Chapter 35: Lord of Dorne
Maron blinked. It was hard for him to stay awake. The hours were long. Trying to figure out how to get Dorne back into some sort of fitting condition for it to compete within the Kingdom was exhausting. His lords and ladies were constantly nagging away at him, trying to achieve this or that or something else. Truth be told he just wanted to sleep. And then he'd look at his sons and remember why he was doing all of this. They needed a future. Something they would never have under Deria.
He rubbed his beard and then said. "Say it to me again."
"My lord, there are numerous complaints coming in from people like Yronwood, Jordayne, Allyrion and Uller all to do with the rebuilding happening near them. They continually complain about the fact that those doing the rebuilding are not from Dorne and that they aren't doing it properly." Maester Elysar said.
"And by properly they mean doing it the way they want it done, not the way the King ordered it done." Maron sighed.
"Yes, Sire." Elysar said.
"Can you really blame them though, brother?" Damon asked. He was the one brother of theirs who'd stayed loyal, the rest had rather gone into exile or sided with Deria. "Aegon Targaryen is a foreigner, and he's dictating to the people of Dorne how they must rebuild their land. I wouldn't accept it. And I'm not quite sure why you are."
Maron sighed he'd had this argument with himself several times over the past year. "Because the King has commanded it and he has the ability to burn down whatever structures we would have built."
"So, you think that by him telling us how to rebuild, he's making it less likely that he'd have to get involved?" Damon asked.
"Yes." Maron said simply. That was what he thought and he didn't want to think what the alternative would be.
"Well I don't know whether to laugh with joy or groan with frustration." Damon replied.
Maron bit back a sigh. He had to operate at high levels completely, he looked at his wife and saw that she was looking at him with something akin to sympathy that only made him more determined not to show how tired he truly was. "The less intervention the King feels he needs to play in our realm the better. We cannot survive as we were. We must improve." Maron said.
"And how exactly are we to do that? Our trade policy is dictated by King's Landing, our revenues are dictated by King's Landing. Everything is dictated by King's Landing. We do not even have an ally in Braavos because that city is burning itself down to the ground." Damon said. "We are walking into the abyss."
Elaena, who came from a different branch to the one his mother had come from spoke then. "I think we are not yet at the abyss. We still have time and patience. The King has not intervened directly in anything that has happened here. That is a good thing. It means we have the space we need to try something brave and perhaps bold."
Maron looked at his wife intrigued. "What did you have in mind?"
"The King has given us a vast amount of money, we must use that money to dig through the desert plains to find the water buried deep down. Once we find the water we shall not be reliant on the border towns for water, and we shall then be able to develop our own trade network. Furthermore, we must establish our main trading sources. The previous sources are gone, destroyed in the war." Elaena said. "Do that and we shall be on the road to true recovery."
Maron thought on it for a moment and then said. "We would spend all of our money if we tried to dig for water. Nobody has been able to find water in the desert for thousands of years. We would be better served trying to find a way to get new resources out there."
Damon spoke then. "And what resources would those be exactly? We don't have coal, we don't have silver or gold. The only thing we have is blood oranges, and that sickly substance that makes everyone who inhales it ill, but which the people of YiTi are obsessed with."
"And we do not have the tools to completely extract it and find out what it is for." Elaena pointed out.
Maron banged a hand on the table. "So, we have nothing." He sighed. "We are going to need something. Anything. Otherwise we are sunk."
Elaena spoke then. "We will find it, Maron, do not worry."
Maron looked at his wife and he wished he could say he agreed with her. He felt like a failure in that moment. Unable to deliver for his people, for his family. All because Deria had wanted a stupid fucking title. He was about to speak then when the doors flew open. Two guards stumbled in. "What is the meaning of this?" He demanded.
One of the guards spoke then. "Apologies my lord, but we had to come immediately. One of the men at the doors just told us something major has happened."
"What?" Maron demanded. "What has happened?"
"There was a break in at Gaston Grey, five men wearing hooded robes broke into the prison and they freed every single prisoner there." The man said.
"Every single prisoner? Were they caught?" Maron demanded. The worst of the worse were kept in Gaston Grey, this was not going to end well.
"No, they disappeared before the guards could get there." The man said.
"And Deria?" Elaena asked. "Where is she?"
Maron looked at the guard. "Gone." The guard said.
It was then that Maron asked. "Why did you not bring the man from Gaston Grey here?"
The man laughed then. "Because the uprising has begun." With that the man slit his own throat as did his companion.
Maron turned to his advisors and said. "Looks like we're at war once more."