“My lords,” Alric said.
“Meet your new ally. Arthor Celtigar.”
The name landed in that chamber like a stone through a window.
Monford Velaryon’s hand closed slowly around his cup.
Duran had half risen from his chair.
Nobody in the room recognized the man in the doorway — and that was somehow worse, because he stood there in a salt-stained cloak with his chin up and did not look remotely like a man who had wandered into the wrong castle.
Then the man spoke, and made it stranger.
“Arthor Waters, my lord.” A short bow.
“Not a Celtigar yet.”
Alric scoffed.
“Not for long. Not the way your father is behaving.” He said it without any humor at all.
“You will be a Celtigar soon enough.”
Arthor sighed.
“Then I am sorry for it, my lord. He has given you a great deal of trouble.” A pause, as though he were choosing between several words and disliking all of them.
“He is… a difficult man to deal with.”
“Aye.” Alric’s mouth twisted.
“Have we not all seen that enough by now.”
Arthor nodded and said nothing more.
Around the table, six men sat in varying states of confusion.
Davos Seaworth was not among them.
Davos had known the man in the doorway for four years — had sailed with him, bled beside him, and once dragged him out of a Tyroshi wineshop with a broken nose and a torn ear.
He kept his face still and his mouth shut and thought, privately, that watching lords be surprised was one of the few genuine pleasures left in his new life.
“This is a confusing situation, my lord,” Monford said, and he meant it on behalf of everyone.
“I would ask you to clarify the situation.”
Alric nodded.
“Arthor, ” he said ” Introduce yourself properly.”
Arthor Waters stepped fully into the chamber and stood where the light from the hearth could reach him.
“My lord. I am Arthor Waters.” He drew a breath and gathered himself, and it was obvious that he had not said this aloud in a room full of lords before.
“I am a bastard son of Lord Ardrian Celtigar. One of several, from his concubines. If any of you are familiar with my father’s habits, you will know what I mean by that.”
Monford Velaryon was very familiar with them.
He said nothing.
“He kept me at Claw Isle for my talent with the water. I could read a chart at nine and hold a tiller in weather that frightened any grown men, and he found that very useful, so I was fed and housed and taught.” Arthor’s voice was flat and even.
“But there was no bond in it. He spoke of my mother as though she were something he had scraped off a boot. He spoke to me as though I were the boot. When she died, there was nothing left to keep me there, so I left.”
He glanced at Alric.
“I met Lord Alric when he had only just begun sailing his own decks. He was younger than I was” A short, dry shrug.
“And I have been in his service ever since. Four years, my lord. Every one of them at sea.”
The chamber had gone very quiet.
Monford Velaryon sat back in his chair and did the math, and did not like the answer.
Four years.
He has had a Celtigar bastard on his own deck for four years — before any of this.
And he sat in that hall and let us all argue for an hour about summoning A blood of Celtigar to a council.
He ks not asking us what to do, he has already decided long before.
Duran Bar Emmon was staring at Arthor with open, undisguised delight.
Monterys Velaryon was staring at his own wine.
Before any of them could work further at it, Alric stood.
“We know what we are doing now,” he said.
“So we will stop discussing whether, and start discussing how. Cressen — the maps. All of them. Set this room for a proper war council.”
The word moved through the chamber and every man in it sat straighter.
“I will have my attendants see to it, my lord.” Cressen rose.
Then he stopped.
“But the men in this room will do their duty in the field, and I have a duty of my own.” This chapter was copied from g.com without permission.
Alric looked at him.
“Which is?”
“To keep you and your lands whole.” The old man’s chin lifted.
“That includes your hand , there is time, so you will let me do my duty, My Lord.”
For a moment nobody was certain which way it would go.
Then Alric let out a breath.
“Aye, aye. Do what you need to.”
Cressen sent his attendants running — for the maps and weights, for water and clean linen, for the small chest of things maesters carry and hope not to use.
The chamber filled with quiet activity: charts unrolled and pinned flat, a jug of water, a basin gone pink almost at once.
The lords talked in low voices at the far end of the table.
Ser Willem went out and came back with two more men to carry the great chart of the bay.
Cressen sat on a stool at Alric’s right and worked the glass out of his palm with a pair of thin iron tweezers, one shard at a time.
“Was it necessary, my lord?”
Alric did not answer.
“You have a battle coming.” Cressen dropped another fragment into the basin with a small hard click.
“And you have gone and injured your sword hand.”
“It is just a scratch, Cressen. I have survived—”
“Worse. Yes.” The maester did not look up.
“I know. I have heard a great deal about worse from Davos, who tells me things you do not.”
Alric’s jaw worked.
Then, faintly, he laughed.
“I know he is bit of a Traitor.”
“Poor Maester’s ally, my lord. Someone needs to be sane and keep you the same.” Cressen wound the linen tight, tighter than was strictly comfortable, and knotted it off.
“There. Keep it dry and do not pressure on it for a while.”
Alric nodded at that
THE WAR COUNCIL
The great chart lay open across the table — Blackwater Bay from the Gullet to the Wendwater mouth, Dragonstone at its heart, Driftmark and Claw Isle and Sweetport Sound and the small holdings scattered between like dropped coins.
Alric stood over it with his bandaged hand flat on the wood.
“We split our strength in two and we need to hit Sunglass and Celtigar at the same time,” he said.
Monterys leaned in at once.
“We need to plan a Surprise attack.” Alric traced the water between the islands with one finger.
“Neither of them has any reason to expect a battle yet. They have not called their banners, they have not stocked their cellars, and they have not thought about defence.If we move fast enough they will not have the chance to even defend themselves.”
“And if they do have the chance?” Cressen asked.
“Then it becomes sieges.” Alric’s voice hardened.
“We need to avoid this, we need to short battle and avoid long battles. That is how this becomes expensive. We need to gain as much of advantage as we can.” He looked around the table.
“I will not give them time to prepare. We take them unaware, we break their strength in the field or in their yards or in thier harbour, and we finish it before anyone has worked out what is happening.”
He straightened.
“It is not honorable. There is no glory in falling on a man who has not yet drawn his sword or has no idea about it.” His eyes went around them again.
“But battles are won with men and guts, not honor, and this way I bury fewer of ours and more of theirs. With this strategy we will increase our chances to keeps our own men breathing.”
There were nods around the table.
Davos’s was the firmest of them — a smuggler’s nod, from a man whose entire former profession had been arriving where nobody expected him.
“Although The minor houses will hear of it and prepare, but it’s will not be as annoying as other two.Between them they cannot put two thousand men in the field and not one of their seats is worth the name of castle.” Alric shrugged.
“Those we can afford to sit on for as long as it takes.”
There was a general murmur of agreement, and it had begun to settle into consensus—
“My lord.If I can, I need to speak something.”
Every head turned.
Arthor Waters had stepped up to the table’s edge. Get faster updates on g.com.
He had gone slightly grey around the mouth, and his hands were behind his back where nobody could see what they were doing.
Alric studied him with his eyes
“Speak.”
“I have served you some years now, my lord. With all of my loyalty and sword to your service” Arthor’s voice held, barely.
” On that service.
I dare ask you to spare House Celtigar.”
The chamber went dead still.
“I know what they have done to you. I do not forgive it either — I have no love for that house and it has none for me.” He pushed on.
“But it is my father’s doing, my lord. Only his. The refusal, the insult, all of it. My eldest of brother is not that man. Vaemond is a good man, and if you gave him the chance he would put every wrong of my father’s right and thank you for the opportunity.”
He swallowed.
“I know how this sounds. A bastard who ran from that house asking mercy for it. It is selfish and I have no right to it and you have been better to me than my own blood ever was.” His head came up.
“But I am making the plea anyway. I know how I am selfish I know but I know how much Vaemond could be helpful to you. I don’t wish the destruction on them so couldn’t overcome because of one stupid man. It’s a selfish request.” He bowed his head after that
Nobody spoke.
Alric looked at him for a long moment.
He could see the truth of it — the loyalty of years, every mile of it earned on a wet deck.
That counted for something and he knew exactly how much.
But He could also see Ardrian Celtigar’s letter, and about grievances and insults he has shown to Dragonstone.
He had not yet decided which weighed more when another voice cut in.
“I would ask for the same, my lord.”
Monterys Velaryon.
Monford’s head came round so fast his neck cracked.
What in the seven hells are you doing, boy—
“Explain.” Alric’s tone did not invite failure.
“And better make it a good one.”
“I have known Vaemond Celtigar for some time.” Monterys did not flinch from him.
“He is a good man. He knows ships as well as any man in this bay, and he also despises how his father conducts himself. He said to me plainly that Lord Ardrian’s mouth would cost their house dearly and that he was not looking forward to inheriting the bill.”
He gestured at the chart.
“He would be a competent ally and a loyal one, my lord, and Claw Isle has ships. Killing him gets you the island. Sparing the House gets you the island and the man, and everything he can do with it. Give him the chance.”
Cressen seized on it before the pause could close.
He wanted to do this already and doesn’t want Alric to go this path already, This just gives him the opportunity.
“My lord, there is more in this than one house.”
Alric turned.
“You are already going to destroy House Sunglass. That message will be heard from here to Oldtown, I promise you.” The maester spoke fast and carefully.
“But if you destroy Sunglass and also raise up Celtigar in the same season, the message changes entirely. Then you are not a lord who kills his vassals. You are a lord who offers a road and burns the man who refused it. Every house on this bay will understand that they have a choice, and they will understand exactly what happens to whoever chooses wrongly.”
He leaned forward.
“You gave a message that you are not Tywin Lannister, my lord. Tywin gave Castamere no road. You said yourself that you found nothing in that man to respect — this is how you take the fear but keep the respect as well with it. And Lord Ardrian need not be spared for it. Send him to the Wall. Let him take the black. The realm will see a lord who showed restraint where restraint was possible, and answered treason where it was not.”
Monford Velaryon did not want any part of this.
He had said his piece already, and he had knelt, and he had intended to spend the remainder of this council saying as little as possible.
But his son had put his neck out over the table, and there were limits to what a father could watch.
“Fear and respect are both required, my lord,” he said.
“A reputation built on only one of them is brittle. You told us yourself you found nothing in Tywin Lannister worth respecting — well. Here is your chance to be feared and be respected both, and it costs you nothing but a decision.”
He tapped the chart, at King’s Landing.
“And On the other hand you gain, we will have the Crown to deal with before this year is out. Celtigar hulls and their crews would be a great deal more use to you afloat under your banner than burnt in their own harbor.”
Alric said nothing for a long moment.
He was not convinced.
That was the honest shape of it — he wanted Claw Isle to burn nearly as much as he wanted Sweetport Sound to, and no argument about reputation was going to talk him out of what Ardrian Celtigar’s letter had put in him.
But three men who swears loyalty, He couldn’t just ignore them either, and one of them had spent four years earning the right to say it.
A man who cannot hear his own council does not have a council.
He has an audience.
Alric finally made a decision “I….