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CHAPTER 252

296 AC

POV THIRD PERSON

Olenna saw the parchment and realized it was a messenger raven, but she couldn't understand why this raven had come to her rather than going to the rookery and how it was possible for a raven to be this big. She gently pushed Margaery, who was hugging her in fear, toward the maids.

The soldiers were rushing towards them with spears and crossbows.

Just before she could tell them to stop, one of the soldiers fired his crossbow toward the bird. The bolt flew with a whistle and hit the bird, but the scene she thought would happen didn't happen; the bird waved its huge wings and deflected the bolt like it was swatting a fly.

At that moment, Olenna realized what that thing was, but her soldiers' panic intensified when they saw what had happened. More both flew towards the beast and this time, it opened both of its wings and darted into the sky, dodging all of the bolts fired. Olenna shouted,

"Cease fire right this instant!"

She had many spies in Westerlands, Riverland, and The Vale, but her spies were growing thin in the North. She still got titbits of information, and one of them was the magical beasts of the Druid, which were impervious to arrows. She guessed this beast was sent by the Druid or someone close to him.

"Return to your stations; I do not need your help to deal with a messenger raven."

Margaery managed to collect herself and come close to her grandmother,

"Is that thing really a messenger raven?"

The raven, again perched onto the pergola, opened its big wings and cawed. It looked like it was angry. Olenna looked at the beast with admiration in her eyes. It was magnificent. Its feathers were as dark as the night. Other than the small patch of white feathers at the joint of its wings, the beast was jet black. She came close to it. Margaery voiced her concern,

"Grandma, be... be careful."

The raven jumped down to the table and offered its leg; Olenna came close and took the parchment. After that, she wanted to touch the bird's feathers that glowed like obsidian shards, but it turned around and snapped at her, then flew off.

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She opened up the message and read it right away, as she thought it was from the Druid. As she read the letter, she was amused, she couldn't help but smile.

"What does it say?" Margaery tried to read its content, but Olenna crumbled it up right away and said,

"We are going to have some guests in a month."

She turned toward a maid and said,

"Call the master of coin and the Steward."

She caressed Margaery's cheeks and said,

"Be a dear and call Silas we are going to have a meeting. I want both of you to be present in this one."

...

As Silas and Margaery were coming into the Solar, Olenna was burning a parchment from her spies. After a few more minutes, two advisors of Highgarden come into her solar, too. Olenna, the Master of Coins of Highgarden Roland Hightower, and the Steward of Highgarden Cedric Meadows were sitting around a big oak table. At her two sides were Margaery and Silas; their full attention was on their grandmother and what she was going to say.

Silas realized her grandmother was thinking many things as they were waiting for her word. Then she said,

"Vale is in war against the mountain clans."

Silas found this weird. Mountain clans were just a nuisance for The Vale, not a real treat. As long as they were out of their mountains, they were no different than badly geared bandit groups. Silas said,

"Grandmother, isn't that something hardly worth as news? Vale could destroy them any day; they might have even finished them off before this news even reached our hands."

Olenna nodded her head and said,

"You are right? If it was the mountain clans of the past, it wouldn't even take Vale a day to destroy them, but what if..."

She looked into the distance from the window and continued,

"What if someone unified them, sold them good weapons, and trained them for years, turning them into a decent army from a motley bunch?"

Margaery joined in,

"Is that what was written in the letter?"

Olenna shook her head,

"No, if we were to believe the letter, mountain clans united under the Moon Brother clan and burned down all the harvest in the Vale of Arryn."

She sat down on her chair and started drumming her fingers on the table,

"The part about selling weapons and training them is just a theory. As you said, it is not possible for the mountain clans of the past. If this really happened, my spies up North must have already sent me word. In a few days, it will reach our hand."

She turned towards the advisors,

"If this is true, we need to start ferrying more grain to Gulltown. How much surplus do we have?"

Lord Cedric Meadows said,

"Can we trust this letter, my lady?"

"The letter is from a reliable source, so I have already sent word to our warehouses in Gulltown to triple the prices, but the real plan will start when I can corroborate it with my sources for now, fill the ships with all the surplus."

Margaery couldn't understand why they were filling their ship with such an urgency, so she asked,

"Why are we in such a hurry? It isn't even confirmed this is real."

Silas said,

"It doesn't really matter much; if it is true, our grain needs to be there in a month or so to take advantage of the opportunity."

"What opportunity?"

"The war, right grandmother?"

Olenna nodded her head, her eyes filled with pride as she looked at her grandson,

"You are right."

Silas continued,

"If this is true, it means Vale has to fight a war and feed their millions of people at the same time without a harvest. So, they have to use their emergency reserves. Feeding an army would be an exhausting effort when it comes to grain. This will limit the number they can muster, and even if they could feed them for two months or so, in time, they will starve, so our warehouses in Gulltown become their savior. The part I don't understand wouldn't they buy from Riverland if we sell it too expensive?"

Olenna shook her head and sighed. Silas was still young and inexperienced. At this moment, Lord Roland Hightower explained,

"They have to buy from us because Riverlands wouldn't have too much since there are still at least three months to their harvest."

Lord Cedric said,

"Their lands are as bountiful as ours, so they can have 2-3 harvests a year, but they are not as vast as ours. Their harvest is limited, and they must have already sold their last harvest to Essos.

"If I am right, Riverlands might have received a similar letter," Olenna said thoughtfully. The political climate was changing, and cold winds were blowing from the far North. Olenna smiled with anticipation of what was to come.