"Overall, the raid went very well indeed, Your Grace," Ser Lyn Corbray said. "I have my report and the reports of the other column commanders for your perusal," he touched the stack of parchment he had placed on the table between them, "but the gist of it is that we sacked and burned at least five large plantations and six smaller estates, inflicted heavy loss on the Lyseni, and handily defeated them when they attempted to fight us off."
Robert nodded. "How would you rate the effectiveness of the Lyseni, my lord?" he asked.
Lyn grimaced; that was the one piece of less-than-good news. "Good, Your Grace," he allowed. "They were disciplined, marched and fought and withdrew as companies, and did their level best to give as good as they got. When Ser Lyle caught them with their pants around their ankles at the Barrows, they reacted quite correctly by fleeing as fast as they could; judging by his report a significant fraction of them escaped. As for the ones my column and that of Ser Desmond Marsh faced . . ." he shrugged. "They were not strong enough to bring us to battle or to do more than harass our outriders, but they did that with commendable vigor. Were it not for the activities of Special Branch, we may have had even more trouble than we did."
"I heard from Ser Lyle," Robert said, "that there were relatively few slaves on the plantations that were attacked; was this true with your column as well?"
Lyn nodded. "Interrogation of prisoners revealed that the plantations had received warning of our incursion by beacon fire and dispatch rider," he explained, "and that many of the plantation owners decided to evacuate their workers south. And these, we found, were mostly slaves who had been emancipated and were being paid a wage; Naharis' doing, under his authority as Captain-General. Consequently, we did not liberate as many as we had hoped, although some slaves were able to break away from their columns and hide until we arrived, or seek us out. Others attempted to do as much but were discovered. I will leave to Your Grace's imagination what punishment the Lyseni inflicted upon them."
Robert frowned thunderously; he had seen how the Myrish, and later the Tyroshi, had treated slaves taken in the act of defecting. The Lyseni's reputation for cruelty was not as prominent as that of the Tyroshi, but it was a close contender. "I assume that details of all this will be in the reports?" he asked.
"As accurately as we can discern, Your Grace," Lyn replied. "I believe that Ser Lyle's captain of light horse had his men collect the right ears of their slain enemies in sacks, to ensure that the count of them was accurate."
"Ser Ivynn Stabler is the man's name, yes?" Robert inquired. At Lyn's nod he stroked his beard. "He sounds quite the fellow," he mused. "A trifle harsh, perhaps, but thorough. Understandably so, if he is a freedman as I have heard. Forbye, what make you of Ser Lyle's performance?"
"Quite competent, Your Grace," Lyn said. "He can be criticized for joining the charge at the Barrows, but the battle was essentially won by then so he can be forgiven. Better to have to restrain the stallion than to prod the mule, as the saying is."
"So long as the stallion pays proper heed to bridle and spur," Robert observed. "Which Ser Lyle does, from what I've heard." He nodded decisively. "We'll make the announcement sometime within the next month. Anything else, my lord?"
"Just one question, Your Grace," Lyn said. "What exactly was Special Branch up to in front of Marsh's column?"
XXX
"We crossed the border as planned, without much difficulty," Adaran said as he stood at parade rest before Petyr's desk. "I would recommend, however, that future incursions of the type we undertook consist of no more men than were in our squad. If there were more of us, then the likelihood that we would have been discovered would have risen exponentially. As it was, we had two close brushes with Lyseni light horse patrols and a third encounter where we had to kill the two men who stumbled across us."
Petyr nodded. "And what happened then?" he asked.
"We scouted the plantations nearest the line of march that Captain Marsh's column planned to follow," Adaran continued, "and planted the spies who would infiltrate any refugee columns from those plantations nearby where they would be in the likely path of those columns. We have heard back from three spies who missed their chance to infiltrate and returned over the border, but the other five we have yet to hear from. It may be some time before we can determine their fate, but I think it likely that they were successful."
Petyr nodded again; he was not so sanguine, but it wouldn't do to show doubts in front of a subordinate. Even one such as Adaran. "And your other missions?" he asked.
"We managed to ambush three Lyseni scouting parties without loss, while inflicting eighteen counted deaths and between fifteen and twenty wounds," Adaran replied. "We also sowed caltrops in one ford and burned two bridges along the flank of Captain Marsh's line of march and set a grass fire that we believe blocked the advance of at least one company of Lyseni infantry. What damage or casualties that fire inflicted are unknown at this time."
"If they are known, they are not known to us," Petyr observed. "Doubtless the Lyseni know what hurt it did them. Captain Marsh had hard words to write to me about your recklessness, by the way; he claims that if you had misjudged the prevailing winds then the fire would have turned upon his column rather than the Lyseni."
"Captain Marsh can consider whether it best served the Kingdom's interest for that fire to have blocked the advance of the Lyseni on his flank, or for the Lyseni to have approached to the point where he would have had to turn and fight in order to win time and space to retreat on Lord Corbray's column," Adaran observed coolly. "He may also consider by what means a Lyseni infantry company could have gotten so close to his column unobserved except by us."
Petyr smiled slightly; he had already told Marsh as much, but it was good that Adaran had had a defense ready against such an accusation. Armies had politics all of their own, just as deadly as those at a court could be. Even an army as ostensibly unified as that of Myr. "In that case, nothing more remains to be done on this matter than to submit your report to Ser Brynden," he said. "Which I shall do posthaste, with my endorsement of your actions in the field. I trust the other members of Special Branch are in a mood to celebrate?"
Adaran smiled. "Willet and Sarra's Will went on a reconnaissance of Oakenshield's taverns last night, to choose which one would be most suitable for the revel we have planned," he admitted. "They recommended the Spear and Star, on account of the quality of both its wine and its serving women."
"And doubtless also for the fact that it does not cater to officers," Petyr observed dryly as he reached into a drawer of the desk he was sitting at. "This should be enough for a few rounds," he said, drawing out a small bag of silver and placing it on the desk, "but I trust you will understand if I do not partake. It is not my victory to celebrate, after all."
"We'll raise a toast to you, at least," Adaran said as he plucked up the bag. "It was your mind that conceived of the raid and your words that persuaded the King to authorize it. Permission to carry on?"
"So granted, and convey my satisfaction to your men, Captain," Petyr said easily as he acknowledged Adaran's salute and watched him march out the door.
XXX
. . . This concluded the incursion of the Myrish forces into the City's territory, Daario Naharis wrote carefully. He could write, but not easily. Writing was what scribes were for. That said, there were things that you simply had to write yourself. Like this report. In the course of this incursion, twelve large and eight smaller estates were overrun and destroyed almost in their entirety, save for their defensive works; these being made of rammed earth, they could not be destroyed quickly. Those elements of the defensive works that were made of wood, however, were burned. I regret to report that despite the efforts made at evacuation, at least one hundred freeborn citizens are known to have been killed, while at least two hundred more remain unaccounted for and are presumed dead.
Daario put the quill back in its inkpot to let it collect a new load while he stretched the beginnings of a cramp out of his hand, grimacing as he did so. Before the Sunset Company came, that last sentence would have stated that the freeborn citizens in question had been captured and were being held for ransom, or presumed as much in the absence of evidence to the contrary. One more rule of the wars, thrown out the window by the arrival of Baratheon and his madmen.
He picked up the quill again. As regards the losses sustained by the City's armies, these are substantial. The companies that attacked the easternmost column of the enemy force and were entrapped at the Barrows have been so reduced that their survivors have been consolidated into a single overstrength company. The companies facing the other columns suffered lighter casualties on account of their inability to bring the enemy to battle on favorable terms, although the skirmishing between the enemy's columns and the City's companies was fiercely fought. A full report of the loss of killed, wounded, and missing by companies is still being tabulated, but the current estimate stands at around three thousand five hundred men killed and perhaps twice as many wounded, of which at least one quarter will be rendered permanently unfit for further duty even with the best of care. Another quarter, perhaps, will be unfit for duty for the next month or more. In addition,
Not that he had much hope in that regard. Even the most skilled torturer could not make someone reveal what they did not know. And while Lys had gained the services of certain Tyroshi who had specialized in such methods of interrogation, it had been discovered that they could not be used on agents of the Kingdom of Myr. The Rape of Tyrosh meant that, as far as the Myrish were concerned, the Tyroshi exiles could not be trusted to maintain the necessary degree of professionalism.
He reloaded his quill and began to write the section of the report that he had to write on his own. Saying it out loud would be too baneful to his pride. I regret to report, Your Excellencies, that I cannot guarantee the integrity of the border against such raids as this. Smaller raids can be warded off with companies of light horse alone, but incursions of this nature require the use of heavy infantry and cavalry to defeat. Such companies, however, are not mobile enough to march forward from garrisons in the interior to respond to a sudden incursion fast enough to entrap the encroaching force and bring it to battle before it has the opportunity to retreat across the border. And if they are positioned along the border, where they can react and respond in time, they will necessarily be spaced far enough apart that the enemy will have the opportunity to engage and destroy them individually, before they can march to each other's support. I am willing to admit that this presumes the enemy to be capable of extraordinarily bold and decisive action in the face of uncertain information. Recent history, however, would appear to encourage that the enemy's capabilities be overestimated, especially as regards their willingness to take risks in pursuit of a telling victory and make such a gamble pay off. Which was an unsubtle way of telling the Gonfalonier, and the Conclave, that if they didn't think that Robert the Bloody or his captains would take the opportunity to bite off an isolated company and eat it alive, then they were fools. The men who had conquered Myr and stormed Tyrosh would not balk at such a tempting morsel as a relatively isolated company, even one garrisoning a fortified estate. Especially not when they had the Iron Legion to storm the walls with.
And while he was still wiling to guarantee at least a stalemate against either a full-scale invasion or smaller raids than this one, this type of large raid combined the difficulties of facing both. A wholesale invasion might be too large to fight easily, but its size made it slow to react and difficult to control, and hence made it possible to lure it into giving battle on chosen ground at favorable terms. A smaller raid, on the other hand, was far more mobile and reactive, but it could be countered by a force of similar composition, mobility, and size, assuming relative parity of skill on the part of commanders and soldiers. A large-scale raid like this latest one, however, that was large enough to brush aside or crush the light forces that Daario had stationed to guard the border but remained nimble enough to avoid a general engagement that did not favor it, could not be countered so easily. Especially if the Myrish remained disciplined enough to keep their penetrations short and shallow, in order to be on their way back to the border by the time his reserves were arriving.
Consequently, he wrote on, one of three steps must be taken. Firstly, we must increase the proportion of cavalry to infantry in the army, with the attendant costs and risks that such a transformation would entail. Horses were expensive, military horses even more so, but worse than the cost in money was the cost in time. It took years to take a raw recruit and make him a competent cavalryman unless he already had some skill with horses, in which case it took only months, and it took years more to make a competent cavalry officer; during those years a newly-raised cavalry company was at best useless in the field and at worst an active menace. Robert the Bloody, damn him, could draw on a continent's worth of men who were all but bred to be cavalrymen and cavalry officers, in the form of the knights and nobility of the Seven Kingdoms that had either already sailed East or were willing to do so in defiance of King Stannis and the Great Sept. Lys had no such resource.
Secondly, the Conclave must authorize preemptive raids across the border, in order to regain the initiative. Which was unlikely; the Gonfalonier had told Daario in as many words that whatever he did, he was not to cross the border except in hot pursuit, and that as little as possible. Any preemptive incursion, even a reconnaissance, could be taken as an excuse for open war. And while Braavos might have lost its stomach for war for the time being, the Myrish might not need the Braavosi in order to take the mainland, or at least ravage it. Either outcome would produce the same result in rendering the mainland incapable of supporting the Isles, in which case Lys would be forced either to rely on convoys from Volantis to provide food, or to weigh the relative merits of surrender and starvation. The isles of Lys were not as overpopulated as Tyrosh isle had been, and the agriculture that remained on the islands could be supplemented by fishing, of course, but even the best efforts would be unlikely to be able to feed the population of the isles, the army and fleet, and the refugees that would flee to the isles all together. And under such conditions, even the idea that scarcity was possible might be fatal, if it led to riots. Frightened people were rarely rational people.
Thirdly, additional light forces must be brought to bear on the frontier, in order to allow weight of numbers to compensate for weight of metal. Which would mean bringing in the Volantenes, which would be a different kettle of fish entirely. But the thing about such kettles of fish, Daario had learned in his years as a sellsword, was that having them was generally better than not having them, so long as you could think on your feet fast enough.
Whichever option is chosen, he concluded fully conscious that he was probably writing his death warrant but no longer caring,the choice must be made swiftly. I hope I need not remind Your Excellencies that victory and defeat both build upon themselves; a force that is victorious once is more likely to be victorious again, and vice versa. If the City's armies suffer many more defeats such as this one, then it will be only a matter of time before I cannot guarantee the security of the mainland, even with the extraordinary powers you have seen fit to give me. I remain, in the meantime, your obedient servant, Daario Naharis, Captain-General.
The Conclave might execute him for what he had just written, but Daario doubted it. Not only was he still the best captain that Lys had, but there were other factors as well. As one of his first sergeants had taught him, back when he had first become a sellsword, When in doubt, consider the politics.
XXX
The Conclave of Lys, like most bodies of governance, prided themselves on the dignity of their offices and the comportment of the men who held them. They were not Braavos the rich, or mighty Volantis, but they were Lys the Lovely, the fairest land under the heavens, and the men charged with leading and protecting that land were expected to behave accordingly. In public, at least; what a man did in his own home among his own family and slaves was his affair.
The years since the landing of the Sunset Company, however, had eroded those standards. Enough so that when Vyrenno Phasselion called the Conclave to order, he almost dreaded what his Councilors would have to say about the current situation. Fortunately, there had been no need for the borders on the table-map to be repainted, but the faint cross-hatching the Cartographer's slaves had made along the border with wax pencils remained unchanged, as did the position of the carved figurines denoting the known positions of both friendly and enemy forces. To judge by the look of his Councilors, however, one would think they had suffered an Iluro or a Solva.
"It must be admitted that we have suffered a defeat," Salleqor Irniris said finally, "but I would like to begin by observing that the scale of the defeat was not severe. The borders have fallen, as we knew they would, but the loss is not permanent. Our territory has been restored, and thanks to the efforts of the army the majority of our citizens' lives and property were preserved. Indeed, I would be willing to hazard that this raid cost Baratheon at least as much as it has cost us."
Lazero Dynoris scowled. "I hope you are not seeking to trivialize the deaths of so many of our citizens," he snapped. "Or must I remind you that one of them was my cousin?"
"You need not, and I mourn for him along with you, Salleqor replied smoothly. "But I would temper grief with reason."
"Reason?" Tregesso Naeroris said incredulously. "We have bent policy, custom, and law all to breaking point at the behest of a foreign sellsword in the name of security. And now, when faced with his first serious test, he admits that he has failed and warns us that he will fail again. How are we supposed to reason in the face of such an obvious failure of investment?"
"'Man cannot tell, but the gods know, how much the other side was hurt'," Syrys Eranen quoted from a popular philosopher of the old Valyrians. "Baratheon must pay his soldiers, and handsomely, to put them in the field and keep them there, on top of the expense of keeping them fed and housed even when they do not fight. In the past he could make war pay for war by means of loot, either of wealth or of land and people. But in this instance, he was forced to abandon the land, the estates he plundered held little in the way of portable wealth, and the evacuations prevented many slaves from defecting to his banner. I have calculated the numbers as well as any man here can, and I will wager that Baratheon cannot mount another such raid this year, and most likely not next year, without risking bankruptcy. My sources in Braavos tell me that he cannot expect another loan from the Iron Bank, Braavosi queen or no, and that he is coming to the end of his cheap credit."
"So," Tregesso replied sullenly. "We have a year's grace, maybe two. Shall we simply buckle ourselves down to rebuilding the borders for the, what is it, fifth time now? What will change in a year or two that will tip the scales in our favor the next time the Andals come over the border?"
"In a year we will have the Volantenes . . ." Syrys started, to be cut off by Lazero's snort.
"And how long," Lazero demanded, "do you think it will take for the Volantenes to turn our alliance into our annexation, when they realize we cannot defend ourselves?"
"Better the Volantenes than the Myrish," Salleqor said waspishly. "We cannot allow pride to blind us to our duty to protect the city from barbarians."
"A barbarian is a barbarian, whether he wears a stag or a dragon on his chest," Tregesso grumbled. "And why should we worry about barbarians when our own Captain-General plots against us? Or do you really think he has not been behind the riots?"
"You think that Naharis can inspire a riot from more than two hundred miles away?" Syrys asked wryly. "When there is hardly a single soldier of his army on the isle and the fleet and marines remain unquestionably loyal to us? He's a sellsword, not a wizard."
"Enough!" Vyrenno snapped, making the Councillors sit up; none of them could recall hearing him raise his voice in public. "This bickering is pointless," he said flatly. "Whatever role Captain-General Naharis may or may not have in the unrest surrounding the trial is irrelevant to the matter at hand; to wit, that he cannot guarantee the security of the border without reinforcements. We have the means to acquire those reinforcements by invoking our treaty with the Volantenes. I move that we do so, in order to uphold our oaths to protect the City and its citizens, prevent the spread of abolitionism into our lands, and begin to lay the groundwork for the defeat of Baratheon and his bandits. All in favor, make it known."
The Councilors glanced at each other; this was not how such matters were supposed to be undertaken. There was a form, and a method, but apparently the Gonfalonier had decided to jettison both in favor of swift action. Eventually, enough of them shrugged and voted in favor to pass the proposal. Times were different, after all, and sufficiently so to border on being desperate. And near-desperate times, they all knew, called for desperate measures, if only to prevent them from getting worse.