(Disclaimer: I do not own A Song of Ice and Fire nor its characters. Those all belong to George R. R. Martin, aside from my OC.)
(Pentos, Essos)
A loud bang could be heard as several trays of food and wine were thrown to the wayside.
Illyrio's fury sent many servants into a flurry as they did their best to clean up the mess caused by their errant master.
Varys watched it all with an apathetic stare at his old friend. "You shouldn't have given him the Horn." He said.
Freezing the furious cheesemonger in his tracks.
Turning his head towards the eunuch, Illyrio merely snarled before taking a handful of cherries and stuffing them into his mouth.
One after another, cherry pit after pit was spat out. Finally, as the last pit was spat, Illyrio spoke, "It was meant as a test, to see if it could work."
"It didn't." Varys pointed out. "Perhaps it was a fake?"
"Impossible. That was a genuine horn, the Valyrians must have played us all."
It wasn't a farfetched thought, an irritating one but that farfetched.
Varys had been incessant when Illyrio first revealed that he'd sold one of the two Dragon Horns in their possession to the Kraken. It was a means to gain control of the only living Dragons in the world.
He had thought that the Fat Magister had gone mad with greed and short-sidedness and still harbored reservations about trusting him. The man sought to test the Horn's ability using the Greyjoy.
A move that had surprisingly paid off, his little birds having sent word of the Horn's failure shortly after the extinction of the Greyjoys through the male line. Asha Greyjoy's whereabouts remained unknown and even if she was alive there was little of use she could be.
A significant portion of the Houses that were loyal to the Greyjoys had been wiped out, with them being the most fervent believers in the 'Old Ways'.
He doubted she'd even trust them had they survived considering the coup they held against her father in support of her Uncle Euron.
That was another thing that baffled Varys, only an idiot would trust someone as questionable as Euron. What Balon was thinking by allowing his brother to retain a Horn that supposedly gave control over some of the most dangerous creatures this world had seen, he didn't know.
It was remarkable how naive and foolish these so-called Great Lords could be. Then again it was one of the reasons he'd been able to manipulate them so easily in the past.
Jon Arryn and Steffon Baratheon may have meant well in the whole fostering debacle, an attempt at stabilising by better connecting the Great Houses, that failed quite dramatically in his opinion.
The current situation of the Iron Islands was odd. Erlend had declared that it was to be assimilated as a territory of the Riverlands. An obvious retaliation for all the times the Riverlands had to suffer under their reign.
It could be argued that he had no choice but to do so, with most of the Noble Houses that ruled it now extinct, there were just not enough purely Ironborn Lords and Ladies to govern it themselves.
There was also the fact that no one would trust any Ironman for decades if not centuries to come.
Lands and titles were rewarded to those that had shown merit both among the nobility and rising gentry class. Which irked him, seeing as it gave Erlend another pool of loyalists he could rely on. Making his job infinitely harder than it should be.
"What does Visenya have to say to all of this?" He knew that she looked at Illyrio like he was a court's jester when they first told her about the horn.
"That we're both imbeciles and that of course the horn wouldn't work."
"Of course, she would say that."
"The golden company has been doing well quite recently."
"Naturally, with the Banners no longer around as competitors, they've been given the best contracts." Illyrio finally showed something other than anger.
The Magister foolishly considered the Golden Company to be their personal army already, uncaring or unheeding of the fact that his Sister now had a tight grip on the mercenary group.
Honestly, he wasn't confident of the assumption that she would hand over authority to Daemon once he came of age. Even now she showed nothing but annoyance when she laid her eyes on any of them.
It was becoming genuinely worrisome as the days passed by.
"The Three Daughters have come together… They've announced the re-emergence of the Triarchy." Illyrio put out.
"So they took advantage of Westero's distraction."
"Volantis has been complaining about it to anyone that would listen, they want a coalition to be formed against it."
"I thought they'd be more interested in dealing with Erlend Mudd."
"Bah… Mudd is no concern to them at the moment, he's a whole sea away from them. The Triarchy is by far their biggest threat at the moment."
It wasn't a ridiculous thought, since his crowning, more than a few cities that held grievances with Mudd had worried they might be cut off from trading in Westeros. It was a very lucrative market for them after all.
To their surprise, Erlend did none of that the man had completely ignored Essos altogether aside from the Twilight Isles. Allowing trade to flow as it normally did.
So far only Braavos had tried something and that was to regain control over the Twilight Isles, something that was heavily disagreed with not only by the Mudd King but also by the Mudd loyalists within Braavos.
It was frankly an embarrassing situation for the Sealord that showed the divide within what many considered the most powerful free city in Essos.
Varys saw an ally of convenience within the Sealord, he knew very well that the present one like a few of his predecessors wanted to curtail the influence House Mudd had on Braavos or get rid of it altogether.
"I assume you're fellow Magisters have been making a fuss about the whole situation." This earned him a nod from Illyrio.
"Yes. We're surrounded by powerful enemies. Westeros to the West, Braavos to the North, and now the Triarchy to the South."
Pentos was vulnerable and weak, it had neither a standing military force nor the gold needed to compete with any of the three powers surrounding it. Let alone all of them.
It was what made such a perfect city to hide Daemon in, very few people paid attention to it outside of Merchants these days.
"I doubt you'll have to worry about anything coming from the South. The triarchy should know that any aggressive action it takes will see Volantis and Braavos falling upon it without hesitation."
"If only it was as simple as that." Lamented Illyrio, "They're pushing for us to reinstate the slave trade, something that will earn the ire of both Braavos and Westeros."
"They're using Pentos as a distraction?" That was a surprise to Varys, no word had come from his little birds on the matter.
"It seems so, I assume that they're going to try and unite the disputed lands again."
"Mudd isn't going to be happy about that."
"He doesn't have the time to be worried. The Iron Islands will take most of his attention for at least a decade before he can set his sights on Essos again."
"There's also the discontent steered up by that Waynwood woman. She's been pushing hard for her cousin's claim since it came out that Erlend intended to grant it to his natural-born son by Lysa."
"Is she not afraid that he would do the same to her as he did to the Ironmen?"
"Stubborn as a mule that woman." Varys shook his head at the thought of her, he had the displeasure of meeting her once.
"Did the Lords of the Vale agree with her? We could use this to finally weaken his hold over the Vale."
"There is some discontent raised but it's largely been snuffed out by the betrothal he'd written between his natural-born son and one of Bronze Yohn's granddaughters. There's also the fact that his son will take up the Arryn name."
"What kind of nonsense is that? Haven't those stuck-up bastards always been against bastards rising in status?" Illyrio complained.
"Nearly a quarter of them used to be bastards. You forget that a lot of Lords died young during Robert's Rebellion without trueborn sons and daughters. Their bastard sons and siblings had to take to keep their Houses alive."
Not every noble house was blessed with a plethora of members and branches. Most, especially the minor ones only ever had one main branch and that was it.
"This gives Daemon a chance, doesn't it? With so many bastard Lords, most of them should be supportive of House Blackfyre."
"It's uncertain, Erlend had legitimised most of them and it's his word that gives them their authority. If they turn against him, they'll likely be ousted by their neighboring lords or distant kin."
"Then what's the use of all this news, if barely any of it is useful to us." Annoyance dripped the cheesemonger's tone.
(A/N: Obviously for the readers you pleb.)
"It seems so."