The Witch-King of the Vale [GoT x LotR]

Riverlands. Harrenhal. 299 AC.

Jasper Redfort.

Stupidity is one of the great vices of the human race. Jasper's father had tried since childhood to instill in his heir a grain of critical thought, but the stubborn boy had no ear for the wisdom of a man who had lived long enough to earn it. He grew into a powerful man. By twelve, young Jasper possessed a physical strength that let him wield a greatsword as though it were a feather, and no guard could hold against him for more than three strikes. Jasper had come to believe that no obstacle in the world could stand in his way, that any problem could be solved with enough overwhelming force. In time, the young Redfort's wrongheadedness led him down the path of pride, and pride led him straight to folly.

At the turning point of the Fish Rebellion, the whole campaign had nearly collapsed because of him. Hundreds of good knights died or were maimed, their leader Lord Arryn among the wounded, and all of it his doing. Thank the gods they had wrenched victory from the rebels' hands at the last moment. But Jasper had felt no triumph. He had made too many mistakes, and by rights he should have been cast out from polite company. Instead Lord Arryn had done the very opposite and drawn him closer. It baffled him. Jasper knew he had been a poor subordinate; his willfulness had cost great sacrifices and undermined the authority of Falcon's eye. Had their positions been reversed, Jasper would have done the opposite of what Arryn had done.

However long he turned the question over, he never found an answer that satisfied him, so he chose to accept it and serve his lord faithfully. When the campaign for the Lannister gold was announced, Jasper had rejoiced, but his appointment as commander of the assault on Harrenhal left him bewildered. There were men far worthier of the honor, and yet he had been chosen. Not the famed, tested captains who counted themselves Lord Arryn's friends, but this great failure of a man. The thoughts of the Falcon's eye remained a mystery to him...

"My lord Redfort, Ser Bryce, Ser Corvus, and Lord Edmond are in position and await your command," Ser Gwayne's voice pulled Jasper from his thoughts.

"Sound the attack." Everything that could be checked had been checked; there was no sense waiting longer.

"As you say." Looking at his closest companion, a man who had lost an eye and two fingers in that same bloody mess yet had stayed loyal to his liege, Jasper felt an unfamiliar surge of resolve. Arryn's words echoed in his head.

The first day had gone to setting up camp and digging trenches. Lord Arryn, besides giving him a strict fifteen days from arrival to take the castle, had ordered him to preserve as many of his own men as possible and to seize as many highborn hostages as he could. As the joke went, the river lords could finally afford to spend gold on ransoms.

Lord Arryn had advised against elaborate plans, telling him instead to use his own strengths against the enemy. Harrenhal had once been the strongest castle in Westeros, but those days were long past, and little remained now but ruin. The castle's very size would work against its defenders: the wider the attacking line, the thinner the garrison would have to stretch its own. It would matter too that the walls had breaches in several places. The river lords had thrown up barricades of rubble, but no pile of junk could ever replace a true wall. If the assault came from several directions at once, dragging the enemy's reserves back and forth across the field, Harrenhal would fall easily enough.

"Let's see what I'm made of."

...

The Crownlands. The Red Keep. 299 AC.

Tywin Lannister.

For the Old Lion of Casterly Rock, mornings never began well. Not because of the dynasty's unsteady fortunes, nor because of the children who had disappointed him time and again, but for the plain, unglamorous reason of a weak bowel. Everything in this world bends to time: empires, nations, peoples, and though he was the most powerful man in the Seven Kingdoms, he was still a man, and men grow old. His bowels had begun to fail him, and it made for a wretched start to every morning, with flare ups that returned throughout the day besides. The Lion of the West could feel it: his death was drawing near.

Tywin did not fear dying of old age, of a blade, or of poison, though he was sensible enough not to hurry any of them along. What truly filled him with dread was the thought of the lion's house without him and without Kevan to steer it. His descendants were one long disappointment, men he was afraid to trust with even the smallest task, for even bad governance takes some skill to manage. The only tolerable aide he had left was that small, lecherous stump of a man, while the rest, his children, grandchildren, cousins, nephews, and the whole sprawling brood of kin, did nothing but add to his headaches.

And now here was Cersei, ambitious but shortsighted, giving him an account of his grandson's latest whim.

"So Joffrey wants to pull my entire army out of King's Landing and march it into the Riverlands?" With every passing day the boy grew more insufferable.

"Father, talk him out of this foolishness. He is king, and his place is in King's Landing, on the Iron Throne." Tywin was certain his daughter had come running to him only because she could no longer sway Joffrey herself.

"It will not happen. You may tell him so yourself." He had given his own ancestral lands over to plunder to keep King's Landing safe, and he would not see that sacrifice cheapened by a boy's tantrum. "Is that all?"

"Viserys Targaryen is a problem, and I would like to be certain we are doing everything we can to see it dealt with." Cersei could feel power slipping through her fingers and could do nothing to stop it, so she soothed her pride however she could. The sessions of the small council and the empty title of queen regent were proof enough of that.

"When my grandsons' legitimacy was called into question, what did I do?"

"You started a war," Cersei answered obediently, as she had as a girl.

"And what will I do if the restoration of the Targaryens means the end of our house?"

"Everything within your power."

"Everything I can..." Tywin's whole bearing made clear the conversation was over, but his daughter did not hurry to leave. "Are you still here?"

Only then did the dowager queen take her leave of the Tower of the Hand in haste. Tywin watched her go without much interest. After several miscalculations in the war, caused by unknown spies they had still failed to root out, the Old Lion had grown ever more paranoid about guarding information, and by the latest reports, it seemed to be paying off. He had told Cersei nothing of three matters of consequence.

First, despite the dismal state of the western armies, he had ordered Kevan to prepare men for a campaign into the Riverlands. Tywin would not allow his house's wealth to scatter into the hands of every rebel with a sword. The Falcon's eye would draw off the bulk of the river lords' strength, and then Kevan could recover some part of what had been stolen, crushing whatever resistance remained along the way.

Second, the crown had opened negotiations with the Golden Company. The conflict had dragged on more than nineteen months now, the soldiers were spent, resources were running dry, and fifteen thousand fresh swords could put an end to the rebellion. Tywin had fought in the War of the Ninepenny Kings and remembered the stories of how the great majority of that sellsword company had once been knights exiled from the Seven Kingdoms. That could prove a problem, but the men of the company came mostly from the Reach, the Riverlands, the Crownlands, and the Stormlands. Since the war, Tywin had grown confident that handing land over to sellswords would cause no great trouble, and the opinions of the defeated had never concerned him in the least.

And third, the Sack of Casterly Rock had struck a heavy blow to many of his plans, above all where his finances were concerned. War devoured gold the way sand drinks water, and the untimely halting of projects in King's Landing had torn a great hole in the royal treasury. The crown already owed millions in gold, but with the great wealth of Casterly Rock behind him, Tywin had not troubled himself much over it. As it turned out, that had been a mistake, and now he was reaping the fruits of his own carelessness. Something unprecedented in the history of House Lannister had come to pass: the Lannisters needed gold.

Now they had become clients of the Iron Bank.

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