Chapter 98: The Price of Peace
29 AF
King Robb Stark
The wind carried the scent of apple blossom and scorched hay. It was the smell of a dying garden, and he rode through it at the head of his army. Behind him, stretched in long, disciplined columns, marched ten thousand Northmen, their banners snapping in the wind—grey direwolves, black bears, unchained giants and blood-red flayed men. Armor gleamed beneath the mid-morning sun, and the sound of booted feet and iron clattering filled the still Reach air like thunder echoing through a quiet vale.
The Roseroad wound gently southward, once a golden artery of the Reach, now bruised and dark with the imprint of iron-shod hooves.
They had succeeded at Oldtown. The city had opened its gates. The Citadel, spared. The High Septon taken. It had not ended in blood—though it could have. And now they rode swiftly northward, a steel river flowing down the Roseroad, bound for Highgarden, to finish the war and cement peace.
All around them, fields lay fallow or trampled. Orchards half-harvested, half-charred. The villages—those that remained—greeted him with abandoned squares and shuttered doors. All that could be heard was the quiet rhythm of hooves and the weight of passing steel. A hush deeper than snow.
War had not burned this country as cruelly as it had burned the Riverlands in the beginning of this war, or the upper regions around Tumbleton, but it had scorched the memory of peace from the earth. He had brought winter to the lands around the Honeywine. When he looked around, the fields seemed to know him for what he was. And he wondered, as he passed the sun-browned remnants of a vineyard, whether the Reach would ever forgive him. Or whether they should.
To his left rode Rickard, helmet slung at his side, eyes sharp as a whetted blade. His eldest son had seen more battle than some seasoned lords. Older men often compared him to his father, 'Lord Ned', and he looked very similar with his long face, brown hair and grey eyes, only his red beard was unmistakenly his. Yet, his judgments were colder and more calculating than his father's had ever been. More decisive. His blood also ran hotter than his father's or his own ever had, but as time passed, he had managed to iron his demeanor into a calm mask. Only seldomly did his outbursts break through, but when they did it was a force to be reckoned with.
To his right rode his youngest son Jon, younger, more restless. Although never quiet or calm, he had formerly been the more composed one of his sons when they were growing up. However, the war had made him tense and quicker tempered. In quick succession, he had lost his wife and two of his best friends and kinsmen, Benjen Whitefyre and Medgar Cerwyn. Guilt and grief had consumed him ever since. He had also had a special bond with his namesake uncle, and the loss of his guidance had threatened to let him astray. However, this had mostly been averted due to the intervention of Ricky and the Dustins. Although, he rode silently now, he could sense the fire simmering beneath his skin. The need to divert his doubts and demons onto others.
Both his sons had earned their place at his side. But he sometimes feared what this war would make of them. Men, yes, but what kind of men.
Deep in thought, he looked around. The Reach had once been a land of song and cider, of long tables and longer summers. He remembered a book he had read at Winterfell in his youth, stories of Garth Greenhand, who sowed apple seeds with every step, who made women bloom and children strong. A green god in a golden land.
Now Garth was dead in the dirt. Buried beneath levy corpses and the scorched banners of Houses Tarly, Beesbury and Blackbar.
Their march slowed as they crested a ridge. From the summit, he could see the road snake ahead through gentle hills, flanked by ruined granaries and abandoned villages. He reined in, letting the wind tousle his greying hair. The morning sun caught the distant shimmer of water in the fields, shallow and stagnant.
"Your Grace," came a soft voice behind him.
He turned slightly in the saddle. A horse approached—grey, old, with a middle-aged rider in maester's robes. The man looked shriveled, travel-worn, his chain glinting in the light.
"Maester Benedict," Robb said. "You've caught us."
The maester inclined his head. "I hope that I am not too late. I am afraid that I am not used to the road."
He chuckled, eyes still on the horizon. "Aye, an army's march is not comparable to Oldtown."
"No," Benedict agreed. "But then, few things are."
Robb's eyes narrowed as he looked eastward. Somewhere beyond the horizon, the green spires of Highgarden rose above the Mander, surrounded by men sworn to a boy king and a delusional regent who refused to yield.
"We march fast, which complicates your craft." He remarked.
"It does, Your Grace."
"Well, then we will put this time to good use. Please ride in between my eldest son and me. I hope you do not mind my sons being present for this conversation? I would want them to hear this. It will be their duty to continue supporting your mission when I am rotting six feet under the ground."
The maester seemed shocked by the question alone, let alone the remark that he may pass one day, and he had to control the muscles in his face not to smile at how the man was trying not to trip over himself while answering the question. His youngest son seemed to be losing a similar battle.
"Of course not, Your Grace!" The maester bowed his heads to both his sons one after the other, as his horse trotted into the space that Rickard had made for him. "It is my honor to be in your presence, young princes." Both nodded back at him, amused at his Southern antics.
"Tell me more about yourself, Maester. Where are you from? How did you get to where you were in the Citadel?"
"Ah, I was born on Cracklaw Point, Your Grace. The fifth son of a household knight sworn to House Crabb. I had always been more drawn to the book than the sword, and when my father took me with him on one of his many trips, which he seldom did, all I ever did was camp in our hosts libraries. When I was sixteen, my father had had enough, and he send me to Oldtown. He did love me, in his own way. He had to call in a few favors to get me to travel to Oldtown and I will be forever thankful for it. That was the year 297 AC, just one year before war erupted in my homeland. My father and three of my brothers fought with you on the God's Eye against Tywin Lannister, and every battle after that, Your Grace."
That surprised him. "Did they now? That is a welcome surprise."
"They did. One of my elder brothers died on the Field of Gold. The others earned their spurs during your campaigns. They all bent their knees to you together with Lord Crabb. I expect that many of my nephews will have joined your forces when attacking the Reach, I look forward to meeting them for the first time. Last I heard, my three remaining brothers had rallied in your defense in your war in the Riverlands. I will rejoice in seeing them again. They wrote to me about you, throughout the years. On how proud they were to be able to ride into battle with you and how you have resurged a pride in them for their First Men heritage. Their tales of your direwolves have interested me for years. In contrast to most men at the Citadel, I couldn't believe my luck when you finally appeared before us there."
He took all that information in. He had asked himself multiple times why this maester would leave his promising position in the Citadel for him, but it became much clearer now.
"If you will allow me, I would love to accompany you to meet your family at Highgarden. I make a point of walking amongst my men, and it seems that I must thank them for their part in your willingness to join my service. A thing which has pleased me greatly."
The Clawman bowed lowly. "You honor me, Your Grace. I am but a humble maester."
"No, you are not. Not anymore, Maester Benedict. You are the first head of my new Department of Magic and Mysteries. For the duration of your work, which I hope will be long indeed, you will gain direct access to me and my family, and my house's personal library. In time, you will be allowed to create multiple divisions, I was thinking one in Harrenhall and one closer to the Wall, but for the foreseeable future you will settle in Winterfell with me."
The man's eyes almost burst out of his sockets, while his grin grew from ear to ear. "You will allow me access to your personal histories? What about the direwolves?"
"You will have access to all of it in time, my dear maester. In turn, my house asks but a single thing. Absolute and unwavering loyalty. For access to me and my inner family, I demand nothing less. I am no pompous Southerner; in the North we are a simpler and more straightforward people. Leave the Southern power games in the Citadel, where they belong, and give me your loyalty. Prove me that, and you will see that every door north of the Blackwater will open itself to you." He responded.
The Clawman bowed so low, that he almost fell from his horse. "You have it, Your Grace. From now, until the moment I die. I have longed my whole life for less than a tenth of what you are offering. I will not you down."
He smiled, that was exactly the response that he was hoping for. "I have a task for you, Maester Benedict. The first of many."
"Name it, and I will do all I can to achieve it, Your Grace."
"I want you, and your companions to start writing down all you remember from the Citadel. I want you to create a general overview of the amount of knowledge present in the Citadel concerning magic and the higher mysteries. I want you to make a list of all the books all of you together can remember and a small summary of its contents. I want it organized both by region, the North, the Riverlands, the Vale, the Free Cities, Volantis, and so on, and by time period, the Dawn Age, the Age of Heroes, all the way to our new time."
"That will be a work spanning multiple weeks, Your Grace, maybe months, especially under these circumstances. And it will never be fully finished. There is no one in the Citadel with better knowledge of the mysteries of Cracklaw Point, the Valyrians, and the First Men than I, but even I won't be able to list half of the books on those topics."
"I know, but it is a start. The only way to expand our knowledge is to map out what is out there that we don't know. In time, friendly maesters and libraries all over my realm can help expand that list greatly."
The maester nodded eagerly. "But I don't understand? Why do you only want a small summary of its contents? In these volumes, legend and fact are often intertwined. It is the detailed contents that can help us understand magic realities, such as the return of direwolves. I, myself, can recite over a dozen great works from the Citadel, or at least its more interesting parts, why keep that information so condensed?"
He nodded, pleased with this answer. He had chosen the right man for this job. "It is. Once you reach Winterfell, that will be your second task. Writing down as much of the content as you can. However, I want to know what we are dealing with first. Compared to the Reach and the Citadel, we lag thousands of years behind. Yet, they neglect it all. With the vast resources, libraries and scrolls that I can offer you, I want you to shrink that disadvantage as much as you can."
Maester Benedict's eyebrows rose. "You want me to build a rival Citadel?"
"Only on the Higher Mysteries, not on anything else. And I want this order to be in direct service to House Stark, not in service of all the realms. That will differentiate them greatly from each other."
"We cannot do that with only seven members."
He agreed. "Once those two first tasks have been accomplished, I will slowly allow you to recruit, although only you and maybe, in time, a select few others will be able to come close to me or my family. In a few years, you will be able to induct anyone you deem worthy from the Blackwater to the Wall. Gold, resources and infrastructure won't ever be a problem. That is my promise to you. But first, I need the information on the Citadel."
Maester Benedict seemed overwhelmed by all this information. "I have a feeling, Your Grace, that I will appreciate working in Winterfell a lot more than I ever did in Oldtown." The Clawman finally surmised with a smile.
"My feeling says that Winterfell will accept you with open arms, Maester Benedict." He smirked back.
The maester bowed lowly in the saddle again, before trotting off back towards the baggage train, many miles behind them.
"You trust this man?" Rickard asked him.
He caressed his red and white beard with his right hand, as he looked around if anyone could hear them. None could, none except Torr and Ser Dickon which both already knew about his family's secret.
"I might, in the future. We need him. If Daenerys Targaryen's dragons had been a little older, we would have stood no chance. No telling what future dangers will arise from the east. We must be ready. The Andals surprised our people once, then the Valyrians followed. Both came from Essos. It will be our job, together, to make sure it doesn't happen a third time. Besides, imagine what would have happened if another family had developed a connection with magical animals, instead of us? We need to know what the possible threats are."
"We developed it because it was in our blood." His youngest son countered. "It could have been no one else."
"Aye, but our blood isn't the only one in Westeros that is powerful. Legend tells us that one of our ancestors defeated the Warg King and bound our bloodline with his by marrying his daughter. The same is said of the March Kings, who claimed to descent from the Children of the Forest. I want to try and discern what truth is in that. It is said that the Umbers are descended from Giants and the Mormonts from bears, which I interpret as other wargs. What is to say that that isn't true?"
"Well, your grandchildren descend from both lines as well. Wouldn't be a bad thing if it were true." Rickard joked.
"It wouldn't." He agreed, with absolute seriousness. "There was power in the blood of certain First Men families once, like there is with Valyrian ones. Power that has been dormant for a long time, but which seems to be waking up. I want to know as much as I can about it, and you both will have to learn too. For the sake of our family's future. I don't know what is myth and what is real anymore. What about all the other stories? Are they real too? Do the Seven's powers exist? Have they visited Westeros in ancient past? What about snarks and grumkins? The Others? Bloodmagic?"
He looked his sons deep in their eyes, one by one. "If any of you, or your descendants were to face just one of these in your lifetime, wouldn't you want to know what you were up against?"
Jon looked uncomfortable under his gaze, but Rickard seemed to be pondering his words. In the end, his eldest son agreed. "I am obligated to my son to take the idea seriously, I suppose."
He nodded. "Aye, as I am to mine." He responded, as he looked them both over again.
"Your Grace," he was suddenly interrupted from behind him. It was Tor. He looked back to his goodbrother. "Three riders coming from the east. It seems to be two of our scouts, but the man in the middle doesn't look like one of ours."
He looked in their direction, as the man closed the distance quickly. Before they could reach him. Torr and ten guards had already barred them from reaching him or his sons.
The man in the middle wore the livery of a Tarly rider. "King Stark, I carry a letter from Lord Dickon Tarly." He shouted.
He nodded to Torr, who rode on to retrieve the letter, before bringing it to him. He looked at its seal, which was unmistakably that of House Tarly, before breaking it and reading its contents.
His eyebrows rose. "It seems that Lord Tarly wants to surrender."
(Two weeks later)
Lord Dickon Tarly
He had buried a son, a royal nephew and multiple cousins since this war began. Now, standing in the shadow of a plain grey manor overlooking the scorched fields near Dustonbury, he prepared to surrender everything else. The building was once the property of side branch of House Redding, modest by southern standards, but its walls now bore a northern chill. The wolf had come, and it had not left.
He looked across the blackened fields towards distant Dustonbury. The pale castle proudly remained standing on its hill, but appearances are deceptive. It had long fallen to the enemy. Ser Moribald Redding and his family remained inside, he was told, but it made no difference. It was now a wolf's den, one of many that had forcefully sprung up across his kingdom.
A pair of guards in Stark grey opened the double doors before him, but forced him to leave his guards at the door. They did not salute. They did not smile. They only watched. Dickon straightened his back, ignoring the ache in his shoulder where a mace had once cracked bone, and walked through.
He had been here once before, on a hunting trip with Lord Redding. This small hall had once been draped in the banners of his house. Most of its walls were now stripped of tapestries. Bare stone walls and exposed beams gave it the feel of a winter keep. Only one sigil remained—the grey direwolf of House Stark, stark and solitary against the bare wooden panels behind the high seat.
Below it, sat King Robb Stark, broad-shouldered, blue-eyed, decades older than the boy his father had once dismissed during the War of the Five Kings. He was no boy now. His face was older than when he had last seen at Stoney Sept, his jaw set firm beneath streaks of grey in his once-red hair. The year of fighting had carved lines into his face deeper than any maester's quill. The crown of copper and iron on the table in front of him was more than ornament. It was weight. It was power. And he felt it.
Even more, he felt the presence of the direwolves. Six great beasts, dispersed across the room, all pierced into his eyes. The largest, a grey monster sitting next to the Northern king, was not the one that scared him. No, his terror was the dubious courtesy of the white one with the red eyes in the left corner of the hall. He remembered this beast from the battle. How could he ever forget it? Next to it stood a young man, on his chest a familiar crest with a white dragon and eerily familiar white wolf on a black field. Whereas the direwolf's red eyes looked hateful, the boy's eyes where two giant pools of anger and grief. He looked as if he wanted to run towards him and stab him where he stood, but he seemed to be restrained by the presence of an elder Stark warrior, who had a direwolf of a similar size.
The Stark king was surrounded. To his right sat his eldest son and heir, Prince Rickard Stark, tall, broad and silent, his hair darker than his father's, but his bearing unmistakably similar. Jon Stark, second son, more youthful and impulsive, leaned back in his chair to the left, his right fingers tapping against the steel pommel of his sword.
His brothers were there too: Prince Rickon, the warrior that was shielding him from the white wolf and its youthful owner looked wild and long-bearded, and Prince Brandon, before this campaign more politician than warrior, but Eddard Stark's second son had garnished a modest reputation in battle for himself, capturing Brightwater Keep among others. The latter stood behind his elder brother and king, ready to advise him, his fingers twitching on the make-shift throne. He had been briefed about all of them and recognized them effortlessly.
Around them stood the peers of the North. Lord Domeric Bolton, pale as milkglass and twice as cold. Lady Dacey Mormont, firm-jawed and fierce in her plain mail, clearly more comfortable in armor than silk. Lord 'Little'Jon Umber, whose size, he knew, was only rivaled by his thunderous voice, though he had yet to use it. Lord Cley Cerwyn, calm and weathered, and some younger men he didn't recognize, but who wore tabards with the sigils of Houses Dustin, Ryswell, Flint, Locke and Manderly, all looked taut with grief and youth. Along the walls stood three men of the Stark's feared Wolfsguard.
He approached the dais. No one rose to greet him. The message was clear.
"You asked for this meeting," said Robb Stark. "Speak."
He bowed stiffly. "I come to end the war, Your Grace. I bring no seal, no letter. Only the promise of a man the Reach still respects, and the weight of its army he still commands."
Lord Domeric Bolton tilted his head. "A man with no crown, no coin, and only the shadow of an army to offer."
"A man who can get you what you want, the only man outside Highgarden who can do so." He replied. "I ask only that you leave my grand-nephew and his line on the throne, and my family to rule its lands."
King Robb didn't blink. "Those are concessions, we are willing to listen to. Now hear our terms."
The heir to the North unrolled a parchment. "Randall Tyrell," Prince Rickard spoke, voice firm, "will remain King of the Reach."
That surprised him. He blinked, he had prepared to fight tooth and nail for this.
"The North does not want your lands," Robb explained. "We want peace. Not rule. But there will be conditions, many conditions."
Rickard continued. "His mother, Lady Myrielle Peake, is to be removed from power. Permanently."
"Exile?"
"Confinement. A convent in the Stormlands. Far from court. Far from influence."
He considered that. "She was never popular, and always zealous. That will pass, albeit forcefully."
"Her power dies with the surrender," said Lady Dacey. "This is not a matter for debate. She spat upon our king, our kingdom and our people. She must go."
"Who takes the regency, then?"
King Robb paused, then said, "We leave that to Highgarden. But we expect one name in return. And we will have the right of refusal."
Lord Bolton stepped forward, his milky eyes cold and calculating. "And we suggest Lady Talla Tarly."
That gave him pause. "My sister?"
"She's sensible. Respected. A name the people won't spit on. And not one who seeks revenge." Prince Brandon Stark explained.
"I mean it when I say that I want stability. She is the boy's grandmother, and one of his few remaining adult family members. Nonetheless, she will be told to never dare to cross us again." King Robb added.
He gave a slow nod. "I'll see to it."
There was a pause. Prince Rickard shifted a document aside and looked up. "You, Lord Dickon, will take the black."
The words were expected, yet they carried a finality that made his hands clench slightly. The thought of cold stone, a black cloak, and endless winters stirred old fears.
"My son?"
"Keeps everything," King Robb answered. "Your name, your lands, your sword. Your line continues. You vanish."
Lady Dacey Mormont said dryly, "A rare mercy in this war."
"Much more than you deserve!" The man with the white dragon and direwolf crest bit back, as he stalked around angrily. He inhaled softly. He had known the young man to be Edrick Whitefyre from the moment he had stepped foot inside this hall. His own sons had killed both the young man's father and younger brother, he had seen it with his own eyes. His anger was … justified.
He looked back towards the monarch in front of him. He sighed and bowed his head. "It is just." Was all he could reply.
A new map was unfurled, the rustling of parchment loud in the still room.
"Territory will be ceded," Rickard said. " The Stormlands will gain all land reclaimed by the Tyrells from the Crownlands, and new holdings along the Reach's eastern edge." Including some fiefs of your nephew Lord Peake." He nodded, already resigned to this possibility.
The Dustin nobleman spread out a map in front of his eyes. He studied it, it was not completely unreasonable, albeit a harsh verdict for some border houses like the Ashfords, Meadows and Cocksaw. He looked up to try and barter a little, be it only a creek or field, but he was dissuaded to do so by the cold stark stare in the Crown Prince's eyes.
"The Ironborn receive the Shield Islands," added young Jon Stark.
His mouth tightened. "You give islands of the Reach to krakens?"
"They bled for us," said King Robb. "They pinned many of your soldiers here, disrupted your supply lines, sank your fleet and struck fear into the hearts of your people. They will get their prize; the islands are theirs."
The old lords would curse him from their crypts. The Shield Isles, bastions of coastal defense since the reign of King Garth VII Gardener —gone. He wanted to protest, to shout. But he held his tongue. Rage would not save Highgarden. He knew that it would mean that his descendants would bleed to get them back, sooner or later. So be it, it would be the symbol of his own failures.
"The Westerlands gain border fiefs from Houses Crane and Oakheart," said Lord Cerwyn.
He exhaled through his nose. "You're carving us up like a feast bird! The Westerlands have already made peace with us."
"You lost," Brandon Stark retorted. "We're being merciful. We are trying to make a lasting peace. Resentment in the West will do no neither us or you any good." He understood what he was trying to say. Those few fiefs would buy the North again the friendship of the Lannisters, and there was nothing he could do to prevent it.
"Mercy," he replied softly, "was the peace brokered with King Willas. Not this."
"Different times, with a different balance of power, Lord Tarly." King Robb Stark responded, an icy stare his due for his foolish comment.
The room stilled as Bolton lifted a second scroll.
"Six million golden roses in war reparations," he said. "Paid over twenty-five years. Seventy-five percent in gold, twenty-five percent may be given in produce, namely food or wine, but gold will also be acceptable."
Dickon blinked. It was a staggering amount. His thoughts turned to tithes, grain levies, gutted storehouses. The smallfolk would suffer for it. They would starve, as their product was sold to be able to cough up the coin to pay off these debts.
The breakdown followed: large shares to the North and Riverlands, smaller shares to the Stormlands, Iron Isles, Vale, and Westerlands. In that order. The numbers he was told, 3.5 million to the North and Riverlands, 1 million to the Stormlands, 750,000 to the Iron Isles, 250,000 to the Westerlands, 500,000 to the Vale, but he barely heard them, as he fully understood their implications.
"We will have to tax grain," He murmured, more to himself than to his enemies.
"That is not our concern," Lady Mormont retorted.
"It is now," added the young man in Dustin livery. "This is what your war bought."
'Little'Jon Umber spoke up then, his voice a growl. "You're lucky we're not demanding your grain as well."
"Some did," King Robb added, glancing at his younger son, who didn't deny it.
"So be it." He muttered. Thinking about the ruin this would bring to his own lands.
Next came the matter of fortifications. "All castles and strongholds within forty leagues of the Riverlands must be dismantled," said Prince Rickon, with a malicious grin. "No large towers. No stone walls."
Dickon sat back. "This would not aid you. You leave us vulnerable to the Westerlands, to the Stormlands, to rebellion."
"You should have considered that before encouraging your royal nephew's foolish campaign in the Riverlands," countered the Ryswelll.
"Alongside your father you learned the hard way that no good could come from following a Tyrell into the Riverlands. You should not have repeated his folly." Barked Umber.
He bristled. But the man was not wrong. It was pride that had brought them here—his, Garlan's, perhaps even the Reach's itself.
Then came the Faith. "The Faith Militant is to be outlawed," said Prince Rickard Stark. "On pain of death. Any sparrow bearing sword or star in the Reach dies. Warriors answer to kings, not gods."
Dickon hesitated. He had fought alongside men of the star. He had buried some. But he also knew they had become wild, dangerous, uncontrollable. The Septons wouldn't take kindly to this.
"The Septons won't accept that."
King Robb leaned forward. "They will. Or they will die. The High Septon's fate is not open to revision." All Northmen around him grinned his way with a dark satisfaction.
No one asked what that fate was, neither did he. The grim silence answered well enough.
The last scroll was read.
"Loot remains claimed," said Rickard. "Millions in goods, gold, and silver. Divided as taken. No restitution."
"House Florent is restored to Brightwater Keep, and all of its ancestral lands," added Brandon Stark. "Ser Ryam Florent will marry Lady Olenna Tyrell to ensure the removal of any other claimants."
He bowed his head. "A wise solution. Further internal discourse would suit no one." To House Tyrell, it would serve as a binding stitch over a sundered inheritance. His sister would have to watch her young grandson closely. Any notion of recovering Brightwater for House Tyrell would surely spark a new war. A war that would end them all.
"Furthermore, Highgarden will accept all separate treaties that were made between us and their vassals, such as those with Houses Hightower, Florent and Redding." The young Prince Jon added.
He rubbed his temples. "You mean to break the Reach. Strip it of its teeth and give it just enough dignity not to revolt."
For the first time, Prince Rickard gave a thin smile. "Exactly."
There was a long pause. Then Robb rose, slow and tall, casting a long shadow across the table. "Do you agree?"
He inhaled slowly. "You promise that King Randall Tyrell will keep his throne under my sister's guidance? And that my son will peacefully succeed me at Horn Hill."
The Northern king nodded coldly, but he found no malice in those stark, daunting blue eyes.
"Then I agree."
"You will sign it and send word of it to Highgarden by messenger and raven. Afterwards, you will accompany us to your capital to enforce it. If that succeeds, I will allow you to travel back to Horn Hill one last time to bid farewell to your family and to disband your forces. My men will accompany you. You will have two days. After that, they will bring you back to me, willingly or not. If not—"
He turned to the window. The Redding's fields were quiet, but Highgarden waited on the horizon, besieged and ready to fall.
"—we burn the flower at its root." The threat was clear. The King in the North and the Riverlands turned back towards him.
"You may accompany me north, before you set off for the Wall. Whatever our differences, I would like us to talk more before departing. I have always respected you as my opponent, as I did your father. In return, I will tell you of the Watch and the Wall. Information that will save your life up there." The Northern king offered, rather magnanimously. It reaped him many an angry stare among his own family members and vassals, but he paid them no mind.
He subconsciously looked outside the window towards the road to Highgarden, before looking back to the monarch in front of him. "I would be honored, Your Grace." He bowed, lower than before.
"Together, we finish this, Lord Tarly. Once and for all. May our remaining kin break bread together, instead of drawing swords."
"I could wish for nothing more." He replied, and to his surprise he realized that he meant it.
He stood.
"If your men could guide me to a maester, then I will send the raven immediately. Afterwards, I will need a messenger to inform my soldiers of this deal. I wouldn't want them to think that something happened to me. I expect that you wish for me to remain here?" He asked, already knowing the answer.
"A room will be made ready for you in Dustonbury." He could do nothing more than nod.
He turned to leave, his steps slow, but steady. Behind him, silence. Only the rustle of parchment and the whisper of northern wind through Reach stone.
He thought of his second son. His king. Of what they had died for. He had believed in duty, in glory, in the ancient honor of houses. Now he only believed in survival. The survival of his king's son, of his own remaining son.
The price of peace was steep.
But the cost of more war would be ruin.
This is it for this chapter!
We learn more about Robb's plans with the 'rogue' maesters. We also see how he clearly involves his sons, to ensure that his plans will survive into the future.
Lord Dickon Tarly sees that all is lost, now that Oldtown and the Hightowers have all but surrendered. Every day that passes, his lands are raided, his small folk die and the chances of his family coming out of all of it diminish. He realizes this. The terms are hard, but fair considering that the Tyrell's realm has all but collapsed and two thirds of it are burning. He realizes that he needs to act, as Myrielle Peake's leadership will only lead to further disaster.
Differences with earlier terms: double the war indemnity and a larger area without fortifications, a lot more loot taken and the Tyrells internal authority has been weakened by a LOT (treaties with Hightowers & vassals, Blackbars, Reddings, ...) and a little more land that went to the Stormlands.
Thank you for your support!
Fannic
Reviews:
- Iacopo Passerini: No problem, friend! The negotiations went well for him, but also for the Hightowers. They also kept their wealth, and their means to make more with their markets and wharfs intact. They know that they will recuperate their lost prestige, as long as they can keep their wealth and power. The High Septon is still alive, but he is in captivity of Robb's army now. Thank you so much!
- Rebfan90: Thank you!
- Supremus85: A Northman from White Harbor would neither have the support nor the skills to survive for long in Oldtown. Soon, he would be a powerless puppet, with Robb too far away to effectively support him. In the near future that High Septon would face an existential issue: drop his support for Robb, or be killed. Robb has discussed the issue of the Vale with the Royces of course, who use it to undermine the Arryns.
- Thors Alumni: It would have been at the cost of a lot of men and some of his friends and family. He did do something. This will be a shockwave to the Citadel, who has seen a good chunk of a departement leave. They will now be forced to take the studies of the Higher Mysteries serious, or risk lacking behind a king's private research group in time. Robb will also restrict the Citadel's access to the private libraries of much of the North and the Riverlands. This will limit their abilities to work.
- Force Smuggler: Thank you!
- Poly19hum: Thank you so much! I will!
- Yogurt9928: Thank you so much! Yes, the Tyrells stand alone, as can be seen b even the Tarlys surrendering. You were right, you got to see a whole lot of Dickon Tarly. What did you think of the harsher terms?
Once they get back to Winterfell, all your questions about the world will be answered bit by bit. The Martells will come sooner.
There will of course be consequences to this. I will flesh those out soon. Expect part of them to become visible next chapter and those after that already.
- CadetMarshal: They might. However Robb will probably prefer to recruit from inside the kingdom to limit spies. There will probably a mix of both. A centralized university or school system won't work, as it will only be about magic not about healing or knowledge in general like the other maesters.
- Max20.7: I answered you in PM!
- Guest: It did deserve it, but it wouldn't have helped in the end. Only would have weakened the Reach more, completely breaking the already shifted balance of power and would have lost him thousands of soldiers and many friends and family members.
