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Chapter 6 Part 3
=Sith=
290 AC
Astapor
Finally, Viserys had the time to see what kind of industry he had to work with. His initial impressions were mostly correct. Between free craftsmen joined in various guilds, and slaves being trained in all kinds of trades, Astapor was more or less self-sufficient as far as most basic goods and trades were concerned. The only thing he noticed missing were glass-makers – Myr had a monopoly on the trade in Essos, and the Myrish were ready to fight and murder their way through people to maintain it. That was particularly true for a city like Astapor, known for training slaves as craftsmen for sale worldwide, barring Westeros.
There was a base of trained professionals who could serve as a core to jumpstart various industries, perhaps even enough of them to ignite a minor industrial revolution. Viserys didn't have the know-how to do it all by himself, but as the ruler of Astapor, he didn't have to. He had people to give ideas to work on and the money to finance their experiments.
He knew that manual labor was a dead end, especially when you didn't have tons of slaves to throw at the problem. Developing steam engines would take a lot of time if they were viable at all. Viserys knew just enough in related fields to be aware that if material science wasn't there, which meant having advanced enough metallurgy, then practical steam and other engines were simply out of the question.
Harnessing water and wind, on the other hand, should be perfectly doable. There was a river nearby and another near Meereen. Both would be useful for future development. Small things, like establishing a unified, realm-wide system of measurements, would greatly simplify things and have considerable long-term effects on the production of virtually everything.
Viserys listened to blacksmiths boast about their goods and their skill, paying attention to everything they let slip about working with Valyrian steel. It made sense that Astapor had the smiths who could smelt and rework the magical metal. While there were no Valyrian Steel weapons in the possession of the Good Masters, Viserys took virtually all jewelry and other trinkets made of the metal in their possession as a part of the price they paid for their continued existence.
"I must see all the metal I will have to work with to be sure, Master!" Belio Iranyl waved his muscled hands in sharp, eager gestures. "It has been a few years since I last had the opportunity, Master! I will not fail you! It is going to be a great honor to craft a weapon worthy of you!"
"Not to mention how famous you will be if I turn your creation into a legend," Viserys chuckled.
"You took Astapor, and you are a powerful sorcerer. You will be a legend! Those who aid you might become legends as well! Think of the fame, Master! Everyone will be coming to me to reforge them Valyrian Steel weapons!" Iranyl gleefully declared. The man was lost in his own world, daydreaming of glory and eternal fame.
"I'll send everything to you tomorrow with Unsullied guard. We can't have some scoundrel absconding with your legacy, can we, Master Iranyl?" Viserys promised.
"I will be ready! Apprentice! Where are you, boy! We have work to do! Everything must be ready for tomorrow! We will be famous the world over!"
Viserys left the smith quarter, pondering all he learned. They could make the armor required to turn the Unsullied into a proper heavy infantry if paid enough and given the necessary materials. The price, material, and time needed for a good plate was too much. Even if the smiths began training more Apprentices in earnest, they were highly unlikely to have the time to outfit thousands of soldiers with breastplates or heavier armor. Better helmets, vambraces, and gloves would help, and they could be created in a reasonable timeframe. After checking examples of what the smiths and their trainees had produced, Viserys had a long chat about the merits of different armor types, focused on price, material availability, and cost. The rough time needed to outfit a single Unsullied was a factor.
However, the most critical stumbling block was that Viserys didn't need to only upgrade the equipment of his elite soldiers. He required gear for the expanded city guard, his future regular army formations, and the militia. Well, the militia and city guard were the first to need equipment. Gear recovered from the former city guard and the personal guard slavers who were dead or in custody would be useful in that regard but far from sufficient. After all, Viserys was already laying the foundations for a massive military expansion.
The ease of manufacture and repair and flexibility won the day for lamellar armor. It could be worn over leather and other armor types, making it an excellent upgrade for the Unsullied. Another selling point for lamellar was that it didn't have to be steel – tough leather and other materials would do in a pinch… Astapor had the leather and tanning industries to make it work even when there was not enough good steel or iron.
New armor and weapons were going to cost Viserys. However, despite everything he needed to finance in the short term, he was still ahead due to all the assets he seized from the Good Masters and minor slavers. Just the treasure of the dead Good Masters made him obscenely wealthy, arguably to the point that he had far more gold and other treasure than he could feasibly spend until trade resumed. And if it was war, well…. Then Viserys at least could afford to play bidding wars for mercenary companies and should be even wealthier after seizing Yunkai and Meereen.
=Sith=
In the evening, after taking stock of his fledgling industrial capacity, Viserys visited the Temple of the Graces. Ignoring the local religion wasn't an option. That was especially true when most healers in the city were Blue Graces, priests, and priestesses, in other words. It didn't help that the Ghiscari religion had a whole order of cult prostitutes, the Red Graces, who would make a great addition to Viserys' future intelligence service. Even if he had to spend months mind-fucking the High Priestess in charge of the temple and thus the religious authority in Astapor, he needed the woman subverted one way or another.
Six women in dark pink dresses walked forth to meet him. Veils of light pink fabric covered their faces, making them appear like ghosts. They all flanked a tall, thin woman wearing a rich forest green gown. A silk transparent veil covered the lower half of her face, falling over her bare shoulders. She was a middle-aged woman with tanned dark skin that looked almost red under the illumination of flickering torches. Green eyeliner surrounded her eyes, glowing with reflected light. Her silver hair betrayed Valyrian ancestry despite her eyes being the same green shade as her dress.
"Master Targaryen, her Benevolence Zanage Shaehl, welcomes you to the Temple of the Graces," the lead Pink Grace chanted.
"I've dreamed of your coming, young Dragon. We have much to discuss,"
Viserys walked deeper into the temple, perceiving no danger, merely apprehension from the Priestesses who watched him. He could perceive hunger and anticipation from Zanage Shaehl, but no hostility, much less threat. Either way, with Dany reasonably safe, any danger here would likely end up being stress relief instead of a meaningful threat.
Besides, the most trouble the Priestess could make for him was through a refusal to cooperate because, in the end, open hostility would get them killed in a way Viserys could reasonably get away with.
They retreated to a parlor fit for the residence of a Good Master, nicely displaying the wealth and thus power of the temple—well, the people in charge of the temple. The Green Grace sat on a divan covered with silk cushions, gestured to one of the priestesses in pink to pour wine, and dismissed her attendants.
Zanage Shaehl removed her veil, revealing full crimson lips, which she licked suggestively.
"I've foreseen we will do great things together, young Dragon!" the Green Grace purred.
So, that was how the woman wanted to play this. Viserys drew on the Force and smirked at her.
=Sith=
Chapter 6 Part 4
=Sith=
290 AC
Astapor
Spending the night with the Green Grace was admittedly a pleasurable escapade. Nevertheless, Viserys' shenanigans in the Temple of the Graces proved a point – he needed a reliable staff to cover everything he might miss or simply be unaware of. People providing opposing opinions, for when he was full of shit, wouldn't go amiss either.
The truth of the last night was that Viserys simply overlooked the importance of religion in consolidating his control over Astapor. That was a crippling flaw in his plan, considering how important the Temple of the Graces was due to the broad services it provided.
First and foremost, the great majority of healers in the city were trained there and worked for the temple – the Blue Graces. It was only thanks to asking a few questions of Ser Lonmouth about his healers and the progress of the knight's healing that Viserys became aware of that critical point, which led him to slip various probing questions into his conversations with everyone in the past day. That was how he learned of the Red Graces, who appeared tailor-made to be a spy network. Further research proved revealing, including bedside conversation with the Green Grace herself.
No matter how things might have been intended to go, the Temple of the Graces was intimately connected with most families that mattered in Astapor. The same was true for the temples in the other Ghiscari cities in Essos. The key to that entanglement was the White Graces – young girls of noble or other respectable backgrounds with little prospect given to the temple. They would become priestesses of all orders, making for a particularly incestuous relationship between the powers that be in the Ghiscari cities and the local Temples of the Graces.
Through family connections, healers, and divinely mandated courtesans, the Red Graces, the local religious authority, wielded an incredible amount of soft power, backed by a tremendous amount of blackmail material and other secrets that allowed the Green Grace and her cronies to profit tremendously.
In hindsight, that Zanage Shaehl wanted Viserys in her bed to influence him and drain him dry for all his secrets should have come as no surprise. With Astapor under new management, the temple's power diminished catastrophically. Suddenly, everyone the Green Grace was connected with was already dead or under the Targaryens' thumb.
If Viserys was indeed a green boy, no matter his sorcerous power, Zanage Shaehl might have been able to woo him after fucking his brain out. The Sith had to give the woman credit where credit was due; she was more than experienced in bed. He had no doubt she had many of the Good Masters wrapped around her fingers and other body parts.
The Green Grace was also a rather strong-willed woman, so regular mind-fuckery wouldn't be sufficient. Turning her to his side would be a long-term project for Viserys, one that was likely to take a few months to do properly. He would enjoy it tremendously, and the rewards might be just what he needed to secure his control of Astapor. Having the backing of the religious authority, which was useful for the locals virtually all the time, would be very useful indeed.
Until Viserys had Zanage Shaehl eating from his hand as his creature, he would have to play a game of cat and mouse with her. Either way, her position and influence would earn her a place on his ruling council. At that point, he would have to be careful not to allow the perception that the Green Grace was leading him by the cock and ruling through him… or perhaps the contrary might be beneficial if the other slaver cities choose to play ball in the short term. If they believed he was under the sway of one of their own, they might be far less likely to strike first or strike fast, allowing Zanage Shaehl to deal with him one way or another.
Many of the other issues threatening to devour Viserys' time proved far less pleasant to contemplate and much less deal with. They were often more pressing and arguably dangerous.
While some of the scholars and craftsmen of the city were busy trying to make a basic printing press work, others focused on auditing what Astapor had available in human resources and raw materials to feed the city's industry. Besides interviewing the city's visitors, figuring out what Viserys had to work with proved relatively easy and straightforward. Officially, he had everyone still alive willing to work with him. In practice, that wasn't entirely true. Almost all liberated slaves and surviving city officials were on board. However, some of the latter were guaranteed to be trouble due to losing family members when the Unsullied took Astapor.
Administrators who had made the slave trade work like clockwork were now out of work and liable to compensate for any shortfalls in government and other educated personnel Viserys might need in the short to medium term. Educational initiatives should have him covered in the long term as well.
The availability and flow of raw materials to feed Astapor's industries were a much thornier issue. The city was self-sufficient in terms of the production of almost all basic and advanced goods, which was a consequence of its industrial-scale training of high-value slave craftsmen.
The same simply wasn't true as far as procuring raw materials was concerned. There were mines, quarries, and clay pits in the nearby Ghiscari mountains. That was a big reason why Astapor bought a large number of expendable slaves condemned to hard work. Those locations were currently not under Viserys control. Even after he had the assets available to capture and hold them, they would be of a marginal utility. The reason was simple – with slavery out of the picture and thus lack of a constant influx of people to grease the wheel of industry there, those places would quickly become far less valuable.
Viserys wasn't sure how practical it might be to utilize wind and, where applicable, water power to aid in mining efforts. Either way, he didn't control those mines, and dispatching small groups of Unsullied to capture them was out of the question for the time being.
More importantly, most of the raw resources Astapor utilized didn't come from those locations; instead, the Good Masters, traders, and craftsmen bought them from all over Essos. A naval blockade could thus cripple Viserys' industry.
Another major source of slaves and other goods were Dothraki Khalasars. While the Good Masters had to pay tribute to every visiting Khal, more often than not, those visits apparently paid for themselves, or so Old Theo claimed. Viserys was still to see the numbers proving such a claim but it made sense. The Dothraki were fucking slavers, and the primary reason they came to cities, beyond extracting a tribute, was to trade. Apparently, most Khals spent a big part of their tribute buying weapons, horses, luxuries, medicine, and whatever else struck their fancy. They also sold slaves, hides, dried and salted meat, and whatever they'd looted, anyone might be willing to buy.
That realization had Viserys rethink his plan for dealing with visiting Khalasars. Keeping them coming back to trade might be the best option in the short term. Buying any slaves they had to offer, then liberating them and making an offer for a new life, might be a way to increase the available manpower as well…. And it might be possible to hire Dorthraki as cavalry. That was all true in the short term. The Dothraki had to go in the long term, for they were too much of a threat to leave run around unchecked.