Lord Monford Velaryon watched the Lord Alric Baratheon embrace a fourteen-year-old Lord,
It is not sentiment.
Or rather, it is — the warmth in it was real, and Monford had spent enough years reading men to know the difference between affection and performance.
But real or not, it had been permitted to happen in this hall, in front of him despite it might create a crack in his authority.
He has both faces, Monford thought.
The one he showed me, and the one he shows his allies.
He had heard what Alric Baratheon done to his enemies.
There isn’t much time left for him think, he needs to make up his mind.
And There is only one sensible answer here, Monford thought.
There has only ever been one.
He had built a life on being clever.
Not brave — brave men died young on this bay, and House Velaryon had watched three centuries of them do it.
Clever.
Clever had carried Driftmark through the Dance of the Dragons and the fall of the dragonlords and Robert’s Rebellion, and clever was what had put bread on his table and his family’s name on the tongue of every merchant from Braavos to Oldtown.
Clever said: do not be this man’s enemy.
He had perhaps four heartbeats to decide, and he did not need them.
“So,” Alric said.
“What is your answer, Lord Monford?”
“Uhm.”
Then Monford Velaryon knelt for the third time that morning, and this time he did not wait to be asked.
“My lord. I accept the fact that my house has done to yours is a grave offense, and I will not stand here and dress it up as anything else.” He kept his eyes level.
“It was pure greed and nothing else I would do to deny it. ”
Cressen, at the trestle table, went very still.
“House Velaryon will return everything. Every keel, every dragon, all of it, restored to Dragonstone in full.” Monford drew a breath.
“And I will add gold above the sum — for the losses these years have cost you, for the use of what was never ours, and for whatever else you judge fitting. Name the amount and I will not argue it. Name a different price entirely and I will pay that instead.”
Alric is listening to this but didn’t gave a reaction just remained calm and collected.
Lord Velaryon didn’t stop there and continued “And I will repent it in the field, my lord, if it comes to the field.” Monford met his eyes.
“I know you have no reason to trust Driftmark and Velaryons after we have done to you. So I will not ask you to take my word for it. I will ask you an opportunity to prove my worth and loyalty as well of my House, My Lord.”
It was, he reflected, a genuinely excellent speech, and every word of it was true.
It was also, by his own reckoning, a comfortable bargain.
Yes, There would be a loss — a real one, and his own steward would go grey reading the figures — but Driftmark had absorbed worse in a bad trading season.
Ships could be rebuilt.
Gold could be earned.
Being counted an ally of Alric Baratheon, who Lord Velaryon could see rising in the Westoros, it could be worth all the gold and ships He would need to sacrifice.
That was worth rather more than anything he will give.
Alric’s face did not change at pretty words of Lord Monford Velaryon.
“Oh,” he said coldly instead.
“I will see what repentance you make.”
It was not acceptance— it was a hand on his shoulder, pressing Lord Monford back down before he could get comfortable.
“Even against the Crown?” Alric asked with his cold eyes.
Lord Monford smirks internally thinking he got a leeway “I have already put my intentions in my letter before, my lord.” Monford held his ground.
“That letter is what brought me here, and I am ashamed of my past actions. But Let me prove what House Velaryon is useful as an ally and will be a Loyal House to you in the future.”
He said it well, and he meant most of it.
But privately, Monford Velaryon did not believe for one moment that it would come to the Crown.
There would be trouble with the bay — Sunglass would resist, Celtigar would bluster, and the smaller houses would follow whichever way the wind seemed to be blowing.
That was where the fighting would happen, if any fighting happened at all.
But the Iron Throne?
Robert Baratheon would not permit it.
Whatever else the King was, he had raised this boy in his own castle, and he would not sit still while the realm watched a Baratheon of Dragonstone break himself against the Hand of the King.
The Crown will bend, Monford thought.
The Crown will bend , Robert won’t allow it otherwise.
What he could not work out — what genuinely puzzled him — was why the boy had not simply written to Robert directly and let the King do the work.
Alric watched the Lord of the Tides kneel and speak and offer up his purse, and he understood perhaps a little of what was happening behind the man’s face.
Not all of it, he is clear about his capabilities at least.
Monford Velaryon had been navigating Westorosi Politics like this since before he was born, and the older man was almost certainly making calculations that Alric could not yet see.
But he could see enough in future.
Because whatever Monford believed about how this ended, the man had knelt, And getting Driftmark as an ally was worth considerably more to Alric than getting Driftmark as an example in the long run.
They had a long history of routes and trades, Alric would happy to use if needs Gold even more faster.
“Alright,” Alric said.
“I will give you the chance to prove your loyalty.”
Monford’s shoulders eased a bit , A leeway.
Alric saw it, and waited until the man had properly begun to enjoy the feeling.
“Summon your son here.”
At that Leeway went away.
“My lord?”
“Your heir. I am told he is a good hand at sea — better than good, if the talk out of Driftmark is worth anything.” Alric’s voice stayed perfectly flat.
“I want him beside me when I sail. Put your actions where your mouth is, Lord Velaryon.”
The hall was quiet.
Monford Velaryon stood there for a moment with a great many thoughts moving very fast behind a face that gave away almost nothing at all, and Alric watched him do it with something close to genuine appreciation.
There it is, Monford thought.
“He will come,” Monford said.
No hesitation in it.
“I will send for him today, and he will be here. And I will write to my steward besides — he can begin on supply and provisioning in advance, it will give us an advantage and whatever Driftmark’s yards and stores can put at your disposal will be at your disposal.” A pause.
“You will want grain and cordage before you want swords, my lord.”
You need to risk something to gain some, and odds are in my favour, Lord Monford thoughts and didn’t hesitate to risk his sons life for the gain of Lord Alric trust.
Alric nodded at that, accepting it.
Clever bastard, Alric thought,
Claw Isle — Four Days Later
Lord Ardrian Celtigar got most of the way through the letter before he threw it down on the desk hard enough to knock over his own inkpot.
He is an arrogant man and it wouldn’t take much to rile him up and the letter certainly did.
“How dare he.”
His maester said nothing, and quietly moved the ink.
“A boy.” Ardrian was up out of his chair.
“A green brat of sixteen — accusing House Celtigar of theft. Of wrongdoing. Writing to me about repayment as though I were some Braavosi’s debtor to be dunned in the street.”
“My lord, the letter does name specific—”
“I know what it names!” He rounded on the man.
” Do you understand what he is threatening?
War.
Against a sworn house of his own bay, over a matter six years old settled and lawfully recorded, because his little pride is bruised.”
“He did have some victories against Ironborn, my lord. So it might be wise to think about it with a calmer mind.”
“Ironborn.” Ardrian waved it off.
“Reavers in open water. Any fool with a fast hull and a full crew can burn reavers. Claw Isle is a castle.” He was breathing through his nose now.
“And who does he imagine he is? Robert Baratheon? He is the King’s nephew, Yes, and that buys him a seat at a feast, not the right to shake down me.”
The maester waited.
Because the truth was that Ardrian Celtigar’s confidence did not rest on his own strength, and both men in the room knew it.
It rested on King’s Landing.
Robert Baratheon did not trouble himself with the affairs of the realm, and Jon Arryn — Jon Arryn would have to intervene, and when he did, he would find himself in a very awkward position indeed.
The Hand had taken ships out of Dragonstone’s harbor with his own hand.
He could hardly thunder about the sanctity of a lord’s property now without the entire realm laughing at him and his hypocrisy.
Which meant a mediation.
A stern letter.
Perhaps a token return, a face-saving gesture, and everyone would go home.
Nothing more.
That was the reasoning, and it was not stupid reasoning, as far as it went.
But would it be, what is actually going to happen.
That’s is another matter to find in future.
“Write the response,” Ardrian said, dropping back into his chair.
“Deny it. All of it. The sums and vessels were lawfully conveyed by the Regent of Dragonstone, appointed on the recommendation of the Hand of the King, in settlement of obligations incurred in service to his own father. House Celtigar acknowledges no debt and will return nothing.”
“Nothing at all, my lord?”
“Not one copper.”
“As you say, my lord.”
The maester bowed and went to write it, and thought, as he took up his quill, that eleven years of service had not yet taught him how to tell an arrogant man that he had misjudged something.
He wrote what he was told.
Sweetport Sound
Lord Guncer Sunglass read the letter three times, and then laid it face-down on the seven-pointed star inlaid in his desk and folded his hands over it.
“Well,” he said.
“That is quite a situation.”
His steward waited.
“How shall we answer, my lord?”
“Carefully ofcourse.” He rose and went to the window, where Sweetport Sound lay grey and flat under a low sky.
“Consider our position. We do not refuse him — only a fool refuses his liege lord in writing, but we do not accept either, because to accept is to confess, and a confession means we would have to take losses that would create trouble for us.”
“Then what choice remains, my lord?”
“Words.” Guncer turned.
“We grieve. We are wounded that our lord thinks so ill of us. We explain, at length and with great patience, that every transfer was lawful, recorded, and made in settlement of genuine debts owed to houses that bled for Dragonstone in the Greyjoy Rebellion. We conceal nothing, because we have nothing to conceal, and we offer him our own accounts gladly.”
“And the ships?”
“We will lose the ships in the end but that is for far later.” Guncer said it without much feeling, the way a man notes that a roof will eventually need mending.
“I have known that since I read the second page. He has the ledgers and he has my seal on them, and no amount of scripture will unmake either. So we return the ships — eventually, slowly, as a gesture of loyalty freely given rather than restitution owed. That much I will surrender.”
“But I will not take any other financial loss, if I can help it.” A thin smile.
“Ships can be replaced. So we negotiate, and we ask for clarification, and we require time to assemble our own accounting so that we may be certain of the sums — for accuracy’s sake, of course. And we ask for a further fortnight, and then another, and a cycle begans. We need to stall.”
The steward began, slowly, to smile as well.
” We need to stall Time.” Guncer returned to his desk.
“Every week we delay is a week we gain more and we will need him tired .” He reached for a fresh quill.
“And when he has spent himself on all of that, We will offer and gets away with losses.”
“Shall I begin, my lord?” Steward asks him
“To Alric of House Baratheon, Lord of Dragonstone, from Guncer of House Sunglass, his true and faithful servant.” Guncer settled himself.
“My lord, your letter grieves me more deeply than I can rightly express—”
The Red Keep
Grand Maester Pycelle climbed the stairs of the Tower of the Hand slowly, as he climbed all stairs, and with rather more relish than he permitted to reach his face.
He found Jon Arryn at his desk beneath a window gone grey with the afternoon, buried as ever in the paper of a realm that Robert Baratheon could not be troubled to read.
“My lord Hand. Forgive the intrusion.” Pycelle laid the parchment down, black wax uppermost, the stag pressed deep and slightly askew, as though whoever had set the seal had leaned on it too hard.
“A raven came from Dragonstone.”
Jon Arryn looked at it without touching it.
“From Maester Cressen?”
“No, my lord.” Pycelle’s voice was soft as a hand on a bruise.
“From the Lord of Dragonstone. Under his own seal, and I believe in his own hand.” A pause, perfectly measured.
“It is addressed to you, my lord. Not to His Grace.”
Jon Arryn suprised and took the letter.
Thank you .
Welcome to the Pack brothers.