Chapter 11: Audits

The next months passed quickly as I was kept busy. The tournament had a hundred and one details that needed my input, apparently. The people in charge of it were too afraid to risk my ire, and after my actions I had quite the reputation for violence and perfectionism; I didn’t blame them, but it was annoying.

Jon did what he could to manage the audit, but even then I had to review the books, gaining familiarity as they went. They had just finished the book-keeping for the last two years of accounts, so I was going through those. There were dozens of irregularities and issues that they had marked for me, and then I had to determine why those irregularities existed. Some were from mistakes by my detachment of newly trained accountants, but others showed a disturbingly pervasive trend of corruption.

Littlefinger was undoubtedly a financial genius, and a genius at profiting in his own right as well. He traded, invested, lended on the Crown’s behalf, borrowing the money when needed to pay for it. There was a fine game afoot, as he beautifully balanced the Crown’s expenditures and incomes, always showing an increasing level of each. Hell, at the first level of deeper analysis the Crown and realm were actually more stable financially despite the immense debt.

But the reality showed that the balance was too beautiful. Over the dozen plus years of his being Master of Coin, Baelish had cleverly taken over nearly the entire financial apparatus. The four men who kept the keys to the treasury were his. So were the two men responsible for keeping the Seven Kingdoms using a standardized set of weights, measures and counting. All three mints were led by men he appointed. Within the Crownlands his rule was nearly total, harbormasters, tax-men, customs officers, toll-men, and the semi-nationalized factors who sold wool, ship’s supplies and wine to Essos – they were, in the main, Baelish’s men.

And at a deeper look, it was obvious that the businesses that got loans, the investments Baelish made, were largely his properties. Management fees, false losses, a dozen other tricks that would make a Wall-Street Banker blush in envy were used to fleece the Crown for every dragon over a certain bare minimum profit.

In other words, Baelish had invested the Crown’s money wisely, then channeled the profits to his own pockets. He kept the Seven Kingdoms just solvent enough to keep the golden-egg laying goose healthy. I had no idea just how many businesses and properties he was a silent partner or secret owner of, and I suspected that a number of his holdings had been diversified to Braavos, Pentos and the other cities of Essos.

I honestly had no idea what to do about it. Dismantling his organization and seizing his properties was certainly necessary, but much like banks being too big to fail, I was worried that too great a disruption in Baelish’s businesses could spark a financial collapse. The man was just that pervasive. It would literally be the work of years to undo what he did to subsume the governmental organizations.

The most likely scenario included using a number of stewards and other business and financially trained servants from the larger lords to provide a stop-gap of trained individuals. That was, however, a solution fraught with peril. If the King, or more likely Lord Stark, mismanaged it then they could easily end up giving some lords far too great an ability to reduce their own taxes or repeat Baelish’s actions in miniature.

I sighed and sat back. I hated writing with those fucking quills. Fountain pens, that was yet another thing to add to a list that just grew longer. But I was nearly done with my report, the careful documentation of the trickery that Baelish had used and some possible recommendations to fix it. On my advice, Ned had asked Lord Manderly to come down to King’s Landing; as far as I was concerned, he couldn’t arrive soon enough to start taking this mess out of my hands.

In my copious spare time from helping organize the largest tourney in at least twenty years and uncovering decades of financial malfeasance there were a hundred and one things to take care of, and more every day.

Little Arya was homesick, and still feuding with Sansa over the older girl’s failure to support her in that trial near the crossroads. Luckily Ned had found her a “dancing-master” to keep her busy, so over time I needed to spend less time supporting her. Of course, Arya normally hated dancing. This type of dancing though was much more to her liking; the man taught Braavosi water-dancing, a sort of Renaissance-ish fencing that used a weapon much more similar to a rapier. Syrio Forel, her instructor, was the former First Sword of Braavos, and perhaps the single most skilled swordsman I had ever met. I would have paid good money to see him go up against Ser Barristan, and if I’d had any time to spare would have asked him for lessons myself.

Sadly, I didn’t. While Arya had her own issues, her sister Sansa was also quite needy. In her case she had fallen into something of a depression. The South was not proving to be the bastion of chivalry and honor that she had hoped, her perfect golden shit of a prince was sent away, her sister was hardly talking to her, her father had been obviously disappointed, the young ladies of the court could be cruel… and she was a fairly stereotypical teenage girl. I had no idea how to handle that; I didn’t even have sisters growing up, just brothers.

On the other hand, I did know how to have quiet talks with those who looked to take advantage of her, stalking around the room so that Togo waited behind them just a little too close, his hot breath felt on the back of their neck. I rarely had to make a second visit. When I did though I’d time it for when they were practicing in the yard, as most every male of station did from time to time. An easy drubbing and a whisper in the ear when I picked them off the dirt did for most of the repeat offenders, while a smashed face and a few broken limbs waited for those that couldn’t learn. If it was a girl who was reported to have been bothering Sansa I did much the same, just to their brother or father. It was brutal, but it was a language that the people of that time and society understood and even respected.

Jon Snow, at least of all Ned’s children, I kept too busy to have any of these issues. Some may have snubbed him for a bastard, but he knew I had his back and I had quickly become one of the most feared members of court. He knew I was willing to support his position and take action on his behalf, which made him feel much stronger and more secure and thus, as was often the way for those who aren’t totally assholes, meant he didn’t actually need me to act to feel content. Just knowing that he could have those assholes crushed meant that Jon felt better than he had when Lady Catelyn was looking over his shoulder to find fault.

Other than being the kids’ friend, protector and backup as respectively needed, I spent a fair bit of time assisting Ned’s investigation into Lord Arryn’s death. It wasn’t going anywhere fast, and I wasn’t able to help out much with the time I had. The problem was that we were trying to find out something the man had been investigating over half a year after the fact. Naturally, as he was the Hand, Arryn had a large number of things he was doing at any point, a good portion of them things he wanted to keep confidential or secret. So we weren’t just looking for a needle in a haystack, we were looking for a specific needle in a haystack partially full of other needles.

So far, Ned had mostly figured out that Arryn had been up to something with Stannis, and had been (uncharacteristically) visiting some brothel. Of course, Stannis was a few hundred miles away on his island, while the guards that had accompanied Arryn to the brothel had gone back to the Vale, so we didn’t know which brothel.

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Beyond that, they had both been to visit one of the king’s bastards, a boy named Gendry, who was apprenticing under an armorer. Again, the underlying reason escaped us. Perhaps he was just checking up on the king’s blood? Perhaps he was starting to evaluate whether it might be better to put someone other than Joffrey onto the throne? We just didn’t know. Basically, the whole thing was a giant heap of frustration.

Still, it was sometimes a nice break from what I was doing otherwise. Like when that one puffed up shit of a knight, Ser Hugh, who had been Lord Arryn’s squire, got uppity. When Jory, Ned’s captain of the guard had gone to question him he was told that while Hugh would be glad to receive the Hand, he had no interest in being asked questions by a mere captain of guards. Shit like this was why when they offered me a knighthood I accepted, but some Northerners were so traditional, and against Andal practices, that they refused to become knights even if they could swear to a heart tree rather than the Seven.

When I heard about the disrespect I’ll admit to having been somewhat frustrated in general. I had never wanted to be an accountant, and none of the people at court had done anything to justify some stress relieving (for me, at least) “behavioral correction” in over a week. After the first month the assassins had stopped trying to stab or shoot me too, and detecting and avoiding or overcoming poison and the like was much more tedious than invigorating.

That was one thing I was finding about Westeros. I kind of liked it. The danger and everything. I had known that I liked to spar before whatever I did, or whatever was done to me, to put me in Winterfell. But what I hadn’t expected was to like the feeling of danger. I think that, without the magic, I would have hated it. The risk would have been way too high, the possibility of permanent death or impairment unacceptable. But with the magic to unbalance the playing field, well, even the danger was pretty fun. And although I was a bit of a bully, I justified that since it was mostly to other bullies and in protection of the Starks that my actions were acceptable.

Anyways, Hugh had been uncooperative with Jory, so I paid him a visit. He knew better than to refuse me, and few people are mouthy when a quarter ton of fanged beast is looking at them like they might taste good. Hugh was staying in an inn on the Hook, a street off of Aegon’s High Hill where a number of nobles and courtiers had properties. The inn catered to smaller nobles and knights; they knew who I was when I entered, not that there were many people my height wandering about the place, let alone ones followed by fuck-huge dogs.

I was lucky enough to catch Hugh as he sat down for dinner, and took a seat on the bench next to him. When he saw me I could see the realization in his eyes that he had fucked up.

It might have been my smile. It was not a kind smile.

His face was wan. “S-ser Odysseus,” he stammered. “What an u-unexpected pleasure.”

I grabbed him by the hair, pulled his head so that his ear was inches from my mouth. “IT IS GOOD TO MEET YOU, SER HUGH!” I shouted, absolutely bellowed into his ear.

“Argh!” he cried out, winced, tried to bring his hand up to cover his ear. I slapped it away.

“CAN YOU HEAR ME? IS THIS LOUD ENOUGH FOR YOU?” I continued to yell at a literally deafening level as if it were normal. The whole room was looking at us. Out of the corner of my eye I could see one of the serving girls over-filling a man’s drink; he flinched when the wine spilled into his lap, but kept silent rather than risk drawing my attention.

“Yes, yes! I can hear you, I’m not deaf, stop shouting, please!” he begged.

I tossed his head away. “Really? Because you seemed to be pretty damned hard of hearing when my friend, Jory Cassel, visited earlier,” I said. He paled even further. “Now, I’m a busy man Hugh. The Hand’s a busier one. There’s the Seven Kingdoms, tens of thousands of nobles, hundreds of thousands of knights, forty million commoners, and just one Hand to keep that all together. So let me make something clear, in case it wasn’t before. You should count it a great honor if the Hand pays any attention to you. If he sends his servant who empties his chamber pots to ask you questions you should be respectful and helpful. When he sends the captain of his guard, I expect you to go above and beyond, to be fucking obsequious! CAN YOU FUCKING HEAR ME, HUGH!” I screamed into his face.

“Yes, yes!” he cried.

“Good. Now, Jory would like a word with you,” I said, standing up and lifting him by the back of his collar. I dragged him outside. “Now, what do you say to Captain Cassel for taking the time to visit you?”

He was just too fucking clueless to answer. “I, I… sorry?”

“Is that a fucking question, Hugh?” I shouted in my best drill instructor impersonation. “You had best unfuck yourself, or I will unscrew your head and shit in that empty fucking space where your brain should be! Now, thank the captain, you dumb shit!” I could barely stop myself from bursting into laughter. This sort of entertainment was really as good as it got in Westeros.

“T-thank you, Captain,” he stammered as Jory looked on in amusement.

“Well done, Hugh, you can learn!” I said exuberantly, grinning and clapping him on the shoulder hard enough to buckle his knees. “Just see to it you don’t forget. I’d hate to have wasted my time, and would be forced to take some more extreme measures to make sure the next lesson really sticks.”

He was panickily shaking his head. “No, no, Ser, that won’t be necessary.”

“Excellent!” I said, then left. When we were a few yards away, Togo started to do this huffing thing that passed for laughter. I turned to him. “Yes, that was hilarious.”

And really, it was. I still laugh thinking back on it, Hugh’s confused face. Poor kid. I was so hard on him partially as an object lesson; Lord Stark’s men had been getting a bit of pushback here and there and I wanted to nip that shit in the bud. Word of our little chat quickly spread and suddenly people were much more cooperative.

That society was big on public honor, kind of like how the Japanese and Chinese cared about having “face”. No one wanted to be called out in front of their peers and humiliated like that. It wasn’t quite the end of their life, but it could be a life-long black mark on their reputation, affecting everything from positions they might want in the future, their prospects for military command or marriage, everything really. For example, after answering Jory’s questions Hugh pretty much had to leave the capital and return home in disgrace.

So, all of those things kept me busy. But I did have some time for personal pursuits. I made sure to work out every day for at least an hour to stay in shape, and sparred a few hours a week. Purely on my technical skill I was about as good as a standard knight, a little above average with the spear while below average with the sword and shield. But between my size, fitness, and the advantages my magical cultivation had given me I was a lot stronger and faster, even before applying more temporary buffs.

I hadn’t had time to develop any new spells, and my continued messing about with sympathetic curses wasn’t successful. I did however manage to bond just about all the available mana within the Red Keep. The Godswood gave a single Green. The keep itself, the sept and the throne room gave a combined three White, while the Library and shoreline gave a pair of Blue. The Dungeons were good for two Black mana, while the hill everything was built on finally gave me my third Red mana.

As soon as I finished with writing my report on Baelish and seeing him questioned and dead I planned to start collecting the mana available in the rest of the city, then go on a trip to the Kingswood to fill up on Green before returning along the Blackwater Bay shore to grow my stores of Blue. I didn’t really have a need for that level of mana, but it could come in useful in an emergency. Beyond that, I thought I might be able to develop more spells if I used mana senses and mage sight to analyze particularly dense concentrations of mana, but that meant I needed to make the dense concentration in the first place.

I also wanted to visit the Alchemists Guild and see what they could teach me; wildfire, a particularly nasty substance they could make, sounded like it might have a bit of the supernatural to it. Even if it didn’t, true Greek fire had been lost to history so it would be interesting to see how the local analogue actually performed. Beyond that, the Alchemists were known to have been interested in magic in Westeros before the dragons died and magic faded. Even basic knowledge might prove useful to me.

Basically, I was like most hard working persons; I wanted a vacation.

And then, finally, I finished the preliminary report on Littlefinger’s malfeasance. I got Ned, who summoned Robert, and we went to go question Baelish.

When we got to the room where he was being held all we found were the cooling corpses of the two Stark guardsmen laying in pools of their own blood.

The mockingbird had flown away.

Not ten minutes later I received the report that on his way out, he’d seen to the burning of the building where we were analyzing the records.