Chapter XXV: Painting in Blood

Yronwood would not fall as easily as Wyl did. The siege had gone on for more than a fortnight, the royal troops ferried by the king's ships while the Stormlanders laid siege to Skyreach, hopefully with aid from Reachers coming up the Prince's Pass, though Kingsgrave was still in their way.

In the king's pavilion, amidst the lords gathered in council of war, one was fool enough not to think a plan through, and fool enough to make it heard. Though no lord of fame and bold deeds, nor commander named by the king, he had somehow found his way into the councils by dint of how many lances he had gathered to battle in his name. He went by the name of Albin Peake, and an office of some worth held previously in King's Landing was the reason he was not presently amidst the hosts of the Reach.

Instead of giving counsel on the taking of the castle, the knight spoke of matters outside such purview and greater than he ever had right to give counsel:

"Your Grace, perhaps it would be wise to offer Lord Yronwood dominion over Dorne, if he renounces his rebellion and begs for mercy and renews his fealty. Surely, he has allies of his own amid the Dornish, and the Bloodroyal have always made claim of paramountcy south of the Red Mountains. It would surely help us pacify this kingdom, if Your Graces names one of their own as lord over them."

Amid the jeers and lords calling the unfortunate fool craven, the king banged his fist upon the table, asking for silence, and with a measured voice, answered him:
"I had thought of a plan myself, if you would care to learn it?", he said, and the knight could only nod. "Let us gather our host and go round the walls of the castle once for ever six days, seven priests singing hymns to the Warrior before our men. And upon the seventh day, we shall go round seven times and then all men shall shout with great shouts, and make blasts out of trumpets and horns, and the walls of the castle shall fall down flat."

Murmurs arose in the council, and none dared to speak about such an audacious plan. At last, Ser Jonos Edgerton dared to ask the king: "Sire, was this deed revealed into you in a vision in the night by the Warrior?"

"By the Seven, no, Jonos" cried the king, with sudden anger. "I know you to be pious but use your wits for but a moment. Nay, it is but a jest. But having heard the words of a fool drip into our ears, I had thought we were making fun, not speaking of a serious matter. To name Yronwood Lord Paramount of Dorne instead of the arch-rebel Martell? He has with equal measure rebelled against us, fought against his rightful liege, and knew of the planned treachery that led to my brother's death – I will show him no mercy, for I hold the most violent and deadly hatred against him. So, I had thought to make my own joke, so monumentally amusing that none would take it but for such. It seems I was wrong. So tell me, Ser Albin, are you such a fool that you do not think before you speak, or you are a different sort of fool, a jester who tried to lighten our day with your buffoonery?"

Ser Albin thought for a moment but had not the heart to confess himself foolish in matter of politics or warfare, so he confessed himself to be a jester, and apologized for the misplaced levity of his words.

"Well, if buffoons we must have among our council", said the king, "I could have summoned one of my own employ. Begone from my sight, Ser Albin, and summon before me the fool Bastyen. Perhaps he'll speak wiser words. And you would do to remember that now we're waging war, not settling peace."

And wiser words Bastyen spoke. The king's jester knew the moment for levity, and the moment to speak of serious matters. And having once sold his sword in the Free Cities, he knew of warfare.

Sitting amid lords and generals more highly elevated than he, he spoke sound advice: "It seems to me, sire, that for all your late brother, King Daeron, has said that the Dornish could summon fifty thousand men to war against him, this is no longer the truth against you. Some say that your brother has exaggerated his words, and they numbered less, but many fell against his might, castles were sieged and fell, fields and orchards burned. The Yronwood no longer have the might of their full banners, their castle has been slighted in a previous siege, and your royal brother had wisely refused to allow the Dornish to repair their castles."

"And from what I have heard of the whispers of Maester Rowley, Your Grace's Lord Confessor, since the Submission of Sunspear, they had not the time to fill their granaries for a long siege. They had not done so when they feigned loyalty, as to not seems suspicious in the eyes of Lord Tyrell, and they have not done so since they treacherously cut down your brother, for they viewed your surrender of the hostages as the abandonment of all plans for Dorne. And their false sense of security only grew when you made war with Pentos instead. Only of late have they sought to prepare for sieges, but the time of the harvest was not near and so they had little success in it."

"This is my advice then, Sire. If you wish to starve them out, it shall not take too long. If you wish to storm the castle, it will fall easier than most castles, for lack of repairs. And Yroonwood has no tunnels or caves where the defenders might hide. I judge either decision to be a wise one – for we can be resupplied at sea, and we have also asked fines of produce from the villages of Yronwood's lands, and they have sent victuals to our camp, to save themselves from looting. And they do not seek to give aid and countenance to their liege, for they hold dear their immunity from war."

No one of the council saw fault with his words, and by the king's decision, the next day, Yronwood's castle was to be stormed.

The next morning siege towers were prepared, tens and hundreds of ladders readied to escalade the walls. The walls had been mined under in the previous days but had not collapsed yet. The other engines of war now stood silent and resting, for if they were to storm the castle, it would not do to hit their own men.

Among the men that volunteered to be first upon the walls were many knights and lords of the Crownlanders, men who bore the livery of the Holy Hundred, chief among them Ser Jonos, joined by his brother Symon, and the two fools, Bastyen, and Ser Albin, the latter eager to wash away his shame in blood.

Men gathered in files in front of the ladder, climbing one after the other. Man after man fell under bolts and arrows, under boiling oil and under rocks that smashed the helmeted heads of soldiers and threw them into the moat. From the king's own archers, some fell from the siege towers to their doom – damnation or salvation in the next life. Not all died, but some limped away with grievous wounds and burns.

It was a day of corpse-making, and blood flowed freely as the battle waged on, under the watchful eyes of King Baelor, sat upon his horse a safe distance from the walls, the Kingsguard gathered around him.

But not all that died were of the king's men. Symon Edgerton was first upon the walls, slaying half a dozen defenders, before one had grappled him upon the wooden hoarding and thrust a dirk into his eye. At that sight, Ser Jonos, who had come second after him, carved a dozen or two more Dornishmen with a great axe, as if he were a butcher slaughtering piglets for a lord's feast. After him, was the third man, Bastyen the jester who showed no lesser a valour that many a great knight that fought for the king.

The king had a great more men that he could afford to lose than Lord Yronwood and by nightfall, the castle was taken. His men had entered the castle by climbing with ladders on the walls, but King Baelor entered it through the open gate, to find the Yronwood bound and awaiting his sentence, surrendered men-at-arms kneeling around him, disarmed under the sword and spears of royal soldiers, and his hall burning behind him.

"Tell me, my lord Yronwood", asked Baelor, "why did you have to pain and wound us so? Could you not have kept your oath and stayed in your castle while Dorne rebelled? You might now be ruling Dorne by my generosity if it were so. But my cousin Aemon spoke of you joining the treacherous curs that betrayed my brother under sacred banner. Why choose such folly?"

"I am the Bloodroyal! Why should I bend before you, son of an abomination of incest?" spat Yronwood. "I have the pride of my line to uphold. Kill me and be done – you'll hear no penance from me."

"Yet you knelt before Martell as if you were a pup taken from the bitch and raised with milk by his own hand. You have humbled yourself before him far more than you would have done before me or my brother. And for no gain."

"You see the banner that stands behind me, Yronwood?"

The Dornish lord tried to keep his silence, but the armoured fist of Jonos Edgerton and a few missing teeth washed away his stubbornness. "It is the red banner of war without mercy" said he, with gritted teeth.

"It is more than a hundred years. Some maesters say it was a white one, until Maegor the Cruel drenched it in the blood of the Faith Militant. Perhaps I shall need to use another white banner, and being a royal one, dye it with the Bloodroyal."

The king turned to one of his men: "Fetch me the linens of Lord Yronwood's bed." Once they had been brought forth. The king took them and threw them on the ground. He grabbed Lord Yronwood by his long hair, took his dagger and cut his throat, the blood dripping upon the fabric, pale white turning to bloody red. Once the last of the blood spilled upon it, and the traitor's corpse was carted away, the king asked that the linen be made into a banner, to be carried from now in war.

His attention now solely upon the remaining prisoners, he ordered the hanging of the remains of the garrison. Lord Yronwood's sons, good-sons and grandsons faced two fates. Those who none present witnessed being part of the great treachery that led to the death of Daeron had a chance at their life. If they begged the king for mercy and confessed themselves traitors, they were given the chance of taking the black, spending the rest of their lives as brothers of the Night's Watch. Those who were present at that murderous meeting, or those too prideful to beg for mercy had their throats slit, a deed for which Ser Jonos and his father, Lord Manly Edgerton were quick to offer themselves. In that deed, they imitated the king, but instead they dyed in blood white surcoats, and swore that they would wear such bloody garments on their armour until all of Dorne were pacified and they would have returned the bones of their kin to Moorcastle, to the grieving lady Elissa.

The daughters, good-daughters and granddaughters of Lord Yronwood were to join the silent sisters. A fitting fate, for half of them had been already rendered mute, witnessing the cruel fate of their male kin that was the king's will.

And then the king and his army marched towards the Tor. In the weeks and months following, news came of the fall of Kingsgrave and Skyreach, of Blackmount, Starfall and High Hermitage.

The Stormlanders, after leaving garrisons in the castles they took, embarked upon the ships of the royal fleet, eager to once again join the king. The host of the Reach split in twain, half braving the dunes of the Dornish desert, to wreak vengeance upon the Qorgyles, and half marching up the Brimstone River to take the Hellholt. None envied them, for their part in war would be the hardest of all.

After the Tor, Ghost Hill had Spottswood had fell, king Baelor and the Oakenfist joined and soon ravens would feast upon the flesh of the slain all along the Greenblood. Meanwhile, the longships of the Iron Isles reaved all across the southern coast of Dorne. But the Dornish coast was hundred of leagues of whirlpools, cliffs, and hidden shoals – hardly a place to make a safe landing. The Ironborn who made it to the shore were half likely to drown with their loot upon their leaving, and many said that such was precisely the king's intent upon unleashing those murderous reavers.


NOTES:NOTES: I am not going to write every siege and battle of the war - so next in line would be dealings with the Orphans of the Greenblood, the taking of Sunspear/Fall of the Martells, the Tyrell vengeance in Sandstone, and the post-war settlement of Dorne.

For discussion of a more spoilery/futuristic nature, updates on writing and research for the fic, ideas that might or might not make it into the fic, general banter, etc: /NvdD4mCTKJ