishonor either Lyanna or any woman who would have to compete for her memory. He surprised even more people by openly naming Walder Frey as the man who had persuaded him of this plan.

While lords like Hoster Tully and Roose Bolton complained about the threat to the succession, Ned Stark embraced Robert even more brotherly than ever before after that speech, and many other lord found their strong loyalty to Robert grow stronger still. For centuries afterward, maesters, bards, and many others would speculate and sing about the love the rascally Lord Walder might have felt for at least one of his late wives to posses such keen insight and moving hidden depths.

Any Freys that heard that story, on the other hand, would excuse themselves and then laugh too hard for their stomachs to be up for consuming anything stronger than porridge or soup for the rest of the day. What Walder had actually said was tell Robert that a woman like Lyanna might be enough to turn him away from all but the occasional whore, but that if she was dead, then Tywin would push for him to marry Cersei Lannister, and that Walder’s son Emmon assured him that his niece by marriage could drive a man with the rectitude of a High Septon to the whorehouses.

Walder had followed this up by reminding Robert of how Aegon the Second, Rogue Prince Daemon, Aegon the Unworthy, and Aerys the Mad were all legendary for their appetites for prostitutes and ladies in waiting even after wedding and were all mocked and condemned for it even by most of those historians who approved of their conduct in other matters. The fear of his name being uttered in the same breath as theirs eventually got through to Robert, as did the proposal that few would blame an unwed king in mourning for seeking the occasional fleshy solace. And for Robert, occasional meant perhaps twice a week.

But his matrimonial future was not the only thing Robert announced and credited Walder with. He also announced that, given the stern Targaryen loyalty that the Reach had showed while making him route away from Ashford, certain changes would be made there after the war. He condemned the long-ago elevation of House Tyrell as Lords Paramount and Wardens of the South. The Florents had been House Gardner’s cadet branch and had an obviously superior claim. Nor had the Tyrells ever really done much worthwhile (in his selective recollection) since then: sitting out the Dance of the Dragons as much as they could, blundering around Dorne and ignominiously dying there in multiple wars, and being incapacitated by fever for half of the War of the Ninepenny Kings. His mind was made up on the subject: as long as House Florent avoided any atrocities or public mockery of the Baratheon cause, then the Tyrells could keep Highgarden after the war, but Brightwater Keep would be the new ruling castle of the land.

Lord Tully (as another lord whose ancestors had been elevated over houses with a stronger claim to a kingdom) vigorously protested this move, shooting Walder glares that the Lord of House Frey absorbed like they were rays of wonderful sunshine after a miserable winter. But few others shared Hoster’s feelings. Even most of his own bannersmen agreed it was a sound idea. The way Lords Bracken and Blackwood were smiling at daydreams of their own houses perhaps emulating the Florents rise caused Hoster to refuse any invitations to a Blackwood or Bracken wedding for the next ten years.

Unsurprisingly, Robert’s (publicly announced) postwar plans caused quite a bit of an uproar in the Reach. Axell Florent and his squire were chased through the streets of Tumbleton and spent the night hiding in a chicken coop after an angry mob accused them of fighting down rather…well, foxy grins in the middle of professions of loyalty to Mace Tyrell. Lord Rowan, Lady Oakheart, and the Shield Island lords had their own sore spots over the announcement: Robert had softened the blow to House Tyrell by expanding the territory Higharden ruled over to include the lands and castle of all six houses.

Outraged at the implication they would be reduced to Masterly House bannersmen, Rowan, Oakheart, and the others had demanded that Higharden announce that it would refuse to expand its borders at the cost of its loyal allies even if they did lose the war. Mace Tyrell responded with a lot of bluster about how he refused to be so defeatist to even discuss or consider the possibility at all. He may not have wanted to lose the Reach, but he (or rather, his mother) knew that Robert might win and didn’t need a maester to explain how hundreds and hundreds of miles of land and castles better than one castle and a few dozen miles.

And, if all of that wasn’t enough, Robert also announced that, if he won the war, then the Citadel would be moved from Oldtown to a new facility he would build in Duskendale, which he would grant the charter Aerys had denied them to celebrate this move. He declared that the maesters had spent far too long under the thumb of the house that had helped start the Dance of the Dragons and that, as with the Faith of the Seven and the Starry Sept, they should be closer to the king so he could watch over what was being done there and give them easier access to history being made. Once that news finished circulating, Gerold Hightower was actually one of the members of his house least filled with nonstop hatred for the Baratheon cause. And angry people don’t make the best of soldiers.

Between the Tyrells (and their fiercest supporters) new hostility toward the Florents, the Florents desperation to avoid antagonizing Robert, the reckless fanaticism of the Hightowers, the Rowan, Oakheart, and Shield Island nobles newfound resentment of Mace Tyrell, and many other houses having whispered arguements about whether they were being told to sell their lives for the wealth of House Tyrell rather than the glory of House Targaryen, the Reach’s effectiveness and cohesiveness as a military unit took a sharp downturn that would be felt at the Battle of the Trident and the Siege of Storm’s End.

Then, there was one more announcement Robert had to make. His official proclamation about the future of House Targaryen….

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Robert had no complaints with the proposal to have Aerys flogged within an inch of his life and condemned to the Ironborn salt mines (even if they had to take them from the Ironborn by force) if he survived the war. He was even more keen at the suggestion of challenger Rhaeger to a Trial of the Seven, in the unlikely event the prince let himself be taken alive. But the idea of pledging to spare the Queen, Prince Viserys, and Rhaeger's children and exiling them to Dragonstone, to rule over it, Sharp Point, Driftmark, Sweetport Sound, and Claw Isle had less appeal. He fought the idea hard. In the end, however, Walder got through to him.

Part of it was reminders of Robert's own Targaryen blood. Another part was pointing out how hypocritical it would be of him to be that petty toward an eneemy family when the Fells served him so loyally after he had killed their lord and his ancestor had gone along with condemning their then-lady to execution in the Dance of the Dragons. Still another factor was several anecdotes about the kinds of grudges the Dornish could hold and the length they went to repaying the favor of mercy. Similarly, more of the Crownlands might join Houses Blount, Ryker, Manning, Hogg, Follard, and Farring in locking themselves and their smallfolk deep in their castles and preparing for a siege rather than join the Targaryen muster as long as they knew their sometimes-beloved ruling family would be spared. Stories from Symond's spies in King's Landing about the way the Queen suffered at Aerys' hands also softened Robert's heart. Tales filtered back from Frey bastards at the citadel about all the anti-magic conspiracies there (also part of why Robert decided to move the Citadel) and how Robert would need targaryens as dragon tamers if he ever brought the creatures back made a further impression.

But the biggest factor of all was Walder's suggestion of a way to humiliate and denigrate Rhaeger's family that would be even worse than death, from a certain perspective. Robert was quite cheerful as he announced that he would legitimatize any surviving female-line Blackfyres who fought on his side and could produce twenty impeccable character witnesses (ten smallfolk or slave, and ten merchant or lord) and place them ahead of Aerys' family in the Dragonstone lordship succession. Many of his lords protested this vigorously, and a few threatened to leave the rebellion, but in the end, none did, mainly due to Lord Bracken pointing out how unlikely it was that any surviving Blackfyres could produce nearly so many respectable witnesses after so long in the shadows.

Lord Varys and some of his siblings and distant cousins would quickly prove Bracken wrong, and there was some grumbling, but Robert was a man of his word, and the Dragonstone lordship they did get, along with the satisfaction of seeing the Targaryens fall, although seeing the Tagaryen survivors brought so low did eventually inspire mutual and lasting sympathy and forgiveness rather than hatred over the next fifteen years.

Varys wasted little time in leaking intelligence reports to Robert's Rebellion, including ways to take the city bloodlessly and uncover hidden caches of wildfire and treasury coins once that was done. His relatives rallied a sellsword army that sailed toward the Stormlands.

Mace Tyrell's siege of Storm's end was off to a much bumpier start than it might have otherwise been. Houses Florent, Footly, and Costayne all turned blind eyes that let Davos Seaworth land many more ships of food and also smuggle Prince Renly and several other noncombatants to Robert's lines. Mace Tyrell would also abandon the siege after just two months, taking a sizable force, including Lord Tarly, with him and leaving Randyll Tarly and Paxter Redwyne in charge.

Lord Mace claimed that it was to bolster Aerys' forces in the Crownlands and Riverlands, but it was really to put distance between himself and his less loyal bannersmen after a joint Serry and Florent force made an attempt on his life. The failure of that plot that led to dozens of nobles and foot soldiers of both houses fleeing to the gates of Storm's End with loot from the baggage train and several Targaryen-hating members of Houses Sloane, Chester, Hewett, Grimm, Pommingham, and Oldflowers. Stannis let them in and had a great morale victory and some new troopers who he found himself growing surprisingly tolerant toward despite hsi taciturn natrue and their previous presence in the siege. 

As Mace made his excuses and left (noticing the hostile and contemplative looks the Rowans, Oakhearts, Norridges, Footlys, and remaining Shield Island loyalists were giving him), the Baratheon contingent on the walls took note. They spent the next three nights writing a song, and the next three weeks driving the besiegers into an outrage by incessantly singing it.

"Brave Lord Tyrell ran away.
Bravely ran away quickly.
When danger reared it's scowling head,
He bravely turned his ass and fled.
Yes, brave Lord Tyrell turned about
And gallantly hastened his rout.

Bravely taking to his feet,
He beat a very brave retreat.
Bravest of the braaaave, Lord Tyrell!"

Merchants and minstrels wandering past the siege grounds picked up the song and it spread like wildfire. And wildfire was just what Mace requested King Aerys loan him to level Storm's End as soon as he heard that. This wrathful plan would lead to Robert removing the Shield Islands (who he wanted to reward for their defection anyway) and 3/4ths of the Oakheart lands from the lordship he had promised to leave intact for House Tyrell and offering House Tyrell the choice between sending Mace sent to the Wall for life or only exiled from Westeros for the next ten years in exchange  for a steep tax increase for those ten years. The majority of them voted for the Wall, where Mace would live out his days as a mess steward at Eastwatch-by-the-sea. 

Mace incurred that punishment for nothing. Before the wildfire could even be sent to the Stormlands, word got out that the siege was broken. Lord Redwyne was a prisoner and Lord Tarly and the remnants of a demoralized force were fleeing the Stormlands after Davos Seaworth had helped land a sellsword army to join the Baratheon forces and Reach defectors suddenly sallying out of the gate. Part of the sellsword force were Blackfyre descendants (down to bastards of bastards) coming out of the woodwork. Others had been recruited by Tyrion Lannister (architect of the plan) and his primary assistants, Symond Frey and Littlefinger Baelish. Lord Tarly's withdrawal from the grounds of the siege would lead to a popular variant of the new "Brave Lord Tyrell" song featuring Randyll as the main character.

Prince Rhaeger was left with such an outnumbered and demoralized force at the Trident that he, Prince Lewyn Martell, and Lord Tarly began debating how they could have Rhaeger challenge Robert to single combat without exposing how desperate they were not to be forced into a fight with the army they had. They shouldn't have worried: the enemy knew already, and some merrily shouted taunts drove Gerold Hightower into ordering a premature charge.

Forced to commit earlier than they would have liked, the remaining Targaryen forces charged. Some did, anyway. The Darrys (save Jonothor of the Kingsguard), Rosbys, Leygoods, Fossoways, Cargylls, Largents, and Rollingfords all made like Mace Tyrell and charged away from the battle.  

Even with the Dornish presence, the battle's outcome was never in doubt. The only reason that Rhaeger Targaryen even survived long enough to fight and be killed by Robert was because Robert had delegated overall leadership to Jon Arryn and Ned Stark so he could place himself in one of the first lines that Rhaeger would face in combat.

Far less than half of the men who would have died at the Trident in another history died there in this one.

With that done, the rebels marched toward King's Landing and an increasingly desperate Aerys, who would still die at the sword of Jaime Lannister. But Aerys was not the only Targaryen in danger in the city. Not when Tywin Lannister saw Rhaeger's children and siblings as a threat to Cersei and the succession whether Robert wanted them dead or not. And not when he wanted a nice atrocity to blame on the increasingly-popular Tyrion before any hope he ever had of pushing the boy back into demeaning obscurity after the Rebellion vanished with each new boon Tyrion brought his new friends...