10: Chapter 10: CaveLeather He had not taken two steps from the study when another servant found him.
The boy bent to his ear and said enough to make Lyonel’s brow tick.
Bannermen’s council.
Moved up.
Tomorrow morning’s monthly sitting had been pulled forward.
Tywin wanted every lord still inside the Rock in the Great Hall in two hours.
Lyonel checked the sundial at the corridor’s end.
Two hours.
Enough.
He went back to his room and took the roll he had built two nights ago out of the drawer.
Three quarters of collection data.
Every bannerman in the West.
Financial Mastery had painted the rot in red.
Photographic Memory had walked it again line by line before he slept.
Seven shadow books.
Three houses.
Two roads to the water.
He had ranked them by the cheapness of the buy.
Weakness.
Dirt.
What each man still wanted.
Blum was done.
Next was Ser Corben.
Northeast fringe.
Thin silver in the ground.
Four years of crawling to make the tax.
Thirty-five riders and three hundred foot, which was not nothing on a border.
Third.
His eye stopped on a name.
Harris.
Lannisport.
Three generations of trade.
Coin enough to buy a knighthood and a small hold outside the walls.
The old blood looked through him.
He had ships.
He had silver.
That was all they would give him.
Lyonel shut the list and went.
The Great Hall was twice the feast room.
A U of tables.
Men on three sides.
The floor in the middle left open for whoever had to stand and bleed.
Near twenty already seated when he came in.
Dark green.
Dark blue.
Crimson.
Whispering.
Reading.
One with his arms folded and his eyes shut.
Tywin at the head.
The chair on his right empty.
Left for Lyonel.
He climbed it and sat.
Four or five looks landed at once.
Not all of them ugly.
Most of them curious.
Tywin had put the dwarf at the high table in daylight.
They wanted to know if the seat would hold.
Lyonel laid his papers flat and did not lift his head.
Tywin gave them four sentences of courtesy and cut to bone.
“Northeastern spend is over the mark.
Ser Corben.
Your horse account is up a third from last quarter.
Why.” The man who stood was tall and thin.
Hair gone iron.
Face carved into folds.
His voice had gravel in it.
“My lord.
Riders coming over the line.
I put more patrols out.
The extra is mounts and fodder.” Tywin’s eyes touched Lyonel.
Lyonel was already turning a page.
“Ser Corben.” Not loud.
The U heard it.
“Last quarter you bought thirty horses in the Lannisport market.
Open price for a warhorse is five gold dragons.
Your book says eight.” Corben’s face changed.
“Different seller.” “Same seller.” Another leaf.
“Two years of buys.
All from a dealer named Aubrey.
Five dragons two years ago.
Five last year.
Eight this year.
The extra three went—” He let it hang.
Then he looked across the U at a man in a dark blue robe.
“—to private ground under your man.
Baron Alster.” The blue robe came up fast.
Lyonel’s mouth moved a fraction.
“Baron.
That hold of yours toward the Reach put up new fences last year.
Three stone stables.
The coin came out of Ser Corben’s war chest.” The hall went still.
Alster’s knuckles bleached on his cup.
Green, then white.
Corben stared at him.
The old eyes were wide.
“You.
You used me.” The U broke.
A man stood.
A fist hit wood.
Someone barked for quiet.
Lyonel sat and watched them work their hands like stallholders arguing over bruised fruit.
Tywin’s knuckles found the table.
Once.
The room died.
“Corben.” North in the voice.
“Your pay was stolen and you did not see it.” Color climbed the old knight’s throat.
His mouth worked.
“My lord.
I did not.
Alster said he was smoothing the tax in King’s Landing.” Tywin looked at Lyonel.
Lyonel nodded.
“He is telling the truth.” The papers closed.
“His own book is clean.
The hole is Alster.
Recalculate the northeastern spend.
Lift Baron Alster’s tax a fifth to put the gold back.
From this month, Corben signs his own pay.
No third hand.” Silence held a few seconds.
Corben turned.
The carved face moved.
The voice that came out was rough and small.
“…Thank you, my lord.” Lyonel flicked his fingers.
Let it go.
A dwarf.
In front of the West.
He had pulled an old knight out of a pit and put his boot on a baron’s neck to do it.
At the far bend of the U, Harris had shrunk into his corner to watch.
Lyonel’s eyes crossed his.
Harris looked away as if the grain in the table had become urgent.
“Lord Harris.” The name brought the room around again.
Harris stood like a man expecting a blow.
“…Here.” “Three cargoes last year.
Lannisport to Pentos.
You overpaid the tariff by seven parts in a hundred.
The harbor was still using the old rate.
That lane changed this year.
Take it to the steward.
The extra comes back.” Harris blinked.
“That is true?” “Read your own warehouse tallies.
Second run and third.
Walk the difference to the steward with the paper in your hand.
He will not refuse the refund.” Harris swallowed and nodded three times.
“Thank you.
Lord… Lyonel.” He put weight on the name.
Lyonel gave him a thin smile, folded the roll, and put it away.
As he sat, the panel drew a line in the corner of his sight.
[Quest: Son of the Westerlands.
Progress: 3 / 3.] [Quest complete.] [Distributing reward…] [Congratulations.
Blue entry acquired: Diplomacy] Effect: Read a man’s true aim in talk +40%.
Chance a spoken nudge lands +25%.
Passive.
He pushed the glass down.
The U did not move.
Tywin had not cut in.
Had not added a word.
Had not praised him.
At the end he only looked the table over with the question already in the look.
Anyone else.
No one spoke.
Alster sat in his own sweat and did not touch his wine.
Corben took his seat and tipped his chin a fraction toward the high table.
Harris kept his head down and turned pages with hands that were not turning them for the words.
The shake in his fingers was the good kind.
Tywin rose.
At the door he checked his stride and turned his head.
Candlelight caught the edge of the face.
“Lyonel.” “With me.” Lyonel dropped off the chair and followed.
The corridor took them one after the other.
Tall and straight.
Short and quick.
Two shadows on the red carpet, pulled long by the flame.
One line.
One stub.
“In there.” Tywin, ahead of him.
“You went too far.” Lyonel did not slow.
“I was not wrong.” Tywin gave him nothing else.
Lyonel watched the pattern in the carpet repeat.
Diplomacy sat in the corner of the panel, a quiet blue.
Beside it the quest line wrote itself in no hurry.
[Next-stage preview: Cross the Narrow Sea.] [Prerequisite: at least one ancient Valyrian site marked.] [Current marks: 1 / 10.] His pupils tightened.
Lann the Clever.
The roll in his coat.
The fire-and-eye mark.
The thread had already gone over the water.
He closed his hand on the parchment and lengthened his step half a beat, enough to keep the old lion’s heels in reach.