While the slaver cities were arming themselves, the small council of the Kingdom of Myr was taking stock of their own situation. On the one hand, this situation was relatively sound; in addition to the Royal Army and the Royal Navy, the Kingdom could reasonably expect Braavos and the Seven Kingdoms to come to their aid if Lys or Tyrosh attacked first. Braavos' land forces were still stretched covering Braavos and Pentos, supporting Norvos against a newly belligerent Qohor, and protecting Braavosi ships all around the world, but the Braavosian fleet was the strongest in the Narrow Sea, if not the world. And what the Braavosi potentially lacked in soldiers could be more than made up for by the forces of the Seven Kingdoms, for King Stannis had not confined his pioneering improvements solely to Westeros' infrastructure.

On the other hand, the situation that the Kingdom of Myr faced was dire. Although their northern frontier was relatively secure thanks to the Braavosi alliance, they were otherwise surrounded by enemies, who if they managed to coordinate their attacks could submerge them beneath a tide of foes. Fortunately, the Kingdom of Myr only really had to face two enemies at once, instead of three or four; distance and the realities of logistics largely prevented Volantis from quickly intervening in an overland war, while the disunity of the Dothraki and the distance between Myr and the Dothraki Sea meant that the Dothraki would only pose an intermittent threat, if a serious one.

This, however, still left the Kingdom of Myr facing two-to-one odds, for late in 286 Tyrosh and Lys signed a treaty committing themselves to a military alliance against the Kingdom of Myr under any and all circumstances. Faced with this problem, the Kingdom of Myr had two potential solutions; stand on the defensive in the next war, or attack. The defensive option was quickly discarded; the Kingdom of Myr didn't have the resources to win a long war of attrition. It being decided to attack, the target of the attack was quickly chosen as Tyrosh; between that city and Lys, Tyrosh was closer, more immediately threatening, and had incurred more grudges on the part of the Kingdom of Myr thanks to their harboring of the Myrish exiles and their leading role in the First Slave War.

With the target of the offensive chosen, the council turned to discussing ways and means . . .

Eddard frowned at the map that had been hung on the wall of the small council chamber. "The way I read that map," he said slowly, "Tyrosh has five major towns that we have to reduce. Of those, the toughest nuts to crack will be these ones." He traced a finger over Lissus, Aesica, and Brivas. "The fact that they're seaport towns means that the Tyroshi will be able to rush in reinforcements and supplies without too much difficulty." He turned to Victarion. "Unless the Royal Fleet can blockade them?"

Victarion made a face. "Not easily," he admitted. "Once the new ships are built and their crews trained, we should be able to blockade one of those ports, but not two and certainly not all three. We will be able to launch raids which should interdict at least some ships, but we won't be able to close off more than one port completely at any one time."

Eddard nodded. "So we'll have to hold off on attack those three towns for the moment, and focus on the other two." He pointed towards the first one, a sennight's march west of the borderlands. "Of those, Alalia is the one we'll have to take first, if only because it's closer to the border. Sinuessa's on it's far side, and we can't risk leaving a major fortified town in our rear."

Gerion nodded. "And the Tyroshi know it," he said. "The Tyroshi Conclave has voted funds to improve the fortifications and increase the garrison there, and the Archon has ordered that non-essential slaves be sent out of the town, in order to make it easier to police them. Judging from the information I have, we should expect to face at least a thousand soldiers, both Tyroshi regulars and sellswords, and maybe twice as many militia. That, in addition to any forces we drive into the town and the Tyroshi field army."

"Against which," Brynden said, tapping the sheaf of papers before him, "we can muster maybe ten companies of the Legion and four companies of cavalry for an attack into Tyroshi territory, assuming at least eight days' notice."

There were nods around the table. The system on which the Royal Army had been organized was twofold. Firstly, there were the standing forces, one Legion company and one cavalry company stationed in Myr and an equal force in the three major towns; these would be full-time warriors drawing monthly pay from the royal treasury. The rest of the Iron Legion would spend the majority of their time either farming or practicing a trade and assembling to train as a full company for eight days a month and three full sennights a year in order to keep their skills sharp; each man was expected to train with their personal weapons on their own time. The cavalry companies, being composed of the nobility and chivalry of the realm and their principal henchmen, were expected to assemble and train as a full company for at least one full sennight every month in addition to their individual training. Both Legion men and cavalrymen were expected to find their own keep when they weren't training or on Royal service, and in order to draw their monthly training stipend they had to attend and complete their required training to the satisfaction of the royal inspectors. It was a setup designed to maintain a sizable and well-trained reserve while balancing the cost to the treasury against the thousand and one other commitments that absolutely needed to be funded, but the downside was that the number of soldiers that could be immediately put in the field in case of emergency was limited. In order to assemble an army large enough to go a-conquering, advance notice was required in order to allow the reserve companies to assemble and march to the designated muster point.

"How large can we expect the Tyroshi field army to be?" Eddard asked.

Gerion flipped through his notes for a brief moment. "Perhaps two thousand sellsword cavalry and ten thousand infantry, most of which will be men of the Archon's new militia," he answered. "More or less our numbers."

Each company of the Iron Legion was a thousand strong, with three spearmen for every crossbowman. Each cavalry company was set at a hundred lances, with each lance consisting of a knight or man-at-arms, his squire, a valet who could serve as a heavy infantryman, an archer, and a page; the formula had originated in either the Reach or the Vale, depending on who you asked, several hundred years before the Conquest and had continued in use with only minor changes ever since.

"These new militia, will they be able to stand against us?" Victarion asked, clearly skeptical. "These are tradesmen and idle aristos for the most part, I understand, not warriors."

Gerion shrugged. "The Myrish militiamen fought well enough," he pointed out," and quite a few of the Myrish exiles, I am told, have taken service in the Tyroshi militia. As for the Tyroshi themselves," he spread his hands. "Only the worst of men will not fight to the death to protect his home and his family and the temples of his gods. The sellswords may be easy pickings or not, as the case may be, but we should expect the Tyroshi infantry to fight hard, if not well."

"Especially given that a fair proportion of them will be regular soldiers, men who have been in harness for years already," Brynden added. "According to Ser Lyn's reports from the Great Raid and the reports from the coastal fighting they're stubborn enough."

Victarion gestured concession as Eddard sat back down in his chair. "Then we will simply have to be better," the King's Fist said definitively. "Ser Brynden and I have already worked out a training program that should put us comfortably ahead of both Tyrosh and Lys in military proficiency, both in battle and on the march." Wendel winced; training was expensive, both in pay to the men doing the training and in the equipment that they inevitably broke or wore out in the process. Eddard drove on. "Another of the deciding factors will be speed; we will need to defeat the Tyroshi quickly in order to prevent the Lyseni from coming to their aid. Ser Brynden, how fast can we have our attacking force over the border under normal conditions?"

Brynden looked up at the ceiling, the fingers of his left hand twitching as he calculated. "Eight days to complete the call-up of the necessary units," he said finally, "and then seventeen days afterward to march from here to the border at best speed, picking up units along the way. Allowing a margin for unforeseen obstacles," he made a face, "twenty to twenty-five days."

The men around the table grimaced. It was a simple fact that armies were slow, especially when the fastest way to transport the necessary supplies in the amounts required was by horse or ox-drawn wagon; such vehicles did well to make ten miles a day. But in a contest where victory and defeat would be decided in a matter of days, that lack of speed was dangerous.

"Ned, work with Ser Brynden to find ways to reduce that time," Robert said. "Wendel, join in with them to work out which options can be done best at a minimum of cost. Anything else today?" At the round of negatives, Robert nodded. "Very well then, meeting adjourned. Ned, remain a moment." As the other small council members filed out Robert sipped from the mug of smallbeer before him and looked over his foster-brother. "All going well with your wife, Ned?"

"Very much so, Your Grace," Eddard said, smiling in unconscious reminiscence at how he and Amarya had passed the previous evening and part of that morning. "Not just in bed, either," he continued, ignoring Robert's snickers. "She's done well at taking on a lady's duties, even if my household is a small one still." Not that it would stay small for long; Eddard had let the word out two days ago that he was looking for new retainers and already his steward was being flooded with men putting their names forward. It seemed that, far from being warned off by the stories of Narrow Run, the fighting men of the kingdom were considering Eddard's retinue to be a post of high honor to be hotly sought after. And not just among Northmen, but the freedmen as well; Ser Akhollo had already sent his regrets that his post as a Legion captain prevented him from taking service with a lord's household and hinting broadly that if Eddard offered him a place he would resign his commission.

"Good, good," Robert said absently, fiddling with his mug while Eddard cocked an eyebrow; he had known Robert since they were both only ten years of age and in all that time he had only seen him hesitate once or twice. "If I might ask, how did you go about asking her to marry you?" he said finally.

Eddard, taken aback, shrugged. "I just asked her," he replied. "We were in bed, we had just finished, well," he resolutely ignored Robert's chuckle, "and I was looking at her and thinking that of all the women in the world this was the only one I could see myself spending the rest of my days with and the question just slipped out." His mouth quirked in a half-smile. "Fortunately she said yes, or I'd have felt bloody silly." As Robert guffawed he cocked an eyebrow. "Out of curiosity, why do you ask?"

Robert sobered immediately. "Alaesa's pregnant," he said. "I'm considering asking her to marry me."

Eddard sat back, stunned. "I see," he said finally. Then, hesitantly, "Robert, are you looking for my advice as your foster-brother or as your Fist?"

Robert shrugged. "Either," he said. "Both, if you want."

Eddard nodded. "As your foster-brother, then," he said, "I say do so and best of luck to you. I doubt Lyanna would want you to let all your children be bastards." Robert barked a laugh and gestured agreement. "As your Fist, on the other hand," Eddard went on, "I would ask you to consider whether marrying Alaesa is the best thing you can do to strengthen your kingdom. Marrying her would certainly bind the freedmen to us with bands of iron, but we have their loyalty already and until we conquer Tyrosh and Lys, we will not be acquiring more except by natural increase." Left unspoken was the assumption that they would conquer Tyrosh and Lys, but Robert already knew his foster-brother's views on the necessity of the conquest of the slaver cities. "Marrying a lady from the Seven Kingdoms, on the other hand," Eddard plowed on, "or a lady of Braavos, would gain us the strength of her House and any alliances they might have, in addition to allowing for an heir that might find more favor among the Andal nobility."

The two foster-brothers exchanged a look. The loyalty of the nobility, both Andal and Essosi, to Robert, personally, was beyond question. How loyal they would be to his heir was potentially open to debate; the Essosi nobility would almost certainly accept Robert's heir under any circumstances barring the egregious, but the Andal nobility might look askance on an heir whose mother had been born a slave. That potential dissatisfaction might or might not prove the root of disloyalty, but wisdom militated against taking that chance.

Especially since, given that Robert would almost certainly be leading the attack into Tyrosh when the next war came, there was at least some chance that he would die. Robert was one of the mightiest warriors alive, but even the Dragonknight had met his match eventually. And crossbow bolts didn't care how good you were if they managed to get through your armor. Knights tended towards a certain fatalism for that very reason. If Robert were to die and leave behind an underage heir who wasn't entirely accepted by the nobility and wouldn't have the chance to prove himself for some years . . .

"Woe to thee, o land, when thy king is a child," Robert said, to which Eddard nodded; the quote was from the Book of the Crone, but the faith of the old gods had a similar saying. "I will think on this," Robert went on, "and ask Gerion's counsel as well. Thank you, Ned."

XXX

Maester Gordon slapped the imaginary dust of his hands and nodded. "Not bad," he said approvingly. "Not half bad at all."

Beside him Lord Captain of the Port Franlan Shipwright added his own nod. The object of their approval was the towers that sat at the ends of the two moles protecting Myr harbor. The original towers, glorified guardhouses really, had been worn down by the continuous assault of wind and wave, combined with official neglect; during the old wars the Quarrelsome Daughters had almost never attacked each other directly. And even if they had, their fleets would have seen off any such attack handily enough, so there had been no incentive to heavily fortify their harbors.

The Kingdom of Myr, however, couldn't take that risk. Their fleet had maintained its honor in the war, but even protecting Myr city had taken almost all of their ships. Moreover, the Royal Fleet was actually shrinking; almost a sixth of the Ironborn were sailing back to the Isles to either inherit or enjoy their newfound wealth, most notably Harras Harlaw. So, it had been decided by the small council that each port in the Kingdom would be required to be able to defend itself, thereby freeing up the Fleet to contest the seas. In Myr city, that defense had taken the form of two heavy springalds in each of the two towers on the landward ends of the harbor moles and the two new towers. These towers, Tygett's Tower to the west and Leofric's Tower to the east, were horseshoe-shaped constructions of stone some ten feet tall with walls five feet thick, and housed three heavy springalds on their single level of battlements, their handlers, and a score of crossbowmen each. The causeways atop the moles running out to them had been reinforced with an uncrenellated wall as tall as a man facing the sea, and plans were in hand to add a harbor chain to the setup when the funds were available.

Which, with any luck at all, would be soon, given the reason why so much effort had been spent on fortifying the harbor. With the cessation of the war, trade had come flooding into Myr like a tidal wave, so that the harbor was filled with ships. Braavos, King's Landing, Gulltown, Planky Town, White Harbor, Saltpans, Maidenpool, and Oldtown all seemed to have an insatiable appetite for Myrish glassware, carpets, and lace, and the Glassblower's Guild and the Weaver's Guild, now composed entirely of freedmen working for wages, had risen to the challenge magnificently. As the head of the Weaver's Guild had explained, there was a world of difference between being forced to work for the profit of people who didn't deserve your labor, and working for your own profit at a trade that you could take pride in. The Crossbowmaker's Guild had also seen business pick up; Stannis of Westeros had ordered a hundred crossbows as a trial, with the option to expand the order to as many as five thousand. A similar order from Braavos had driven the Crossbowmaker's Guild to expand its workforce by almost half again in order to meet the foreign orders while keeping up with domestic demand. The Ironborn, those that could be spared from training the freedmen who had volunteered for the Royal Fleet and the construction of the new town of Ironhold down the western coast, were making a pretty penny both from carrying cargos in their own holds and by contracting out as escorts; the end of the war hadn't put a stop to piracy

All of this was fueled by the expansion of the Iron Bank into Myr. Vito Nestoris, who had recently been declared the Iron Bank's agent-in-residence for Myr, had recently drawn up an instrument with Ser Wendel Manderly whereby the Iron Bank had been declared the Kingdom of Myr's lender of last resort; that document, which had amounted to the Iron Bank underwriting the exchequer of the Kingdom of Myr, had made previously skeptical traders, moneylenders, and other merchants much more confident that the Myrish guilds would be able to deliver the goods. The fact that the Iron Bank had explicitly guaranteed only the royal government and not the guilds was, it was widely agreed, not strictly relevant. Without the guilds driving the flow of money, the royal government would quickly become insolvent, the surplus of the produce grown in the hinterland would rot in the fields for lack of paying customers in the city and abroad, and the whole economy of the kingdom would grind to a halt. If the guilds failed, then the royal government would be all but forced to prop them up. And their ability to do that had just been guaranteed by the Iron Bank.

"I mislike this dependence on the Braavosi," grumbled Franlan, who had evidently been following Gordon's train of thought. "We saw much of them in Myr before the siege, as traders, and their First Law did not seem to prevent their making a profit off the work of slaves, so long as those slaves were in a foreign land." He glowered at an otherwise inoffensive Braavosi ship in the act of exiting the harbor. "But I suppose that we must work with the tools that come to our hands."

"And the Braavosi have the potential to be a very fine tool indeed," Gordon agreed. "We haven't had to ask them for a loan yet, or so I hear, so that source of income should be ready to hand if we need it." He made a face. "Which we almost certainly will, if we are to complete the fortification program in a timely fashion." Myr city wasn't the only place that required improvements to its defensive capabilities. Every town on the coast was required by the Crown to have a stone wall and at least two towers, one overlooking the main gate and the other protecting the harbor mouth, if they had one. Every village was required to have a wall encircling the main cluster of homes and shops. The three main towns of Ceralia, Sirmium, and Campora were already walled, so the only requirement that had been laid on them was to 'make any repairs or improvements that the King's Fist shall deem necessary and proper.'

All of this had to be paid for with a river of gold. Fortifications were expensive, enough so that the erecting of castles was beyond the reach even of most lords. As a result, when Gordon had been given the task of designing the fortified places of the realm, he had opted for simplicity. A ditch ten feet deep would provide a significant obstacle for a formed body of attackers, especially when the earth that had been excavated to form the ditch was piled up along the inner perimeter of that ditch to form a rampart. Where stone was unavailable or prohibitively expensive, a palisade of stakes would provide the parapet, and the towers would also be made out of rammed earth and wood.

Even with these cost-saving measures, however, the fortification of the realm would take up a significant portion of the Crown's revenue, most of which would come from the various tolls and fees generated by Myr's harbor. Hence the importance placed on protecting that vital district. He had seen his father work on enough large and complicated projects to know that some damned thing always went wrong, or took too long, or cost more than advertised, or broke on first use and needed replacing at the last moment, invariably requiring more money to correct the problem. And for now, the biggest money maker available to the realm was Myr harbor.

"You'll be off down the coast next?" Franlan asked, raising an eyebrow.

Gordon nodded. "First to Ironhold, to help Lord Greyjoy get things in proper order," he replied. "Then down the coast to Celsa, Navio, and Cillium to make sure they're up to regulation. Then back inland, to make a tour of the hinterland with my Pioneers and help the villagers get themselves in shape." He shrugged. "Which could take anywhere from several months to a year or more. Has to be done though."

Franlan nodded. "To borrow from Lord Stark, wars are coming," he rumbled.