Duel of the Cargyll Twins

The Duel of the Cargyll Twins turned an attempt to strike at Queen Rhaenyra on Dragonstone into a fatal encounter between identical brothers. Ser Arryk Cargyll entered the castle disguised as Ser Erryk, his fellow Kingsguard, but the real Erryk recognized him. Their deaths ended the mission before Arryk reached the royal apartments and left the duel’s precise course disputed by the surviving accounts.

Causes and Mission

After Blood and Cheese murdered Prince Jaehaerys, King Aegon II wanted revenge against his half-sister, Queen Rhaenyra, and her sons. An assault on Dragonstone, where she was, might have allowed him to seize or kill them, but the green council dissuaded him from attacking the island openly. Ser Criston Cole, Lord Commander of the Kingsguard, proposed answering Rhaenyra’s stealth with stealth. He selected his sworn brother Arryk for the mission.

Arryk’s familiarity with Dragonstone made him a plausible infiltrator: he had visited the ancient seat of House Targaryen during King Viserys’s reign. Fishermen still worked Blackwater Bay, and the castle depended on the sea for supplies, so Cole’s plan was to land Arryk at the fishing village beneath the castle. In the white cloak, he could pass for Erryk. The twins were identical enough that, according to Mushroom and Septon Eustace, even their fellow Kingsguard could not tell them apart.

The order’s intended target is uncertain. Grand Maester Munkun says Arryk was commanded to kill Rhaenyra and thereby end her rebellion. Mushroom instead claims that Aegon wanted the deaths of her sons, Jacaerys and Joffrey, to avenge Jaehaerys. The accounts establish the mission as an attempt at royal vengeance, but do not settle whether the queen or her sons were its specific object.

Infiltration and Recognition

Arryk undertook the assignment unwillingly. Septon Eustace relates that, on the night he was due to sail, he went to pray for forgiveness in the Red Keep’s sept. As a Kingsguard sworn to obey both the king and his commander, however, he believed honor left him no choice. He travelled to Dragonstone dressed as a simple fisherman, then came ashore without hindrance.

Once on the island, Arryk put on his armor and white cloak and entered the castle in his twin’s guise, as Cole had intended. The disguise carried him deep into Dragonstone. It failed only when, on his way to the royal apartments, he encountered Erryk himself. Erryk recognized what his brother’s presence meant. The plan’s central advantage—the twins’ indistinguishable appearance—had brought Arryk inside, but at the decisive moment it could no longer conceal his purpose from the one person who knew him best.

Conflicting Accounts of the Duel

Munkun describes a prolonged fight, lasting the better part of an hour. The clash woke much of the queen’s court, but those present could not intervene because they could not tell which brother was which. In the singers’ account, the twins acknowledged their love for one another before drawing their swords. They inflicted mortal wounds on each other and died in one another’s arms, weeping.

Mushroom gives a markedly different version. In his telling, the duel lasted only moments, and the brothers denounced one another as traitors rather than exchanging declarations of affection. Erryk struck first from the spiral steps; as Arryk fell, he pulled Erryk close and wounded him with a dagger. Arryk was dead by the time the first guards arrived, while Erryk survived for four days before dying of his wound, cursing his brother throughout. The report supplies a different sequence and ending: rather than dying together, the twins die at separate times.

Aftermath and Significance

The accounts agree on the essential outcome: Arryk and Erryk killed each other. Septon Eustace confirms no more than that, leaving the detailed versions unresolved. The singers and storytellers have preferred Munkun’s account, while the chronicler leaves scholars to judge which is more likely. The event therefore survives not as a settled, eyewitness-like scene but as a clash between incompatible histories: one shaped around mutual love and simultaneous death, the other around accusation, a brief struggle, and a painful delay.

The duel also marks the collapse of Cole’s carefully chosen deception. Arryk successfully reached the castle by exploiting his resemblance to Erryk, yet the mission ended when that resemblance brought him face-to-face with his twin. The political purpose of the attempt—to avenge Jaehaerys and harm Rhaenyra’s cause—was overtaken by a conflict between two men bound to opposing loyalties. Their deaths are certain; whether the final encounter was an expression of brotherly love or mutual condemnation remains unknown.