Chapter 15
The World is not Fair
Archmaester Robert Turen
If there were a few things he had learned in his two and thirty years at the Citadel, it was that there was no justice in this world and the Gods didn't care about fairness.
Take the war which had just ended. Where was the fairness in this bloody disaster? Two incestuous and mad Valyrians fought for their father's throne when it was bloody obvious they both hadn't the slightest clue how to rule. By all rights, the two crazy Targaryen should have been shipped to Essos and sold to the arenas of Slaver's Bay. That way, the slavers and Westeros would have filled their purses with gold and the spectators of the gladiatorial pits would have had something to cheer and remember.
Robert Turen, Seneschal of the Citadel, sighed under his mask of Valyrian steel. The screams, protestations and accusations of the crowd in front of him were hurting his poor ears, and he was feeling quite thirsty. He wanted one of his preferred bottles of wine, maybe the soft red nectar he bought from a little vineyard south of the Florent lands, and he wanted this drink badly.
But since he had to maintain a dignified image, being the last surviving Archmaester until these Seven-damned elections were over, he was sure he wouldn't get it. There would be excuses, of course. The vineyards had been torched by deserters, bandits or a rampaging army. Moderation was encouraged in these times of hardship. Welcome to an unfair world. After so long, he was almost used to it.
Robert's father had been a powerful Knight sworn to House Swann of Stonehelm. Normally, this should have ensured a bright future for Robert, but alas it was not to be. His father was quite avaricious with his money, and Robert was the second son. Before he was ten, he had already accepted he was never going to be a knight – not even an errant one – and the day he became a man he was shipped out to Oldtown. He had never seen back his father, and according to the rare ravens he had received, the opportunity would never come again. The old imbecile and his eldest brother Lester 'the Brute' had met their end at the Battle of Bosworth Bridge. Given that Robert was at the Citadel, his youngest brother had refused to swear to the vows of a septon and crossed the Narrow Sea to fight in the Disputed Lands as a sellsword and there was a child daughter for sole heir, the next years were going to be hard for the Knight House.
When he had arrived at the Citadel, his spirits had been high. Assuredly being a maester was not his first, second or third choice of work he had imagined in his dreams. He had wanted to be a hero, jousting at tourneys, saving princesses and fighting epic duels against the enemies of the realm. But when he had thought about it, drinking countless barrels in the taverns and making many friends while they devoured hundreds of books was not that bad. Except once again, his aspirations had been crushed.
The Reacher students of Oldtown had not liked him from the start, and the maesters teaching him had been fast to imitate them. He was a Stormlander and one of the poorest ones; no one wanted him as a friend. In record time, he had been isolated and then as a punishment, sent to be the assistant of the old Archmaester Martyn. The white-bearded man had been the self-proclaimed specialist of the 'higher mysteries' and Robert Turen, half of his chain desperately incomplete, had thought he was at least going to learn a few interesting tricks. It had taken him three days to realise Martyn was utterly crazy and more interested in mixing diverse explosive powders than really studying glass candles. The road of disappointment continued. The world was unfair, and that was it. Four years later, and the Stormlander-born maester had completed his chain – six of the Valyrian-steel rings he had forged in it were there for no good reason he could see. And one year after this, his superior had finally blown himself up in another explosion.
Fortunately, Robert had not been there when it happened.
Unfortunately, the Citadel had needed a new Archmaester and since no wanted the job, take a guess who the grey-beards had chosen?
And so at the relatively young age of five and twenty name days, he was the Archmaester supposed to be the specialist in everything magical. Too bad he hadn't the slightest clue of what magic consisted of. Hundreds of evenings, he had felt like a fraud, wondering what would happen once the rest of the Citadel discovered the truth. He could stare at the glass candles from dawn to dusk, none had made a slightest spark. He had pronounced words of power from books his predecessor had hidden in the indescribable chaos of his library. He had tried everything and magic didn't answer.
In the end, he had decided that since he was a fraud, he was going to be a competent and credible one. He had painted glyphs from Asshai-by-the-Shadow on his grey robes at a laborious rate. Several medallions of gold and obsidian had been forged under his guidance. He had used the fearsome powders of his oldest masters to provoke hilarious things like smoke and mini-explosions when he announced his presence. He had hired several poor fellows to disguise themselves as warlocks and the likes for a night or two in his company.
By all rights, it had been a resounding success...and as a result a decade later the other Archmaesters had done their utmost to prevent him from knowing of their grand plan to 'destroy magic forever'. With step one of course, being the elimination of the Targaryen dragons.
If the affair had not been horrifying and prone to catastrophic results – like a civil war setting the entire realm aflame – he would have laughed for moons.
These morons were not able to guess he was no warlock, sorcerer or magician, but they wanted to kill magic? The legends of the First Men, Children of the Forest and the Others had to celebrate in their graves when they heard of this conspiracy...
On the left table of the hall, a maester stood and shouted his undying support for some candidate he couldn't remember the name of. This must be one of the maesters who had just forged his chain, Robert could tell. The Redwyne maester – too many freckles on his tanned face – looked ready to burst in his own importance.
What was he thinking about before that? Oh yes, the world was unfair. The Archmaesters – his incapable and blind masters of the Citadel – had not exactly well-thought their plan and must have left their footsteps all over the crime scenes. Perhaps in another time, a tired king would have left them get away with it. But luck had not been with them this time, and Sater, Cley, Tyrar, Gulian and all their other friends had apparently not considered this was betrayal of the highest order they were contemplating.
And there was only one punishment for treason.
Since the Order of the Maesters was technically independent, the retaliation had taken the form of an assassin. Perhaps King Daeron didn't want the problems associated with an open trial. It was also possible the order had not come from the King himself, the revenge from beyond-the-grave of a Targaryen having lost his dragon and his life.
No matter the identity of the sleeping partner, it had been a resounding success. Robert had been the only one of thirteen Archmaesters to leave the library alive, and it was only because he had run for his life and three shots of the assassin had struck the myriad of 'mystical' amulets he was always carrying on him.
But as he had already said, there was no justice in this world. The maesters had been anything but happy at the news the annihilation of the Archmaesters. They had all but accused him of being behind the murders after a moon spent fruitlessly tracking the deadly assassin.
The accusations had not continued long. By a turn of circumstance Robert wasn't exactly sure of, Luthor Flowers had been accused of being the paymaster behind the twelve murders. That the bastard hadn't any motive to do it had escaped the minds of the judges. Yes, the world was unfair. Luthor Flowers had been hanged and the maesters had chosen to close their mouth as the dire financial state of their Order started to become evident, the new Lord of Oldtown Edmund Hightower was not their friend and the winter became colder with freezing winds coming from the sea.
The Maesters were depending on the monetary donation of the Great Lords of the Seven Kingdoms. That was a simple and painful truth. When the realms had been independent and the maesters had at least a reputation of impartiality, it was working. But since the Conquest, the Citadel had concentrated its power at Oldtown and serving in castles north of the Blackwater was not a reward, it was a punishment. Therefore the decision of several members of the Order to organise a 'Black Conclave' at Maidenpool was terrible news. If the Black Queen recognised them as the legitimate maesters, it was nearly half of the realm which was going to be forbidden to the Citadel.
The Archmaester of the higher mysteries had been besieged for the last couple of moons by terrified Reachers. Now that the deed was done and the peace officially in effect, they were terrified at the idea of losing their spies, their allies and their connections in the other provinces.
They had named him Seneschal and expected from him he brought back the blessed years of King Viserys I, or better the reign of Jaehaerys I. They didn't like hearing they had to tighten their belts and work seriously to regain their reputations.
How they expected him to do this when it was best to avoid the attention of the Iron Throne and prevent the beginning of a new war was a mystery for him. Perhaps it was the same madness which had encouraged them to kill the dragons. Robert didn't know if it would have killed magic for sure, but he could tell it had made the fortune of many pirates. Before the war, only the most insane corsairs and tyrants of the sea tried to attack a Westerosi holdfast. They knew very well what would happen: a dragon would come and burn them down to ashes. Now that there were not enough dragons around, the slavers of Essos had resumed their depredations. Welcome the new era of science and progress, Archmaesters.
In the last days the angry pack besieging the offices had found another solution, namely choosing a new Archmaester for the yellow god mask, and take care of the Citadel's economy. The man was going to tell them the gold vaults were empty, but at least it was going to lessen his workload.
"This round of election has elected a worthy candidate!" exclaimed the maester serving as herald for today. "Maester Alvin has received two hundred and eight votes, an incontestable majority, and he has the reputation and the knowledge to claim the title!"
The last words were pure hypocrisy: if someone hadn't had the reputation and the skills, he would not have been authorised to present his candidacy. The Maesters were not the Night's Watch, thank you very much.
A rather thin and brown-bearded man rose from his chair. He was harbouring an expression of triumph and his chain was shining in red gold, yellow gold and silver. Robert applauded with the others, though he felt no joy. Alvin had been one of those students who had never accepted him when he arrived here, and the newly promoted Archmaester was a Tyrell appointee body and soul.
Trying to muster as much enthusiasm as he could, he took the gold mask, rod and ring, handed them ceremoniously to the insufferable Highgarden bannersman and commenced to recite the traditional congratulations.
"Maesters of the Order, it is always a great pleasure..."
Lord Larys Strong
In hindsight, insisting the audience with the Rogare emissary happened in one of the private rooms fitted by the Conciliator and not the throne room had been a wise decision. The shouting match between Daeron and the arrogant Lysene would remain at the state of rumours and scandalous whispers that everyone important would forget in days. In these hard moons of winter, there was no need to present an ugly spectacle in front of the surviving court and merchants of King's Landing.
The footsteps of the guards and the man they escorted faded away, and King Daeron breathed heavily in his large seat. Since the cushioned work had been built for his father, the legitimate sovereign of the Seven Kingdoms was looking rather thin though in reality King Viserys the First had been too fat in his last years of reign.
"And people wonder why the Sunset Kingdoms don't like the Essossi magisters."
The sentence had been uttered in a musing voice, but looking at his liege, Larys could not see any humour. The former Lord of Harrenhal didn't answer back. After all, he was sharing the feelings in this case. Pentoshi, Braavosi, Lysene, Tyroshi, Volantene and Myrish...at the first sign of weakness, these vultures were circling to tear apart the trade of Westeros. Many coastal villages had been sacked by 'pirates' these last years and the bloodbath of Driftmark during the war had been so thorough he was not sure House Velaryon would recover before two generations.
"Do you think I missed something?" asked brutally the King. Today the royal clothes were a dark green with touches of black on the shoulders and the legs. The tunic was going very well with the dark grey clouds and the snowfalls of dawn.
"Your Grace, I don't think you and I missed something in his words." The Clubfoot said with a dark expression. "The Lysene are telling us they have a son of Rhaenyra prisoner at Lys. It is a confirmation of the whispers we had started to hear last moon." The Master of Whisperers had to admit, the Targaryens were good at survival. Other lineages would have already been extinct after receiving so many blows during a clash of arms. But it didn't mean the Rogare merchant had not created a large problem. "They have a Prince and they want a ransom of King."
The youngest brother of King Aegon chuckled loudly though the joy was almost absent in his mouth.
"Two million and a half gold dragons are not a ransom of King," declared the rider of Tessarion. "It is the ransom you pay for a King, his dragon, his council and an entire fleet. For this price, I would be able to rebuild King's Landing twice over and muster a new army of forty thousand swords to crush the Blacks once for all."
This was perhaps a bit of an exaggeration...but not that much. He was sure a million dragons in gold was a sum largely sufficient to gather a large army, at least. Rebuilding King's Landing just once was considerably more expensive, after the troubles, insurrections and dragon ravages of the last years.
"Prince Viserys is not bonded to a dragon." He felt the remark had to be made, considering the circumstances. "If my agents can be trusted, the egg he had with him has not yet hatched."
Judging by the light burning in Daeron's eyes, the young Green King was not completely reassured by this fact.
"Every child of Rhaenyra and Daemon, bastard or not, became a dragonrider in his or her own right. Viserys' egg may have not yet hatched, but I would not bet ten dragons it will stay true until his sixteen name days."
This was a good point, unfortunately. Too bad he had already used the assassin's card on the vipers of the Maesters Order. He had not two cursed helms of Harren the black at his disposal.
"But you're right," admitted the King. "This young Prince does not represent a large threat as long as he has no dragon to ride. And since he's a Black by his mother and his father, our bannersmen are not going to suddenly change their minds and support him."
Daeron whispered something to himself before redirecting his eyes to the empty chair in front of him.
"May I assume we have not the gold to pay this huge mountain of gold?"
The Master of Whisperers showed a sad smile to his royal patron. The Royal Treasury may have stayed intact since they had transported it to secure locations before the war began, but it was now disappearing faster than the purse of a young man in a whorehouse. There were massive loans to be repaid, Great and Lesser Houses to be rewarded for their loyalty and their losses. Castles burned and sacked had to be rebuild, the new frontier separating the two kingdoms had to be guarded and fortified. There were granaries to repair and food harvests to purchase. Already they were plenty of gaunt and desperate faces in King's Landing and the nearby holdfasts, and winter was showing no sign of weakness. The kingdom needed all the gold it had to buy food, winter clothes and mend the bleeding wounds of the war; saving a Prince which may or may not have been the King a year ago and was living in a Lysene palace would not solve the thousand of problems they had to deal each fortnight.
"I think that if we had really no choice your Grace, the Master of Coin could find half of this sum in five or six days...but to gather two millions, we would have to raise the taxes."
Daeron nodded negatively the moment the words left his mouth.
"No, absolutely not. The smallfolk and the merchants are already unhappy with us, we can't pressure them further. If we increase the taxes or create new ones, there will be riots and murder in the streets by nightfall." The son of Lady Hightower shook his head in regret. "No, I don't see any way we can afford to pay this ransom...the true question is if my Black cousin will pay it for her half-brother."
In theory, this was Larys' very task to answer this question but he had not an answer ready for his sovereign. His knowledge of the 'Black court' was far from complete and the Riverlands were not in a good position to listen to the sailors travelling to Lys and the Stepstones.
"I don't know if your Black cousin will want to pay the ransom, but honestly I don't think they have the gold for this." He replied honestly. "The main mines the Starks, Arryns and the rest of the Trident Lords are able to extract metal from are silver, not gold. Unlike your Grace, they've started the war without a Royal Treasury and my agents are struggling to understand how they managed to pay their armies in the first place."
Granted, the realm had been at peace and wealthy for decades, but many Lords had continued to pay their troops far longer than they should have been able to.
"The Blacks are resourceful and I will ask a few copper-counters today to lend me their skills to the task, but I don't think they can afford to pay more than two hundred thousand dragons before bankruptcy."
Between this and the two million and five hundred thousand these gold-thirsty Rogares wanted, it left an immense gap. And if the Iron Throne had many loans to repay, castles to rebuild and allies to help, the same had to be true for Baela Targaryen and the Lords having followed her in the destruction of the realm.
"The Blacks could decide to sell another dragon egg or one of the Valyrian heirlooms they took from Dragonstone," the dragonrider pointed out.
"They have a dragon egg with Prince Viserys; they don't need another one. And from all artefacts the Blacks have in their hands, only Dark Sister is likely to interest the Rogares."
This Lysene House did not appear to be ruled by men who gave away shipments of wealth for a few dusty books.
"No, your Grace. Prince Viserys will remain a hostage for many years. It will take probably decades for the Blacks to gather this gigantic ransom and by the time they have, he will be an old man, and an old foreigner. No Westerosi of high lineage will follow him."
"And if the egg hatches?" A simple question posed, and one there could be only one answer.
"Then we will hire the best assassins gold can buy to kill him. The kingdom can survive a furious Lysene Bank, but your Grace can't fight three dragons with only one..."
Balon Pyke
They called him Balon Greyjoy now.
King Balon Greyjoy, Master of the Iron Islands, Lord of Rock and Ashes. But in his heart, he didn't feel different. He was always Balon Pyke, bastard son of a dead Lord of Pyke, survivor of a few battles and disasters.
It was true he reigned now over rocks and ashes, like every man and woman of the islands. No Ironborn captain could pretend ruling over the seas these days. The great longships had disappeared under the waves, in the flames of dragonfire or the hands of their conquerors.
The Battle of the Kingsmoot had been awfully one-sided. With a dragon on the other side and the Ironborn captains drunk of glory, power and gold, the word 'battle' was generous. It had been a slaughter, pure and simple. The blue beast the Targaryen had flown over Old Wyk had destroyed them with an incredible facility. Harlaw, Botley, Goodbrother...the banners were different but all of their men had fallen. Great reavers had died along poor sailors in a storm of death. Arrows had been shot in vain. Axes, swords, spears and warhammers had been worse than useless. Those who had tried to flee directly by sea had met a bloody end against the anvil of the Redwyne ships.
Balon would like to say it had been a rout when the great captains were all gone, but it was a weak word for the chaos which had followed this defeat. Accompanied by a few Drowned Priests, he had gathered between three hundred and four hundred warriors, servants, women and the like before taking three longships on the other side of the island and escaping to Great Wyk. As far as he was able to say, the group he had commanded had been one of the rare ones to keep their lives that day.
The forts of Old Wyk, the bones of Nagga, the longships, the beaches of stone and the longships, all were gone. And with the Iron Lords decimated, the greenlanders had moved for the kill. Pyke had been stormed and Harlaw sacked. The great strongholds were taken and the granaries were pillaged or destroyed. In mere fortnights, the brilliance of the strategy had become painfully evident.
The Ironborn were losing everything they cared about. With Old Wyk, they had lost their holy grounds and the sacred place to crown a King. With Harlaw, they had lost the food they needed to survive the winter, the thousands of thralls to work in the mines and their first shield against the enemy raids. With Pyke, they had lost their greatest armoury, the most defensible citadels, several of their best harbours and most of the prestige they had gained by humbling the Westerlands. With the naval defeats, they had lost control of the sea and their seaman's pride.
If these blows had been struck once per decade, maybe they could have endured. But they were struck in days and the morale of his people had collapsed. And he didn't count the countless raids, the wells poisoned, the fields burnt and the minor keeps demolished.
The Redwyne warships and the dragon were long gone, but they still didn't dare returning to the great fortresses and their ancestral homes. Here were the men, women and children he had helped saving, gathered in the Great Hall of Crow Spike Keep. They were a bit less than a thousand people, and for such a small keep it was a lot. In better times, they would have been considered beggars and unfit to be welcomed in this cadet seat of House Goodbrother. But the reavers of Crow Spike Keep had never returned from the Kingsmoot – Balon had seen their biggest longship break in two with his own eyes and didn't think the rest had fared better.
So when the first refugees had come from the destruction of Old Wyk and the rest of the Goodbrother forts, the gates had been opened. Many families had been saved from a cold death in the deadly and stormy nights of Great Wyk. In the first days, they had hoped thousands more would join the cause.
But this flow of warriors and smallfolk had never appeared on their doorsteps. On one hand, it was a relief because they wouldn't have anything to feed them with. The waves and the sky knew they had to ration heavily if they wanted to see the next spring. On the other hand, no one coming was giving birth to grim and dark rumours about what was appearing to the rest of the Iron Islands. He was trying to maintain morale, repeating many families were now hiding in far-away castles and refuges like they did, away from the coast and the greenlanders' wrath.
But it was not working, and people were angry. They blamed Dalton of course, but his royal half-brother was long gone in the Halls of the Drowned God. Perhaps if Dalton had lived, the smallfolk would have accused him. But he had died from this damned arrow in the siege of the Shield Islands. And the Red Kraken had been a King and a renowned warrior. The Ironborn didn't blame the head of the kingdom; they blamed the evil advisors...
"You could stay here, you know." He told Maron of the Cliffs, the oldest Drowned Priests having survived the succession of disasters, long marches and privations. There were on the greatest tower of Crow Spike Keep – the only tower worth the name, really – and no matter how far his vision went, the spectacle wasn't pretty at all. A cold wind was projecting the small snow mantle everywhere, giving the nearby mountains the appearance of ugly shadows in the distance.
"It is not the solution and you know it, my King." The old man gave him a sad smile. "Our Priesthood made many mistakes in the last years, it is not wrong to say it. And the families here are beginning to hate us for it. You can't afford to lose their support now."
It was true, but it did not make the situation less difficult. Perhaps if they had been some of the worst warmongers here, he would not have felt much regret but the fanatics and Dalton's bitterest supporters were dead now. Either they had burned in dragonfire, or they had thrown themselves from the cliffs in desperate attempts 'to wake up the Drowned God'. It went without saying that in the aftermath, all Balon and his group had seen were floating corpses.
"I am going to miss your advice."
"Bah, we will be back from Downdelving and Corpse Lake before the moon is over!" The Priest of the Cliffs gave a friendly thump on the shoulder before descending the stairs with a mute assistant on his lips.
Balon admired the self-assurance of Maron. Despite what the man had just said, the orders he had given were more or less a death sentence. The Drowned Priests were going to be in the wilderness while winter storms raged. He had to give them as little food as possible to preserve the reserves in the cellars of Crow Spike Keep. Their chances to reach Corpse Lake – the nearest human settlement where they were possibly humans still alive – were tiny for a warrior in his prime. And the Drowned Priests were long past their young years.
No, whatever he might say, the obvious reason of these orders was to thin the numbers of hungry mouths and appease the loud voices demanding the heads of the Priests. According to one of the old reavers having sailed in the Northern seas some years ago, the Northerner did it when the years of winter were upon them. The Ironborn had never been forced to imitate them...until now.
"When I dreamed of a crown, there was more glory and less difficult decisions..."
Lord Cregan Stark
Fortunately, the Queen had gone to Winterfell two days ago. If she hadn't, Cregan was sure the Rogare envoy would have already been devoured by Moondancer. No one had managed to anger their Queen that much since the beginning of her reign, but Cregan was ready to bet a hundred dragons the Lysene would be the man to break her composure.
It was best to avoid this. Aside from the fact it would leave a mess on the expensive carpets, the Greens would no doubt seize the opportunity to present Northerners, Black Dragons and Valemen as stupid barbarians. Like the Southerners had not impaled and razed hundreds of villages and thousands of hamlets during the war.
"You leave me in a difficult situation, Lysene." Really, his fate had already been decided the moment this arrogant Essossi had set a foot on Westeros but best play the part of the aggrieved Hand of the King.
"I realise two million and a half gold dragons is a large sum," said the silver-gold haired man in pompous robes. The tone employed was hitting his nerves. It was like the man was half-apologising, while his eyes shone in greed and rapacity.
"Oh, no you don't understand." Cregan let his face show a genuine smile on his lips and suddenly the arrogance of the Lysene decreased somewhat. Luaederys, Luvederys...he couldn't honestly remember the name of this Rogare cousin and it wasn't like he needed to. "We will not pay the Rogare bank the fantastic sum you want. There will be no negotiation on this. We have not the gold you want, not after your fleet of corsairs and slavers burned Driftmark and ravaged our coasts."
"It was a legitimate campaign for the damage Prince Daemon did to our beloved city!" The Lysene managed to put a virtuous face, but his hands shook a bit.
"So you admit the Kingdom of Westeros and Lys are at war, then?" Cregan forced himself to ask the question politely, and suddenly the light of fear in the dark blue eyes lighted on, the Essossi realising at last the trap he had just jumped into.
"Yes...I mean no!"
"Are you sure?" The Lord of Winterfell was taking great amusement at the discomfort of his interlocutor. By the looks of it, so were the guards and the rest of the court in the Great Hall of Stone Hedge. There were plenty of chuckles and giggles directed at the Rogare envoy. There were saying those of Valyrian blood were able to stay imperturbable even in front of death, but this was nothing but falsehood. The man he stared at was transpiring heavily and it wasn't because there were large fires several dozen feet away.
"If Lys and Westeros are not at war, the actions of your Rogare patrons are nothing more than piracy on a grand scale. If your city and my Queen's kingdom are in conflict, then by all rights you have come to Her Grace's capital without a banner of peace to make outlandish demands. In this case, I will have no choice but to imprison you in the royal cells until a suitable price will be paid for your release."
The face of the Essossi was not yet the pale of a corpse having stayed several days in the water, but it was fast approaching this point. It was honestly like he had never thought about it. He should have. With the breaking of the alliance of Lys, Myr and Tyrosh and the resumption of hostilities between them, the Seven Kingdoms could largely afford to oppose Lys. They would certainly not get Prince Viserys back, but they had neither the treasury nor the troops to demand his liberation anyway. In a few years perhaps, when the dragon of the Queen and her sister were fully grown...
"Tell me which situation is the right one, before I lose patience and decide for you..."
Author's note: No battle in this chapter and less dragons, but they will come back next time. Westeros is changing as winter is imposing its cold rule, and many outcomes which went better in canon are now getting completely out of control. More links for the Dance is not Over on P a treon: ww w. p a treon Antony444