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Game of Thrones: Red Dragon
Game of Thrones: Griffin Keep
Game of Thrones: The Unearther Lord of Lonehill
Game of Thrones: Dragons Dance
Game of Thrones: Dwarf Become King
Game of Thrones: Nero King of Knight
He had not made two steps from the door before they blocked him again.
A servant.
A long run.
Bent to Lyonel’s ear.
One line, low.
Lyonel’s brow went up.
Bannermen’s council.
Early.
The monthly sitting had been tomorrow morning.
Tywin had just called every bannerman in the Rock to the great council chamber in two hours.
Lyonel looked down the passage at the sundial.
Two hours.
Enough.
He went back to his rooms and took the sheaf from the drawer.
Three quarters of western levies and every rotten line Fiscal Mastery had marked, checked again last night under Photographic Memory.
Seven dark books.
Three bannermen.
Two smuggling roads.
He started at the first and matched each man to his soft spot, his handle, what he wanted.
Then he stacked them by how hard they would be to pull.
Bloom was done.
Next: Garrick.
Old knight on the northeast rim.
Poor veins at Silverhill.
Four years of bad tax.
Men, though.
Thirty-five knights and better than three hundred foot.
Not a small number on that border.
Third.
His eye ran the list and stopped.
Harris.
Merchant lord in Lannisport.
Three generations in trade.
Coin bought a knighthood and a strip of ground outside the walls.
No one loved him.
He had gold.
He had ships.
Lyonel shut the list.
Went.
The great council chamber was twice last night’s feast hall.
A U of tables.
Men on three sides.
The floor in the middle for whoever spoke.
When Lyonel came in, near twenty bannermen already sat the arms—dark green, deep blue, dull crimson mixed.
Some heads together.
Some in their papers.
One with his arms folded, eyes shut.
Tywin at the head.
An empty place on his right.
Left for Lyonel.
He climbed it.
Four or five looks hit at once.
Not all bad.
Most of it curiosity.
What did the dwarf Tywin had put at the high table actually have.
Lyonel laid the sheaf flat.
Did not look up.
The sitting opened.
Tywin gave them a few lines and cut in.
“Northeast border spend is over.
Ser Garrick.
Your horse is a third heavier than last quarter.
Why.”
The man who stood was tall and thin and old.
Grey hair.
Lines in his face like cuts.
The voice was sand.
“My lord.
Hill men have been crossing in dribs.
The extra is mounts and fodder.”
Tywin looked at Lyonel.
Lyonel was in the sheaf.
“Ser Garrick.” Not loud.
The whole U heard it.
“I read last quarter’s horse-buy.
Thirty new mounts.
Lannisport market.
Open price on a warhorse is five gold dragons.
Your book says eight.”
Garrick’s face changed.
“That… different seller.”
“Same seller.” Lyonel turned a leaf.
“I pulled two years back.
Every horse from one man.
Aubrey.
Year before last: five dragons.
Last year: five.
This year it becomes eight.
And the three extra dragons go—”
He stopped.
Looked up.
Across the U, a middle-aged lord in deep blue.
“To a private holding under your man, Baron Alster.”
The blue coat snapped up.
Lyonel smiled.
“Baron Alster.
That land of yours against the Reach.
Last year you rebuilt the house, new pales, three stone stables.
The stables were paid from Ser Garrick’s war chest.”
No one spoke.
Alster went green and white.
The cup in his hand had his knuckle white on it.
Garrick was still.
He turned to Alster, eyes round.
“You—you milking bastard.”
The U blew.
Men up.
Hands on tables.
Someone shouting for quiet.
Lyonel sat and watched highborn teeth the way a man watches a market fight.
Tywin hit the board.
Once.
The room died.
“Garrick.” Tywin’s voice was north wind.
“Your pay was stolen.
You did not know.”
Garrick’s face went dark red.
His mouth worked.
“My lord… I did not.
Alster told me he was greasing King’s Landing.
Tax relief…”
Tywin looked at Lyonel.
Lyonel nodded.
“Ser Garrick is telling it straight.” He closed the sheaf.
“His own book is clean.
The rot is Alster in the middle.
My counsel: recast Garrick’s war spend.
Lift Alster’s levy two tenths as make-good.
From here the northeast war chest is signed month by month by Ser Garrick himself.
No third hand.”
Silence down both arms.
Garrick turned to Lyonel.
The cut-faced old man moved his mouth and got one line out, raw.
“…Thank you, my lord.”
Lyonel flicked a hand.
In front of all of them.
A dwarf.
He had pulled an old knight out of a hole and put a boot on a baron.
At the far bend, Harris—the merchant lord—had shrunk into the corner to watch.
Lyonel’s look found him.
They touched.
Harris yanked his eyes off.
“Ser Harris.”
The name brought the table around again.
Harris stood shaking.
“Three cargos last year.
Lannisport to Pentos.
You overpaid the customs seven percent.
The port used the old schedule.
That line’s rate changed this year.
Go to the treasury.
Recast it.
They owe you the extra.”
Harris blinked.
“That’s true?”
“Read your intake.
Second run and third.
Do the gap yourself.
Walk the proof to the treasurer.
He will not keep it.”
Harris swallowed and nodded three times.
“Thank you, Lord… Lyonel.”
He put weight on the name.
Lyonel gave him a small crooked smile and tucked the sheaf away.
As he sat, a line flashed low right.
[System]
Task: Son of the West.
Progress: 3/3.
Complete.
[System]
Reward issuing—
[System]
Blue trait acquired: Diplomatic Touch
1.
Read of a man’s true aim in talks +40%.
2.
Success when you steer a speech +25%.
3.
Passive.
No activation.
He pushed the pane down.
The U was dead quiet.
Tywin had not cut in.
Had not added.
Had not marked the work.
At the end he took the room with a look that asked if anyone else had a problem.
No one did.
Alster had shrunk into his seat, forehead wet, the cup untouched.
Garrick sat.
A small nod toward Lyonel.
Harris across, head down in a writ he was not reading.
The hands on the page were shaking.
Glad shaking.
Tywin rose.
At the door he stopped and turned his head.
The profile jumped in the candle.
“Lyonel.”
“With me.”
Lyonel dropped off the chair and took the old lion’s pace.
The passage.
One tall and straight.
One short and packed.
Two shadows on the carpet, long and short, pulled out by the flame.
“What you did in there—” Tywin, from in front.
“You went a little far.”
Lyonel did not break stride.
“I wasn’t wrong.”
Tywin gave him nothing else.
Lyonel looked at the pattern in the carpet going around itself.
Diplomatic Touch sat quiet in blue at the upper right.
Under Task System new letters were already coming up slow.
[System]
Next-stage preview: Cross the Narrow Sea.
Requirement: at least one ancient Valyrian site mark.
Current marks: 1/10.
His pupils tightened.
Lann the Clever.
The roll.
The Valyrian marks.
The line already ran over the water.
He closed a hand on the sheepskin in his coat and lengthened his step half a beat to match Tywin.
CaveLeather (9$) Game of Thrones: Red Dragon Game of Thrones: Griffin Keep Game of Thrones: The Unearther Lord of Lonehill Game of Thrones: Dragons Dance Game of Thrones: Dwarf Become King Game of Thrones: Nero King of Knight