Chapter 07: Helping a Friend and More Meetings

King's Landing, Crownlands

4th Moon, 259 AC

The problem with having all of the real Nobels at King's Landing at the same time is security, as all of those highborn sauntering their wealth around will allow the desperate smallfolk to commit some bad deeds, and there was a lot of desperate smallfolk in the City, the same can be said about the huge number of hedge knights that seek employ under the many Lords, who will cause a lot of troubles.

So we decided to take two birds with one stone and started recruiting a lot of those hedge knights and desperate smallfolk into the City Watch, expanding its number from two thousand to three, and the officers from 100 to 300.

I made sure to design a thorough recruitment system alongside Ser Eric Dayne and the newly promoted Lord Commander of the City Watch Ser Robert Darkwood, because the previous Commander Ser Boris Stokeworth had a very unfortunate 'accident' at some whorehouse, I made sure to be present at the recruitment of Officers as I was present in the investigation and the purge that was carried by Ser Robert after receiving his post.

With the new recruitment and the thorough purge of the City Watch as well as a very intense new training system, the Order was transformed from the lousy bunch it was to an Elite policing force that made any low-breaker tremble at their sight, the training program was divided into two types, one for Watchmen and the other for Officers, the latter which was implemented by the Red Keep men-at-arms, it was a mixture of physical conditioning and endurance training for their bodies and a Westerosi version of MMA and weapon training for their fighting skills.

These improvements were carefully implemented in a way that shows a minimum intervention on my part, as I made sure to appear as more of a supervisor than the hand behind the scenes, as I didn't want to be thought of as some kind of over-the-top genius, a reputation of a prodigy is enough for me.

The security improvements were followed by improvements in trade, as merchants were eager to sell their products to the coming Lords, especially the luxury products which had a high tax return, and with such gatherings must come to a great tourney, one that made sure to carefully plan with Lord Marbrand and his chosen master of games, we need for the tourney to not only cover its expanses but to provide a further profile that will hopefully cover some of the Royal Ball expenses, and with the prospect of joining the Kingsgaurd, the finest Knights of the Realm have gathered at the Capital.

Lord Commander Gerold Hightower was stretched thin with his duty of guarding the royal family, so I proposed to assign some of the finest of the Red Keep's men-at-arms to him and Ser Cristian temporarily until to induction of a new brother, fully intending to make it a permanent arrangement once he realizes how useful they are, thinking of making a full unit of ten men under each Knight of the Kingsgaurds and fifty more under the direct command of the King and the Heir to the Throne, naming this new regiment the Royal Gaurds.

During my meeting with the arrived Lords, I made sure to create a thorough profile of every one of them, like the extent of their loyalty, their allies, devotion to the Faith, the amount of their reliance and trust in Maeters, their mercantile in line and avenues, and so forth and so on, this way I will be having an easier way arranging for trade deals, betrothals, and most urgently army distribution in the upcoming war, so I can give some blows to those I want to weaken and to have a reason to grant boons to those I want to strengthen without receiving legitimate complaints from their rivals.

Meeting Tywin again was a joyous occasion made sour by his father's folly, as his latest stunt was wedding his 12 name-days daughter Genna to the second son of a Lordy House from the Riverlands, a certain unpleasant Lord Walder Frey, whom according to Tywin has announced the betrothal of Genna Lannister to his second son Emmon Frey on an event that happened 7 years ago when she was 5 name-days old, the event was attended by most the Westerlands Nobility and was not something anyone has known of before, not even Tytos Lannister himself, the announcement made such wide outrage amongst the Westerlanders and Tywin personally disagreed, and it was supposed to be broken but Lord Lannister in his cowardice and quest to please everyone didn't break it, and the wedding was something that further smeared the Lannister name in the mud.

Tywin was very upset at the state of his House, a state that I won't allow to continue much longer, and for that, I had a lengthy talk with Tywin about the strategies I devised to reverse the situation, at first he was reluctant to accept my help thinking it will paint him as another weak Lord that needed the Crown help to deal with his problems, something his pride can't allow, it took a while and delicate use of compulsions to convince that my plans don't involve a public interference or even something that can be pointed the Crown, some of those plans if not the most important of them rely on the coming war, chief amongst them the distribution of the Westerlanders troops, which will logically will be left to Lord Rogar Reyne to command as he is the most capable and influential Lord of the Westerlands, but I intend to 'convince' Lord Tytos Lannister to appoint his son and Heir Tywin, something that will not be thought of as possible but will be supported by many Westerlords that either support House Lannister like Lord Marbrand, or others who don't want to see House Reyne gain more influence like House Farman, of cource those lord with my help will conveniently ignore the fact that Tywin have no experience, which he really lack but from my observation will not hinder him with his talent for warfare.

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Following several days of exhausting scheming and forging an invisible web of alliances and plots to strengthen the very shaky foundation of my House there was a call for an emergency Small Council meeting by my Father to discuss the matters of the swearing ceremony, the Royal Ball and it's accompanying tourney, as well the matters of the upcoming conflict.

I made my way to the Small Council chambers alongside Ser Cristian and two of the newly appointed 'royal guards', we reached the Small Chamber that was guarded by another two royal guards, and they opened the door for me as I entered alongside Ser Cristian leaving the guards outside, I was faced with the usual attendants with the recent addition of my mother the Queen, that I convinced my Father to allow her attendance to those meetings like both Jaehaerys I and Daeron II used to do in their days, I took my seat facing my father at the other end of the table.

We waited for the Lord Commander of The City Watch to arrive as he was another addition that I proposed to join these meetings to allow for more practicality, he arrived shortly after me and took his seat at the table by my side while metering a quiet "I am sorry for being late your Grace" to my Father who replied with "there is no reason to apologize Ser Robert"

After that, the meeting started with some reports on the state of the City and the preparation, "everything is going according to the plans Your Grace, there is no problem with the preparation" said Lord Ormund.

"If I may your grace, the trusted men that I sent to the Free Cities to look for allies against the emerging Band of Nine and their troubling move in the Stepstones have returned" he stopped talking for a moment taking a deep breath, and continued "the responses from the Free Cities has been at best lukewarm, and some even dismissed this as a Westerosi problem".

There was a hush at the table for a moment, only to be broken by "This is most outrageous, how can those Essosi Magisters ignore such an apparent danger, does no one of them see the danger of the Stepstones falling into the hand of Sellswords and Pirates" the Grandmaester annoyed voice, for a moment there was a chorus of an agreement to his statement by other members of the Small Council.

Lord Rosby said in his raspy voice "To believe that the Essosi will think that this is merely another Blackfyre Rebellion is the height of folly, if the Band managed to take control of the Steptones they will cripple the shipping lanes that go through there with high tolls just to fund their war on Westeros and the Free Cities will endure a lot of loses to their trade".

Once again there were nodes of agreement, so I said in a calm voice " It's not that they don't understand the danger, quite the opposite, they do more than many of the Lords of the Seven Kingdoms, who think that it will be like the last Blackfyre Rebellion, the Essosi understand the danger but they are willing to wait and let the Seven Kingdoms handle it while they conserve their strength and wealth so that they can take advantage of us after this war", there was some disbelieving face at what I said, and no one was able to respond.

I continued "You have to remember my Lords that such a thing happened 250 years in the past, Bravos and Pentos didn't move a bit against the Triarchy when they occupied the Stepstones, even when they imposed outrageously high tolls on the Ships passing through, even when most of Pentos trade was to the south" I stopped for a moment to let my words sink a little.

"Neither Bravos nor Pentos made a move without even coming to an agreement on that, as they were enemies at the time, but they did the same thing for one reason, and that is because they know that Corlys will make his move, and he will seek and aid from the Throne, and even when Viserys I refused to go to war against the Triarchy, Corlys still made his move, proving the Free Cities point".

There were flashes of understanding on some faces to my statement, so I continued "The Free Cities won't make any moves now more than anytime, as they see that the Iron Throne will most certainly not wait for the Blackfyre pretender and his Band of Nine to make a foothold on the Stepstones, so why would they waste their resources on what in their thinking is a waste of time, as they can wait for us to finish the job, and they will have to do with their inland trade with Norvos and Qohor".

"The most they will do is for the Iron Bank to offer us a loan to finance the war, which is one of their ways to take advantage of us, and after the end of the war I believe the Free Cities will start making contracts with what remains of The Golden Company to make them recover easily so that they will stay a dagger in our backs, like they did every single time they were near destroyed by us"

There were looks of recognition on all the faces in the rooms at my words that were soon replaced with pure rage, there was banging on the table by Lord Ormund "THOSE F**** COPPER COUNTERS, HOW DARE THEY TRY TO TAKE ADVANTAGE OF US" his sound thundered showing the meaning of his House words, he took a deep breath to regain his bearing and sat back and said: "This can't le be happen, Your Grace, we need to respond to this".

There was a furious nodding from Lord Samwyl Tarly as he looked at my Father and said "Indeed Your Grace we mustn't let those despicable Essosi go away with this", there was some silence from Father followed by "And how you suppose we respond my Lord, as they didn't do anything to provoke a public respond from us, the most we can do is after the war to raise taxes on their goods, but that won't do us any good my Lords as most of our trade with them is necessary for the Kingdom to recuperate, and after the time it will take for us to recover any move from us will be meaningless" the Council descended into silence after the word spoken by The King as no one had anything to propose.