Chapter 148: Players and Pieces

Arthur laid it on the desk and watched the fire for a moment. The proposal was expected. Tyrion saw the southern melee for the opening it was, and wanted the west inside his camp, or at minimum outside his enemy’s. But the center of Arthur’s board was the North now, and Breaking Dawn could not be risked or exposed; he would not march his main strength against King’s Landing and light himself up as everyone’s next problem. Nor could he simply refuse. Daenerys was the queen he had publicly recognized; their interests against Cersei and against the Reach genuinely overlapped; and a Dragonstone pushed away hard enough goes looking for other friends, in the Vale, or worse. What he needed was a move that answered the queen, kept the surface of the alliance polished, cost him nothing he was saving, and improved his own position while looking like a favor.

He raised his head, the decision already set. “Alwin. Take this down.

“First, the military. In the joint names of the Lord Paramount of the Trident and Lord of Casterly Rock: the loyal river lords muster their sworn levies under the standing mobilization law, to form the Riverlands Allied Force, and to them is joined the main strength of the new Battanian formations raised and trained this past year. Unified command: Kator. The objective: Harrenhal.”

Alwin’s pen stopped. “Harrenhal? My lord, that is—”

“The greatest ruin in the Seven Kingdoms. A ghost city in the no-man’s-ground between the Crownlands, the Trident, and the Vale, and the pivot of half the wars in the histories. Which is exactly why it will not sit empty another season.” Arthur crossed to the great wall map and set his finger on it. “Last year we had neither the strength nor the stomach for it. Now the Reach and Dorne are at war, King’s Landing is besieged, and the Vale is scheming, and this hub does not get left on the table. Kator repairs a portion of the walls, the gates, and the key towers on arrival and builds a hard fortified camp. We are not rebuilding Harren’s folly to rival Casterly Rock. We are demonstrating presence, and taking the crossroads. Harrenhal sits between the Trident and the Gods Eye, square across the land route from the Bloody Gate into the Riverlands and the Crownlands. Held, it corks the road by which the Vale could ever march in strength, and makes Petyr price us into any land operation against the Trident or the North before he prices anything else. And it looks down the upper Blackwater at the flank of King’s Landing, which answers the queen’s request for coordination in the one coin I can afford: real strategic weight, spent from a strong purse.”

“But, my lord, the cost, and the Vale and King’s Landing will—”

“Which is why nothing will be announced, occupied, or rebuilt in my name or the west’s.” The words were already made. “The Riverlands Allied Force is clearing the bandits and broken men infesting the ruins of Harrenhal, and raising temporary shelter and a trading post at the petition of local refugees. Fast in execution, low in posture, hard underneath. And through Grey Shadow, the version that reaches the Eyrie and the Red Keep says only this: we are restoring order, we have no appetite for expansion, and any attempt against Harrenhal will be treated as a grave provocation against the Lord Paramount of the Trident. What we want is a military fact, not a political announcement.”

Alwin wrote like the wind.

“Second, the letters. To Lady Olenna and Lord Randyll of the Reach: regret and concern for the fighting on their Dornish border; our continued adherence to the Pheasant Hall Truce, and our willingness to consider extending it, provided the Reach renounces, in writing, every historical and legal claim upon the Riverlands, and pledges to support or incite nothing inside it. And as earnest for the extension, and consideration for our neutrality in their southern war, a substantial border security deposit, paid at once, Alwin, calculate the sum, and a permanent reduction of the tolls on western and river goods crossing the Reach’s checkpoints. Remind them gently that a stable and friendly southwestern border is worth a great deal to a realm fighting Dorne.”

It was profiting from the fire, and nailing down the victory in the same stroke: with the Reach pinned in the south, the ownership of the Riverlands would be finished on paper, and paid for besides.

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“To Prince Doran of Dorne: understanding, neither praise nor blame, for Dorne’s military measures in the Stormlands. The west and the Trident share no border and no grievance with Dorne, and have no intention of entering the Reach–Dorne dispute. But it must be noted, tactfully, that many lords of the Riverlands and the west feel unease at the speed of Dorne’s progress and its effect on the old shape of the Seven Kingdoms; and to soothe these enthusiastic but perhaps shortsighted lords, and preserve our benevolent neutrality, Dorne might extend certain friendly gestures. Trade concessions on Dornish goods, the wines, the lemons, certain rare ores. Or limited berthing and resupply rights for western and river merchantmen in the Stormlands ports Dorne now holds, Storm’s End, the Rain House. The gift is not in its weight, but in the mutual respect it expresses, and in the status quo it maintains.”

A shakedown, and a bridge, in one letter: no border meant no quarrel, so the moment was right to collect a toll on Dorne’s good fortune, and to sketch a trade route around the burning Reach, and to hint, in passing, that reaching too far north would be noticed.

“To Her Grace Queen Daenerys and her Hand: gratitude for the queen’s trust and for the proposal of coordinated operations. Then the truth, arranged: the west and the Trident are gravely worn by years of war, the people weary, the hosts thinned, the appetite for a great eastern march nonexistent, and forcing one might break things at home that could not be quickly mended. But in support of the queen’s cause we have taken a substantial deterrent measure: the garrisoning and preliminary repair of Harrenhal. From there we sit on the west of King’s Landing, we threaten its grain roads and its lines of reinforcement, and we cork the Vale’s land exit, all of which supports Her Grace’s eastern front in the most practical way our condition allows. And as to Lord Tyrion’s rumors of the North: we have heard them, we are observing closely, and nothing is yet certain. When there is a change, we will be in communication.”

Fulfilling the obligation, and drawing the line beneath it: no main force joins the storming of the capital; Harrenhal is the contribution, and it is not small; and the North stays wrapped in fog, neither exposing Breaking Dawn nor closing any door.

“Third. The North, and the sea.” His gaze went sharp. “Secret orders to Torren Flint: Deep Roots continues, and the vigilance doubles. His fleet at Widow’s Watch, the small coastal squadron the Flints have been building this past year at my instruction, goes to the highest state of alert, watching every anomalous gathering or sailing along the Vale’s coast, the Bite above all. At the first sign of a large movement by sea, north toward White Harbor, or around toward Seagard, word comes to me at the fastest speed there is, and he has discretion to harass and intercept.

“And secret orders to Alfie Karstark: when the first phase at Queenscrown is complete, he leaves what is needed to watch the Wall and support Jon, and takes the new-trained Battanian companies folded into his ranks south, to garrison Moat Cailin. The parchment says he is assisting its defense and clearing bandits. The truth is a strategic garrison at the Neck’s throat, ready to march south at any hour to support the Trident, Harrenhal above all, if the Vale or King’s Landing chooses the desperate road. Moat Cailin is the hinge between the North and the Riverlands, and it stays in our hand.”

The orders ran clean across war, diplomacy, and shadow, and Alwin’s pen flew until sweat stood on his forehead; he could feel the size of the game the duke was playing, every move pressing on the nerves of half a continent, and the price of one careless finger being everything.

When the last line was down, Arthur let out a long breath and went to the window, to the grey sky and the faint line of the sea. The Reach and Dorne at war, Dragonstone pressing, the Vale scheming, the North’s undercurrent, the capital’s madness: all of them ships jammed in the same storm’s eye, colliding and tearing. And he, just back from the cold, had this narrow gap of chaos in which to place his own pieces, the Riverlands nailed down, the Vale corked, Dragonstone satisfied and held at arm’s length, the Reach and Dorne each billed for their war, and everything made ready for the shadow battle in the North that would decide far more than the North.

The chips were on the table. The letters would fly with the morning. The army was already moving. The chaos of Westeros rose toward a new crest on the Reach’s war with Dorne, and gained new variables from this string of moves that looked, from outside, like a tired realm’s cautious housekeeping. The true storm had perhaps not yet arrived. But its overture was already rolling low, over the ruins of Harrenhal, through the marshes below Moat Cailin, and under the long shadow of Oath Keep.