Caltrops

Caltrops was the name given to a secret council of thirteen conspirators in Tumbleton during the Dance of the Dragons. Led by Unwin Peake and including Hobert Hightower, the group sought to remove Hugh Hammer and Ulf White, the two dragonriders whose ambitions and armed followings had become intolerable to Prince Daeron Targaryen’s loyalists. Their proposed answer was as dangerous as the problem: kill the dragonriders, then have the bravest conspirators claim their dragons and carry them into battle.

Formation and Political Setting

The conspiracy arose amid the unsettled struggle for power at Tumbleton. Hugh Hammer’s claim to a crown had sharpened the antagonism between the dragonriders and the lords and knights of Oldtown and the Reach. After Ser Roger Corne publicly challenged Hugh’s authority, violence spread through the town, leaving several people dead and others wounded. The incident intensified the loyalists’ determination to curb the dragonriders’ influence.

Unwin Peake and a reluctant Hobert Hightower then summoned eleven other lords and landed knights to a secret meeting in the cellar of a Tumbleton inn. The sign above it read “the Bloody Caltrops,” giving the conspirators their name. Their council met in secrecy, but their deliberations concerned the most visible instruments of power in the war: Hugh and Ulf, their armed supporters, and the dragons they rode.

The Plan and Its Stakes

The conspirators initially considered whether they could dispose of Ulf White, whose drunkenness and lack of demonstrated skill at arms made him seem vulnerable. Peake argued that killing Ulf alone would not solve the problem while Hugh remained alive. Hugh was the greater danger because he was surrounded by flatterers, camp followers, and sellswords eager to benefit from his favor. In the plotters’ assessment, removing one rider while leaving the other in command would leave the danger intact.

The council therefore considered the dragons as well as their riders. Ser Hobert Hightower raised the question of how the plotters could deal with the dragons themselves. Ser Tyler Norcross argued that Tessarion might be sufficient to retake the Iron Throne amid the upheaval in King’s Landing; Peake believed victory would be surer if the conspirators could obtain Vermithor and Silverwing as well. Marq Ambrose proposed taking the city before killing Hugh and Ulf, but Richard Rodden objected that it would be dishonorable to fight alongside the dragonriders and then murder them. Bold Jon Roxton settled the dispute by urging that the two men be killed first and their dragons claimed afterward. The plan rested on the expectation that its boldest advocates might themselves become dragonriders.

Daeron’s Approval and the Interrupted Conspiracy

Although Prince Daeron had not attended the cellar meeting, the conspirators would not proceed without his approval. Owen Fossoway, Lord of Cider Hall, was sent under cover of darkness to wake him and bring him to the council. When Peake presented warrants for Hugh Hammer’s and Ulf White’s executions, Daeron readily sealed them. His assent made the proposed killings an authorized action within the loyalist cause, rather than simply a private scheme by the lords.

The conspirators intended to strike two days later. Instead, on the night they planned to act, Tumbleton was surprised by an attack from north and west. The camps outside the town were set ablaze, and the assault developed into the Second Battle of Tumbleton before Caltrops could carry out its own plan. Their scheme was overtaken by the battle it was meant to influence: the dragonriders’ position and the fate of the loyalist army were decided amid a larger attack, not by the conspirators’ carefully debated operation.

Collapse and Aftermath

The battle left eight of the thirteen conspirators dead, including Owen Fossoway, Marq Ambrose, and Bold Jon Roxton. Richard Rodden had been struck by an arrow and died the following day. Four plotters remained, among them Hobert Hightower and Unwin Peake. Hugh Hammer was also dead, but Ulf White survived and was left as the last dragonrider and the rider of the last dragon. He told Peake that the remaining plan was to march on the capital while White claimed the throne; his survival abruptly transformed the conspirators’ intended balance of power into a new dependence on the very rider they had meant to eliminate.

Hobert then approached Ulf to discuss an assault on King’s Landing, bringing two casks of wine, Dornish red and Arbor gold. Ulf, wary of Hobert’s strained manner, required him to share the sweeter Arbor gold. Hobert drank, knowing the wine was poisoned; Ulf drank three cups before falling asleep and never waking. Hobert also died from the poison. The episode ended Ulf’s claim and removed one of Caltrops’ surviving members, while revealing the lethal role Hobert was willing to play rather than betray his fellow conspirators.

Peake subsequently offered a thousand golden dragons to any knight of noble birth who could claim Silverwing. After the first two attempts ended in failure, the third claimant withdrew. Peake’s army was already coming apart as men deserted Tumbleton with plunder, and he ordered a retreat. Caltrops thus achieved neither its planned seizure of the dragons nor a victory for the campaign: its members were killed, scattered, or caught in the ruin that followed, while the surviving army lost the strength to continue toward the capital.

Significance

Caltrops shows how the dragonriders’ military power destabilized the loyalties of the very noblemen fighting on the same side. The conspirators’ debate was not simply about whether Hugh and Ulf were dangerous; it turned on when to kill them, how to justify doing so, and who would take possession of their dragons. Their proposed solution reproduced the struggle for power that had provoked the plot, assigning its greatest prize to whichever conspirator proved boldest.

The group’s fate exposes the limits of planning in a war shaped by dragons and sudden reversals. Caltrops had secured Daeron’s consent and settled on a course of action, yet the attack that opened the Second Battle of Tumbleton arrived before the conspirators could strike. The surviving plotters then confronted the consequences in sequence: Hugh’s death left Ulf dominant, Hobert’s poisoned wine removed Ulf, and Peake’s army finally disintegrated. Their secret council could plan who would command power, but could not control the violence that reordered it.