Flashman and the Throne of Swords
Chapter 23
by Technomad
A little while later, we got very unexpected news from the North. Apparently not long after I'd guested at Winterfell, the castle had been taken. Not by the Lannisters, but by raiders from the Iron Isles.
"That," I said to Dick Burton, when we'd got the news, "is very rum indeed!" For all that I detested most of the Starks (I will confess to a sneaking liking for young Lady Arya, and Lady Sansa's situation would have made the devil weep) I had been very impressed with their ancestral stronghold. The Sappers could have taken it, but if it were stoutly defended, it'd have been a rough job even for them.
I was also surprised to find Ironborn operating so far from the seas. After my encounter with them aboard the Glasgow Lassie, I had swotted up what information I could about the Isles and their people. The Isles were counted as one of the Seven Kingdoms, but were by far the poorest and smallest of them. Before the Targaryen conquest, the Ironborn had held large parts of the mainland of Westeros, but had been smashed decisively by the Targaryens, who had burned their huge stronghold of Harrenhall with dragonfire. Even centuries later, the castle had an evil reputation, and people thought it was haunted, or cursed. While it was still habitable and defensible, according to the report we'd got from some British merchants who'd been in that vicinity, it was an enormous white elephant, and none of its post-Conquest lords had come to a good end. We'd considered garrisoning it in the event of having to conquer Westeros, but manning such a huge fortress would strain our resources. We'd have to use mainly British, or at least non-local troops; the locals, as I've mentioned, were leery of it.
"I wonder how they managed to pull that off?" I said aloud.
Dick looked very thoughtful. "That's a very good question, Flash." He pointed to the sketches of the defences of Winterfell that I had provided for him. They were drawn from memory, but I've been a soldier for most of my life, and have often had to cast a quick eye over fortifications to assess their strengths and weaknesses. "This place does not look like an easy nut to crack. Frankly, it makes the Tower of London look rather ramshackle!"
"That it did," I had to admit, thinking about the mighty castle I had seen. Of course, it was a working castle and stronghold, unlike our Tower, which served many other functions. (1) "Can we find out how these Ironborn managed to take it?"
"I'll put our agents to work on it," Dick said. "We've a net of agents through the country, and some of them can probably get into the North and find things out." He winked at me. "We've plenty of money to pay for accurate information, after all."
As long as I wasn't to be tasked with finding out how in the world a ragtag bunch of pirates took one of the strongest castles I had ever seen (and hadn't I seen a few, just!) that was fine with me. I was hoping for a nice, long stay in cozy, relatively-safe Kings Landing. The food situation was not good, but we'd stocked up heavily on supplies when we were setting up the embassy, before things had gone bad. That had been on my advice. I'd seen all too many situations that seemed to be peaceful and quiet turn into the antechamber of Hell, and knew that Kings Landing could turn dangerous in an instant.
While we were not eating as well as one would expect at a house party back Home, we were better-found for food than most people in the city. The missionaries had opened up several soup kitchens, where we dispensed food to the neediest folk around. While this was praiseworthy on the face of it, and much less likely to cause trouble with the Faith of the Seven than openly preaching about Christianity, it had the potential to cause trouble.
Dick had never been to China, but I had (2). I had seen how the missionaries had attracted converts with food, and how some of them became "Rice Christians," who were there for the rice only. That, in itself, did not bother me. However, they had also attracted a bad element, who found that once they said they were Christians, they could count on the missionaries protecting them against the local law. This, to put it mildly, did not reflect well on Christianity, and won us no friends among the local people.
After talking with me, Ruffian Dick had had words with the missionaries. I'd sat in on the discussion, to provide what moral support I could. David Livingstone, that ass, had tried talking back, only to be frozen in his tracks at one glare from those burning black eyes. "Listen well," Dick had said. "If we've food to spare, you may feel free to hand it out to the poor ad lib. But under no circumstances are you to interfere with local law enforcement! If one of your "converts" faces charges under local law, we can do nothing. They are not British subjects, and still subject to local law."
"But, Sir Richard, have you seen how they enforce law around here?" pleaded Livingstone. A chorus of agreement came from the other God-botherers. "It's barbaric!"
"Yes. For all intents and purposes, we're back in the Middle Ages here. I'm the first to say that some good old British law and justice would improve this place enormously." Dick brought down his fist on the table, making the Bible-bashers jump. "But This. Is. Not. The. Time! We're only a few hundred…a thousand at most…among God-knows-how-many Westerosi! Trying to carry things with the high hand may end up with all our heads on spikes!"
"If they kill us, the British public will demand vengeance!" This was from one of the Catholic contigent. I had never bothered to keep them straight. Isabel Burton was thick as thieves with the whole bally lot of them, of course. She could, as I've mentioned, bore for England, particularly when she got on the topic of the superiority of the Catholic Church. For all that she'd been a peach when she was younger, I'd not have married her for a pension. Elspeth's empty prattle about nothing in particular was much easier to deal with. And in bed with Elspeth, I never felt like the entire Church was there with us, tut-tutting and disapproving.
"The British public might demand vengeance. They did after Cawnpore, after all." Mentioning Cawnpore…I was the only person present who'd survived that awful mess…shut everybody else up. "But they might not. Westeros, after all, is a long way away. And…" I leaned forward… "even if they did, what good would it do us, with our heads on spikes?"
That took them aback. Even those most hopeful and certain of Heaven, I have noticed, generally prefer to put off their departure as much as they can. Since I've got, at best, a slender hope of salvation, I want to stay on this good earth as long as I can manage it.
"So you'd stop us feeding the hungry and needy?" David Livingstone looked as though he'd been told that the Muslims had taken London and turned St. Paul's into a mosque. "And you call yourself a Christian?"
I knew that Dick put very little stock in Christianity. From things he'd let slip to me when we were deeper in drink than usual, he'd been looking for a religion to believe in all his life, but had never really found one. He tolerated his wife's Catholic obsession, but I thought that was mainly to keep her sweet and such domestic life as he could have peaceful. However, he knew perfectly well that openly abjuring Christianity would ruin him, knighthood and achievements or no. Our pious, forgiving, Christian countrymen would hound him out of Britain and count the deed well-done.
He gave Livingstone a look of appeal. "No. Feed the hungry. We'll make friends that way. Just, please, for the love of God, do not get involved in local politics! Humility is the key here. If we show ourselves friends of all, that'll mean that we won't be as likely to have angry mobs tearing British subjects apart! Flash…tell them about the Mutiny!"
Appealed to, I took up the tale. "One of the things that inflamed our 'loyal' sepoys to the point of rising up against us was rumours that we were planning to interfere with their religion. Some Johnny Newcome officers even had preachers out preaching to their men on parade. The men were used to our way of war. But they did not appreciate us trying to convert them!" I closed my eyes for a second, remembering the heat, the buzzing flies around the piled corpses, the hunger and constant fear of Cawnpore.
After a minute lost in my memories, I looked up. "Mr. Livingstone, you're Scots. Like my lady wife. Explain to your friends what the phrase 'gang warily' means." With that, we adjourned.
Once we were alone, Dick poured me a generous tot of Arbor Red. He filled his own goblet, and we clinked them together before savoring that heavenly bouquet. "Oh, Lord, Harry, if I'd known what a burden ambassadorship was to be, I'd have begged off! I'd rather deal with wild desert tribes any day!"
I sympathized. He was caught between Westeros' reality and the expectations of those in power at Home. Our gracious sovereign lady very much in particular. While I'd never caught her saying anything very stupid, I couldn't forget that our queen was of the Hanoverian line, which was not renowned for brains. Her idiotic persistence in staying in deep mourning, years after one would expect her to have resumed public life, had not helped her standing.
Even with the best will in the world, Vicky could still land us in the soup at Kings Landing by giving orders in complete ignorance of the conditions in Westeros. Even we were often operating in a fog, confined, as we mostly were, to Kings Landing, and forced to get news from only one side of the many-sided civil war that had broken out.
One evening, I invited Tyrion to join me in a few drinks. He'd been run off his feet, and was glad to take a break. Like any Westerosi nobleman, he could punish the wine bottle with the best of them, but hadn't ever run across anything stronger. Knowing this, I had spiked the wine supply with brandy. The taste was nearly the same, but the effect was much greater.
"Yes, Ser Harry," Tyrion said, meditatively pouring himself out a stiff dollop of fortified wine, "being Hand of the King, even as a temporary measure, isn't easy." He knocked the drink back and looked at me owlishly. I smiled, sipping at my own drink. I was much more used to hard liquor than Tyrion, not to mention larger (and I had taken the precaution of filling up with food before he arrived), but I wanted to keep a clear head.
"I daresay it's a real struggle, dealing with everybody you've got to handle, old man," I answered. "I mean no disrespect to the late king, but he didn't strike me as much of an administrator."
"The whole place is a mess!" Tyrion lamented. "I had to get rid of Ser Janos Slynt. Th' bastard was a disgrace t' the gold cloak he wore. Fixed him, though, didn't I just?" He grinned wickedly at me. "After I got him to betray himself, I had him shipped off to the Wall! They know how to handle people like him there!"
"Rather hard luck for the poor chaps at the Wall, I should think," I murmured, giving Tyrion a refill, and then filling my own cup. "I've met 'em, and some of them aren't half bad when you get to know 'em."
"So have I, Ser Harry. I never got north of the Wall, the way you did, but I have stood atop it and pissed off the edge of the Seven Kingdoms." Tyrion suddenly gave me a very keen look. "While you were north of the Wall, did you see anything…unusual?"
"Unusual?" I had to stop and think. While I was soberer than Tyrion, I wasn't completely so, and I hadn't expected him to turn the questioning around. I reminded myself that for all his short stature and his odd looks, Tyrion was one of the sharpest chaps I'd ever encountered. "No, m'lord, can't say that we did. The wildlings…they call themselves the Free Folk…up there treated us with nothing but kindness." How they might have reacted if John Charity Spring had pulled one of his shines, I kept to myself.
Tyrion regarded me very narrowly. "Nothing…supernatural?"
That really took me aback. "M'lord…I've lived a long life, much of it spent traveling, both here and in my home world. I've seen many things. Things you probably cannot imagine. But all of 'em are natural. I've never seen ghosts. Or ghouls. Heard of 'em…yes, I have, many times, often from folk who clearly believed what they said. But never seen 'em myself with my own eyes." And that is one of the things that gives me comfort, in the long watches of the night.
In my life, I've done many bad things. I'd do most of 'em again, if the occasion offered. I've also sent many of my ill-wishers to their final accounts, as well as putting paid to various enemies of the Queen, when I had no other choice and there was nowhere to run to. And none of 'em have ever appeared again, looking for revenge, or at least a rematch.
Tyrion suddenly looked very sober. As best I could tell, he'd taken on a great load of brandy-laced wine, but either he hadn't been as drunk as I'd thought, or something had snapped him out of it. "The reason I'm asking, Ser Harry, is because Ser Alliser Thorne came all the way down to Kings Landing to tell us that the dead are walking up there. You're a sharp sort of fellow, and I thought that getting your slant on things would be a good idea." He grinned. "And, of course, helping you drink this lovely wine!"
I felt a cold chill down my spine. I hadn't had much to do with Ser Alliser when I was up at the Wall, but from the little I'd seen and heard, he was a steady sort, not the sort to run away screaming from shadows. "What proof did he have? If any?" If anything like this was happening, this was news that we needed to know. While I've the highest regard for Her Majesty's Jollies, fighting the living dead might be beyond even their capabilities. And that's assuming that our bullets and bayonets would be of any use.
Tyrion looked into his cup. "He had a hand. A skeleton hand. We gave him a hundred shovels to take up north, and told him that if he buried the dead, they would not walk."
I felt that cold chill again, bigger than before. Tyrion's story reminded me, uncomfortably, of times when I'd seen signs of oncoming disaster casually dismissed…until the disaster struck.
On the eve of the Mutiny (3) no-one had thought that anything unusual was about to happen, even though many of the best men in the sepoy regiment I'd been hiding out in had been marched off to prison for refusing the new cartridges. You'd have thought that the British in that cantonment would've been at least somewhat on their guard, but they were caught utterly flatfooted. Even I hadn't thought that trouble was on the way, or at least, that if it was, it wasn't close yet. And I've one of the better noses for trouble I know of. When you've a windy streak, being able to slide out of the way before catastrophe breaks over your head is a very nice thing.
"M'lord…it might be a good idea to send someone trustworthy to the Wall, to report back. Even if the dead aren't walking, something rum may well be going on up there." I thought uneasily of Ygraine and Ylva, and hoped they were all right. We'd been ships in the night, but I didn't like the idea of them coming to harm.
"I would do something like that, but I've too much on my hands here. Your countrymen came through with the chain I wanted, and we're preparing a surprise for dear Stannis."
"And what sort of surprise might that be?" I asked. My ears were pricking up, and if Tyrion had been less pickled, he would have caught on quickly that I wasn't as drunk as he was.
Tyrion grinned at me. "Oh, let's say it's green, hot and something that even you British, with all your wonderful arts, haven't seen before!"
"D'you have any intelligence that Stannis is preparing an attack?" I asked, filling both our cups. Tyrion drank thirstily. I sipped, making it look like I'd taken more than I had. How much, I wondered, did it take to put one Westerosi nobleman, dwarf or no dwarf, under the table? I had a sneaking suspicion that I'd be finding out.
"We've sources that tell us that it looks like dear Stannis is putting together an attack. He's massing his fleet, and knowing him, Kings Landing is where he's going to go. Were it me, I'd head for the old Baratheon holdings, but dear Stannis is too single-minded for that!" Tyrion drained his cup, upended it, looked into it as though he expected answers to his problems to be found in there, and launched into a song. "A bear there was, a bear, a bear! All black and brown and covered with hair!"
I quite liked this little ditty, and when he was done, I had him sing it again a couple of times, joining in on the last repetition. This led to other songs, and he was equally charmed by "Drink, Puppy, Drink," and "John Peel."
Sometime later, we reeled back to his quarters in the Tower of the hand, harmonizing on:
Do ye ken John Peel
With his coat of gray?
Do ye ken John Peel
At the break of day?
Do ye ken John Peel?
No he's far, far away
With his hounds and his horse in the morning.
[1] From earliest times, the Tower of London was used for many different things. It has housed the royal menagerie, the Royal Mint, and been a royal residence, as well as serving as a prison and fortress.
[2] See Flashman and the Dragon. Flashman had been there in 1860-61, at the height of the Taiping Rebellion and the Second Opium War.
[3] See Flashman in the Great Game. He is quite correct; for all the omens of trouble, the British were caught flatfooted when their "loyal" sepoys rebelled.
