"Your Grace, our findings all support three salient points," Ser Myles Toyne said, bracing himself for what he knew would be the hard part of his report on his expedition to Lys. "The first of those findings is that we cannot support Lys directly with anywhere near the full strength of the Grand Army."
Viserys frowned. "Captain-General, that is unacceptable," he said flatly. "We have given our word and pledged our honor to support Lys with all our strength."
"Honor, Your Grace, fills no bellies," Myles replied. "An army, as we all know, fights rarely but eats daily. As it stands, between its own produce and imports from foreign lands, Lys can feed its people and its army while maintaining a reserve against famine. It cannot, however, do so while hosting a second army, much less one as large as the Grand Army, meaning that we would have to make up the shortfall ourselves. In order to feed even twenty thousand men, perhaps a quarter of our full strength, we should have to transport a minimum of twenty tons of food every day. That, before we consider arms, armor, and other equipment, much less the feeding and maintenance of horses, mules, oxen, and elephants. Even if there was a road between Volantis and Lys capable of supporting such traffic, which there is not, Lys is simply too far away for so much materiel to be transported overland. The draft animals and drovers would eat all that they hauled before they got halfway. And to resort to transport by sea would be to risk that necessary supplies would be intercepted by the Myrish fleet, or by the Braavosi, or by sellsails from the Summer Islands, leaving aside the danger of storms." Myles shook his head. "Your Grace, it will not do. And all of this leaves aside the second salient point, which is that Lys cannot be relied upon to sustain a serious defeat."
"My sources in Lys say otherwise," Magister Rahtheon interjected. "Your Grace, the Conclave of Lys has done everything short of declare a war of faith against the Kingdom of Myr, and by all reports there is no desire for a rapprochement with the Baratheon either in the Conclave or even among the people."
"And do those sources draw their information from the isles, my lord, or from the mainland?" Myles answered. "Your Grace, Lys is a nation on the brink of division. The mainland resents the isles for failing to do their part to defend against the Legion's raids, while the isles disdain the mainland for squabbling over politics in the face of such a threat. If the Myrish inflict a defeat upon the Lyseni that puts the mainland at serious risk of being overrun, then it is entirely possible that the mainland will seek to conclude a separate peace with the Myrish, even if they must secede from the overlordship of the isles to do so."
"And we cannot do our part to prevent such a defeat from ever occurring, because of the difficulties in supplying the necessary force," Viserys said, nodding. "A very pretty dilemma we find ourselves in."
"Which brings us to the third salient point, Your Grace," Myles said, overrunning Rahtheon's attempt to reenter the fray. "The abolitionists cannot be defeated in Lys, but they can be defeated elsewhere." He took a map from one of the slaves that was waiting upon them and unrolled it over the table to show the central part of western Essos between the Rhoyne and the Narrow Sea, from Andalos and the Hills of Norvos in the north to the Flatlands and the headwaters of the Lhorulu in the south.
Rahtheon opened his mouth to object, then closed it, frowning, before he finally nodded. "Yes," he said slowly, "I believe I begin to see."
"I do not," Arthur Dayne said sharply. "How does it profit us to avoid confronting our enemy face to face?"
"Because, Ser Arthur, the Myrish are not as great a threat as they are merely by their own endeavors," Rahtheon replied, preempting Myles. "Their exchequer is underwritten by the Iron Bank, and the greater part of their strength at sea is contingent upon their alliance with Braavos."
"Which can only afford to pay for its adventurism through its possession of Pentos and its hinterland," Myles added. "Remove that, and we knock the pillars out from under Braavos' treasury. Do that, and we shackle the Kingdom of Myr to its own borders; they cannot maintain their army at its current size and mount campaigns of conquest out of their own coffers, not without beggaring themselves. And if they raise taxes to make up the shortfall, then Baratheon must produce victories to justify them, or he will begin to lose the support of his people. And even the Lyseni can deny him victory, while we undertake this plan." Myles took a pointer and ran it up the Rhoyne. "In the river we have a conduit for supplies better even than a dragonroad. In Ny Sar we have a location that can be made a stronghold and a base of supply; our new colonists in the Golden Fields and our vassal towns can be instructed to send a portion of their harvests thither, and Norvos can be induced to send supplies and begin to prepare the ruins for occupation by an army. When all is ready, we march up the Rhoyne," his pointer followed the course of the river northwestwards, "to Ghoyan Drohe, and either take it by assault or invest it with a portion of our strength. From thence we follow the dragonroad to Pentos city and take it."
Arthur laughed. "Of all the plans, I've ever heard, this must be the boldest," he said. "How are we to take a city as great as Pentos in the face of a Braavosi army backed by an enthusiastic militia, when we have no fleet to blockade the city with and little time to prosecute a siege?"
"Speed and shock action," Myles replied, "backed up by as heavy a siege train as we can muster. The Sunset Company took Myr with a pair of siege towers and no artillery. By the time we march on Pentos, I mean to have no less than fifty pieces of artillery, and sufficient ladders and siege towers to allow our numbers to be used to proper effect."
"And while Myr city may be a most difficult city in which to foment treachery," Rahtheon added, "Pentos is less hardened. The Braavosi are diligent overlords, but not ones that are easy to love if even the slightest disagreement arises. And every side has it's traitor."
Viserys ran his eyes over the map, then turned to Arthur. "Ser Arthur, what say you? Can it be done?"
Arthur stood to lean over the map, planting his fists on the table as he studied it. "With the help of the gods, yes, Your Grace," he said finally. "It will need to be done swiftly, to prevent the Braavosi from reinforcing the city with sufficient power to resist us, but we have the men and the means to afford to be bold. The refinement I would suggest would be to induce the Lyseni to press the southern marches of the Kingdom of Myr at the same time that we launch our attack, in order to prevent them from reinforcing the Braavosi."
"And when it is done," Viserys said, a smile spreading across his features, "we shall have Baratheon in a vise between Pentos and our army in the north and the Lyseni to the south." He nodded. "We approve of this strategy my lords. See that it is taken in hand presently."
"I must add, Your Grace, that this strategy will take at least a year, and more likely two or three, to implement," Myles said warningly. "Norvos has joined the League, to be sure, but it will take time to rebuild the ruins of Ny Sar sufficiently to make them useful to our armies. In the meantime, we should take steps to ensure that Myr's attentions are focused upon Lys."
"Then we had better begin at once," Viserys said rising from his chair. "As for focusing Baratheon's attentions on Lys, you need not fret, Ser Myles. I have an idea or two that I have been developing with Lord Rahtheon."
XXX
As the doors of the Small Council Chamber closed behind Mycan Banderis, Robert sat back in his chair and folded his hands over his stomach as he surveyed his councilors. "Well, my lords, what think you?"
Franlan Shipwright was the first to speak up. "Either he is a mummer among mummers," the Lord Captain of the Port said, "or he is telling the truth. Or what he sincerely believes to be the truth anyway."
"I am not convinced," Eddard Stark replied flatly. "Even if Ny Sar is unfortified and the way thence open, forgoing the use of the dragonroad would halve the weight of supplies that we can hope to carry overland, if not cut it even further, and reduce the force we can bring to bear in proportion. Even if the valley of the Noyne proves to be the soft underbelly that he claims, exploiting it will be difficult with such a reduced force, if not impossible. If it were possible, then Banderis would have convinced the Braavosi to undertake it, and not come crawling to us."
Ser Brynden Tully nodded. "I do not doubt that the Archivist is a worthy man, and committed to the cause of Holy Freedom," he added, "but I doubt he has much knowledge of war. Seizing Ny Sar would be a bold stroke indeed, and one that would allow us to outflank the forts the Norvoshi placed on their western frontier, but it would also place the border forts on our flank, and place our supply lines at the mercy of an enterprising commander willing to take the risk of descending on the Rhoyne." Ser Brynden shook his head. "Even if the garrisons of the border forts fight as fiercely as Banderis says they will, taking the dragonroad straight to Norvos is the better way. It will be slower, and bloodier, but far less risky."
"It will also be more expensive," Ser Jaymes Whitefield interjected; he had been named Master of Coin after Ser Wendel's death, but he was largely a figurehead in that position. Most of the real work was in the hands of freedmen and Braavosi immigrants. Ser Jaymes held the Mastership largely because he had learned at least a few things from Ser Wendel, and because Robert had not been blind to the fact that naming an outright commoner, as most of the treasury's more skilled officers were, to the Small Council would invite unnecessary controversy. Lord Shipwright might have been a slave, but he was a certified hero of the Conquest, which could not be said for the other likely candidates for the Mastership of Coin. "And a longer war will bring more devastation on Norvos, which would leave them ill-suited to repay the costs of their liberation. Your Grace, my lords, if we wish to maintain a war footing for more than a year or two at a time, then we need Norvos, and we need them as intact as we can get them, both to levy contributions and establish trade."
Ser Gerion Lannister steepled his hands. "The Office of Foreign Inquiry tells me that the cabal that seized Norvos has largely put their differences aside," he said. "Indeed, they mustered enough unity of purpose to accept an alliance with Volantis and entry into the Valyrian League. That said, they still have yet to muster more than a plurality of the populace to their side; the divisions there remain sharp. The Darkwash is an independent realm in every way that matters, now. The settlements along the Noyne are more firmly behind them, given the multitude of plantations along its banks, but even there men have taken to the wild and raised the banner of Free Norvos. Perhaps we could sway the men of the western hills to our side? If bribes do not avail, then we might offer them a revision of the laws under which Norvos governed them, to increase their status and their wealth."
Ser Brynden shook his head. "From what I have heard, the men of those hills remind me of the Riverlanders," he said. "Proud, stubborn men, the sort that cherish a feud the way merchants cherish profits. Try and sway them from their allegiance with bribes, and they'll likely put a glove across your face. No, we should count on having to cut and burn our way through the hills, and paying in blood to do so. The river, on the other hand," Ser Brynden leaned forward in his chair, hands folded on the head of his cane, "interests me on reflection. The Braavosi have little influence over the Rhoyne below their fortress at Ghoyan Drohe, but you can load much more in the way of logistika on a boat than you can on an oxcart, and move it much more efficiently. The power of the Volantenes lies not only in the numbers of their armies, but also in their ability to use the great river to carry the supplies for those armies, even against the current. Well, rivers carry logistics both ways. If we were to establish a lodgment in the hills, one that could provide a shield between the border forts and the river, then we could move a force down the Rhoyne to Ny Sar, take and fortify it, and then march up the Noyne as Banderis suggests."
Robert nodded. "In other words, the work of several campaigning seasons, and requiring substantial coordination with the Braavosi," he said. "And which will likely have to await the day when we settle accounts with the Lyseni for good and all. Even so, Ser Brynden, have your clerks study what such an undertaking would entail, and have them assume that we would make an incursion into the hills before marching down the Rhoyne. Better to make plans in advance of actually needing them. What's next?"
XXX
The tales surrounding Ironborn weddings, Davos Blacksail decided, were greatly exaggerated.
Take the one about how the groom was expected to physically carry the bride away from the ceremony while fighting off her family, for instance. The carrying part was true, or expected to be, but the fighting turned out to be nothing of the sort. Instead, it seemed that the custom was for the bride's family to follow the groom, loudly demanding that he give them their woman back, while the groom's party got in their way, with the inevitable result that both sides ended up trying to outdo each other with the color and inventiveness of their insults. Nor were there any ghoulish sacrifices to the Drowned God, simply a skin of fresh-drawn seawater poured over the bride and groom where they stood ankle-deep in the surf as the priest chanted in the Irontongue. The part where the bedding happened on the same beach where the ceremony took place where everyone and their dog could bear witness also turned out to be an embellishment, as a small tent had been erected for the purpose. The story about the witnesses shouting advice and encouragement during the bedding, on the other hand, had actually turned out to be true. Davos was not what he would consider a modest man, a life at sea had seen to that, but he had still found himself blushing at some of the suggestions. Especially the ones the bride's sisters and two of Lord Victarion's housekarls had supplied.
And far from the debauched revel that popular rumor portrayed, the wedding feast that followed had been remarkably civilized. To be sure, wine and ale and mead were flowing freely, and there had been two punch-ups that Davos had seen, but there had been little that would have been out of place at an Andal or First Man wedding, if different in style. The food had been more rustic than a mainlander lord would have considered fitting, even at the high table where Victarion and his new bride presided, and instead of bards singing to lute and harp the music was provided by skalds chanting to the accompaniment of small harps played with a bow or hand drums. The guest list, though, was one that any mainland lord would have committed murder to ensure for his own wedding. King Robert himself had attended, booming laughter as he traded reminiscences with Victarion while Queen Serina gossiped with Lady Rarena. Ned Stark and Gerion Lannister also made appearances to pay their respects, though Davos was glad that they did not stay overlong or mingle with the other guests much; Lannister was too smoothly genial for Davos to trust him easily and even at his most relaxed Stark was an intense, nay intimidating, figure. Jaime Lannister, on the other hand, had been a part of the wedding from the beginning, having stood by Victarion's side as he said his vows and led his guards as the carrying and bedding took place. Currently Ser Jaime was besieged by a lady captain of the Summer Isles, who had probably heard that the Black Lion was now the lord of a rich estate and apparently due to resume his place in the high councils of the Kingdom. Davos smirked at Ser Jaime's veiled discomfiture; if he had wanted to be shot of the marriage market, then he should have joined the Night's Watch. As it was, he should have remembered that rumors of wealth and royal favor always trumped scandal. Lord Captain Franlan Shipwright and his lady had also appeared to give their congratulations, but had not lingered; it was well known that it would take the direct intervention of the gods to keep Franlan away from his Port, and where he went Lady Orobin went abreast of him. Adaran Phassos had provided a few hours pleasant company as he plied him for stories of the smuggling trade, but Davos had not been unhappy to see Petyr Baelish make only a brief appearance. Whatever it was Baelish did for Ser Brynden, he was entirely too close to the Royal Inspectors for Davos to be comfortable in his presence; even now that he was on the right side of the law it's agents made him instinctively wary, and that wariness increased in direct proportion to their intelligence.
All in all, the company could make a man as dizzy as the mead could, if he let himself think that some of the most powerful, dangerous, feared, and respected men and women in this quarter of the world had come within a hundred feet of him. Davos had known that accepting a knight's fee would propel him out of the shadows and into the light of high society, but he had never dreamed that he would sail waters as rarefied as these. He was a smuggler, for the gods' sakes, and one that had been born in a dockside shack, at that. But his wits, his command of the more secretive ways of sailing, and his willingness to follow a run of luck for as long as it held had made him a landed knight, a lord in all but name, and one that could rightly claim a connection with such men as Robert the Strong. It was all very heady stuff.
Especially since the stories about how long an Ironborn wedding feast lasted had turned out to be alarmingly true. When an Ironlord married, it was considered an embarrassment if the feast lasted only two days and nights. Victarion's feast, as befitted his status and wealth, was on its fifth day, and it was only now , as the sun was going down, at the climax of the whole affair, the gift-giving.
And not just to the bride and groom, but from the bride and groom. As far as Davos could tell, everyone who gave Victarion and Lady Rarena a gift was receiving one in return, of varying degrees. Lord Salter, Lady Rarena's father, and his three sons had each received a suit of plate armor and a longsword, while the aldermen of Ironhold had each received an arm-ring made of braided strands of gold and iron, the ends of which were inlaid with mother-of-pearl. The man in front of Davos, one of Victarion's housekarls presenting a beautifully forged hunting knife for Victarion and a pair of equally well-made knitting needles for Rarena, received an arm-ring of plain braided steel strands, and seemed far more ecstatic than such a gift would warrant, bowing repeatedly to Victarion and Rarena alike before withdrawing with what Davos would swear was a tear in his eye.
Davos shrugged in the privacy of his mind and stepped forward to give his own gift, a small chest filled with saffron and nutmeg and cinnamon and other spices, the whole worth many times its weight in gold; cinnamon only came from the Summer Islands, and eight-tenths of the world's saffron was produced around Slaver's Bay, where the astonishing amount of labor needed to produce even a tiny amount could be had cheaply enough to keep the cost of production down. A pound of crocus flowers, with their stamens plucked and dried, produced just over half an ounce of saffron; the five pounds of saffron in the chest represented the yield of tens of thousands, if not hundreds of thousands, of harvested flowers.
"Ser Davos," Victarion said as his steward accepted the chest and handed it off to a pair of servants, "you have always been a friend to us, even in times of great trial. And by your craft and your skill, you have played a part in two great victories and more smaller ones than I care to name. So I pray you accept this token of the debt we owe to you." He gestured to his steward, who presented an arm-ring of woven steel bands, worked so that the finial of one end formed the body of a kraken, its tentacles wrapping around Davos' forearm to terminate in an intricate knot. "Gold and silver for wealth, bronze and copper for craft," Victarion explained, "but iron and steel for honor, for trust, and for friendship. If ever you need aid of an Ironborn, show them this ring, and they will know that you are one who is an ally of our nation, and deserving of our aid and friendship."
Davos bowed. "I thank you, my lord," he said around a sudden lump in his throat, "and I wish you and your lady all happiness and good fortune." As he withdrew, he couldn't help but understand the euphoria of the housekarl who had preceded him. Wealth was all well and good, and necessary, but such a token given by such a lord . . . Reputation was worth as much as wealth, if not more, in the circles that Davos moved in now. His sons were already well provided for, Dale, Allard, and Matthos were officers in the Royal Fleet and due to gain command of their own ships while Maric had gone for a page at War House, but Lord Greyjoy's mark of favor would open doors for them that their father could never have moved. It was true that Lord Greyjoy and his Ironborn were considered the wildest and wooliest section of Myrish society, rivaled perhaps only by those Dothraki that had found themselves in the Royal Army, but the service they had given on the seas in the cause of Holy Freedom, and Lord Greyjoy's actions at Novadomo with his housekarls, had given them a sovereign reputation for zeal in Holy Freedom's service.
Davos was a relative oddity in the Kingdom of Myr in that he was a direct liegeman of the Crown; he owed respect and courtesy to the other members of the nobility, but in law only King Robert and his heirs had a claim on his service. That, he decided suddenly, was no longer so. If Lord Greyjoy ever found himself in need, then let him call on Davos Blacksail, or his sons, and the debt would be repaid with interest.
XXX
The Tattered Prince couldn't help a faint smile as he poured himself a glass of whine in his command tent. It was long and long since he had been courted this assiduously; for so many years he had just been another sellsword, if an abler one than many of his counterparts. Now, it seemed, Fortune's wheel had turned in such a way that he was being courted by men as far above him as he was above a common burgher.
If someone had told him twenty-six years ago that he would find himself in this position, he would have laughed in their face. Twenty-six years ago he had been a new captain, still finding his feet in command of the company he had started with four comrades-in-arms. The height of his ambitions had been to find a way, any way, to return to Pentos as a conqueror and take revenge on the magisters who had sought to condemn him to the gilded cage and inevitable humiliating death that was the Prince-ship of that city. In the meantime he had built his company, lance by lance, banda by banda, until with two thousand picked men under his forked blue and white banner he had entered the first rank of free captains. He could not have matched the Golden Company, either in strength or in reputation, but among all the other Free Companies his Windblown had had the greatest name for efficiency and discipline. His only fear, as the wheel of the years turned on and on, had been that he would grow too old to take his revenge, that however strong he might grow he would never gain the strength to seize Pentos in defiance of the Titan of Braavos, and the sellswords that the Titan's coin could attract. The axes around which Essosi politics revolved had been set in stone long ago, and a mere sellsword captain could not hope to break them.
Then Robert Baratheon had landed with his company, and all things had changed. At first, he had expected Baratheon to fail; the taking of Pentos had been accomplished by what amounted to treachery, and the Company of the Rose had fallen from the glory days of it's founding, when the Northern exiles had swept all before them with their unique brand of ferocity. He had expected that Baratheon would learn, to his cost, that Myr was an order of magnitude more powerful than Pentos, and that he would end his days either under Rhaegar Targaryen's sword or as a tributary of Braavos, with his company reduced to settlers in the Pentoshi hinterland. He had not, in a thousand years, expected the Battle of Tara, or the servile revolts that had shaken the Free Cities to their core. And now he couldn't help wondering if the prudence with which he had kept his company out of the meatgrinder of the Disputed Lands had actually been fearfulness; fearfulness at finding himself in a new Century of Blood where the old wars of trade advantages and border squabbles had become wars of extinction, where the only options were victory or death.
It had been an immeasurable relief to find that at least one of the Free Cities had retained its sanity. Norvos was a cheerless place for a sellsword, with its somber and priest-ridden people, but the bearded priests had a reassuring reputation for paying their bills promptly, and even after the coup one of the first things the reactionaries had done had been to assure him that his contract to serve the city as a paid captain, with special responsibility for the security of the western frontier districts, remained in force, and provide an advance on the next month's fee. He could have acted more boldly, it was true, either by following the ousted Voice and his councilors into exile on the grounds that they were still the legitimate government or else by snapping them up and delivering them to the reactionaries in so many sacks to stabilize the new order, but he had not lived so long as a sellsword by making such bold gambles. When in doubt, stick to the letter of your contract, had been his motto since he had first signed articles, and it had stood him in good stead over the years. Even if you never reached the higher levels of play, you at least kept your grubstake, and avoided losing everything to the turn of the wheel. Gods knew that the Braavosi would not have looked favorably on the man who delivered the Voice and his followers to the bear-pit, and he had always believed in keeping his options open.
Developments since, however, had soured his mind against his employers. Norvos had never been known for decisiveness, a fact they took perverse pride in, but the current amount of dysfunction was simply asinine. Some of the reactionaries wanted to make war, with varying degrees of severity based on which of them you asked, to bring the rebellious districts of the Little Rhoyne and the Axe, and the outright breakaway state of the Darkwash, back into the fold, while others thought simple negotiation would suffice. Yet others felt that only a close alliance with Volantis could safeguard Norvos now, while others still continued to delude themselves that a policy of strict neutrality was still their best hope of protection. The vote to join the Valyrian League had passed by less than a handful of votes, and no sooner had the treaty been ratified than the coalition that had passed it fragmented again, this time over the degree to which civil liberties could be infringed upon in order to protect the state.
The Tattered Prince rolled his eyes to himself. A little debate was all well and good now and then, but honestly . . . The rub of it all was that the reactionaries didn't seem to understand that failing to unite now would doom them as surely as anything under the sun. Even leaving aside the perils of rebels and abolitionists and Volantenes . . . He flicked a glance at the eastern wall of his pavilion. That Khal Drogo had been named the Stallion That Mounts the World meant little and less to most magisters; what should they care what titles were heaped on the Butcher of Qohor by his fellow savages? But he had known many Dothraki over the years, even been blood-brother to a khal and been trusted with the safety of his children after he had died of a sickness. He knew the stories around that prophecy well enough to know that it was not to be taken lightly. And even without prophecy, or the rumors about how a plague had been stopped in its tracks, Khal Drogo's rise had been meteoric enough that only a fool would discount him. Sooner or later he would stop bringing the other khals under his banner, and when he did . . .
Well, Norvos wouldn't have a snowball's chance in one of the Andals' Seven Hells. His Windblown were the only force the reactionaries could muster that might stand a chance against a Dothraki khalasar, and even if they could be spared from Norvos' western border he would not willingly accept such a contest. Gods knew that the Lorathi company that the reactionaries had hired didn't have the numbers, the nerve, or the skill to face even a small khalasar, much less that of Khal Drogo. And while Norvos' walls were strong and the fate of Qohor had demonstrated how Khal Drogo rewarded treachery even when it benefited him, treachery would hardly be needed when Norvos was so sharply divided against itself. No, it was time to consider his other options more seriously. Donys Rahtheon, for instance, had already rewarded him with a great deal of money for his part in bringing Norvos into the Valyrian League, and promised him that Volantis would consider him to be Norvos' Captain-General with equal standing and powers to that upstart Naharis in Lys, rather than simply another captain in their armies, whatever the Norvoshi might have to say about the matter. He had even dropped a few hints that when Pentos was retaken and brought back under civilized rule, a certain sellsword could expect to be named its Prince, and to be a Prince in fact as well as name.
The Sealord, by comparison, had made a far more meager offer on the face of it. If he turned his cloak and brought his men and the districts under his charge into the abolitionist fold, then his company would receive a twenty-year contract at market rates, his officers would receive lands and wealth enough to set themselves up as wealthy burghers, the kind that could pay other people to do their work for them, and he himself would be Prince of Pentos. Only as a matter of form, of course, with no actual legal power of command, but with all the ancient and customary privileges of that office, certain commercial concessions, and estates and incomes enough to give him a wealthy and comfortable retirement. He snorted. He had not built his Windblown up from five desperate men, had not risen from a penniless exile to a feared and respected captain, simply to become a glorified prisoner of the Titan. And he was old enough that deflowering virgins had lost most of its appeal; these days he found he preferred women who knew what they were doing and had the spirit to do most of it themselves.
That being said, the Titan was still the safe bet. For all of Rahtheon's promises, his King Viserys had yet to demonstrate that he could defeat even Braavos, much less Robert the Bloody, and it would require a good many dice rolls to come up sevens in order for Rahtheon's promises to come to pass. Of course, on the other hand, Volantis was still the Eldest Daughter of Valyria, mightiest of the Free Cities; if anyone could defeat the abolitionists, it was Viserys, now that he had broken Volantis to his will. But even so . . .
He shook his head. Have done, old man, he told himself. There were many moves yet to be made in the game, and much that was now murky would be made clear in the fullness of time. In the meantime, he would do what he had always done; wait, patiently, for opportunity to present itself with an acceptable minimum of risk, and then strike.