Chapter 87 — What a Gift Says

The evidence was not the only cargo leaving FireStorm for Storm's End. On the night before Ser Alistair's departure, Arlan found him in the storehouse examining four sealed crates against Morton's manifest.

Two twelve-piece services of FireStorm's clearest glass had been packed in fitted wool, one marked for Renly and one for the royal household. Twenty small casks of three-month Red Sun Flame bore Robert's crowned stag. The workmanship was valuable; its timing made it dangerous.

"My report was sealed before I saw these," Alistair said.

"Then record that on the gift manifest."

Arlan could have delayed the tribute until judgment. That would make it look like payment after success instead of the hospitality prepared for Robert's visit before Tauha marched. Sending it now exposed the gift to suspicion but also allowed the dates, contents, and recipients to be witnessed.

A third crate held the glass relief-map of the Seven Kingdoms. Rivers, mountain chains, major roads, and castles had been marked in fired colors beneath a clear cover. Rodrick had checked every label twice. FireStorm appeared as no more than a dark point south of Storm's End, exactly as it did on any honest map.

The map had consumed six attempts. One cracked when a colored river cooled too quickly; another placed the Wendwater west of its true course; two trapped smoke in the clear layer and turned half the Reach grey. The final piece had required the kiln kept at an even heat through an entire night while workers fed charcoal by measured baskets. Morton attached their names to the case because a gift from a house was still work done by hands that deserved payment.

Moving it required a frame sprung against jolts and a wagon forbidden from taking the rough western track. The safer road passed closer to Nightsong. Wayne placed no armed troop around it, only two ordinary guards and a carter who knew which bridge boards had been replaced. A gift that needed fifty spears to reach Renly would say something different from what Arlan intended.

Arlan inspected the corners of the case himself. "This one goes to Renly's household. The spirit is for Robert's table."

"And the fourth case?"

Arlan opened the iron-bound cabinet beside the wall. Inside lay a short sword made to order through Larry's forge: dark meteoric iron, a sapphire set into the pommel, and a restrained stag worked into the crossguard. It was finer than anything FireStorm's local smiths could yet produce and small enough to be a personal gift rather than an armory shipment.

He had measured Renly's grip from the practice sword used during their earlier meeting and chosen a blade short enough for hall or saddle. Larry objected to the restrained fittings until Arlan rejected a jeweled guard that would catch a sleeve. The result carried wealth in material and balance, not enough ornament to make Renly look as though he had borrowed a mummer's weapon.

The sapphire presented another problem. FireStorm owned no mine that produced such a stone, and Elton would ask how a poor house acquired it. Rodrick entered the gem as a foreign purchase through the same concealed trade that had supplied earlier weapons, with value assessed and customs reserved if Renly demanded them. Mystery might flatter a recipient; unexplained wealth frightened every lord who heard of it.

You might be reading a stolen copy. Visit NovelPhoenix for the authentic version.

Rodrick looked over the blade without touching the edge. "You are sending a weapon to a man who owns castles full of weapons."

"I am sending him one made for his hand."

Rodrick closed the lid. "Elton will call all of this flattery."

"Elton calls breathing without his permission rebellion."

A brief smile escaped Rodrick before he returned to the inventory. He had proposed coin as the safest customary tribute. Arlan rejected it. Coin said only that FireStorm could pay. The map said that House Ashenblade understood itself as one small part of Renly's charge; the fitted blade asked Renly to treat its lord as a useful hand rather than a distant account. Whether Renly accepted that meaning belonged to him.

Morton added the cost of wool, timber, casks, broken attempts, and road guards. The number was smaller than the value Renly might place on the gifts and larger than the village could ignore. Arlan approved wages before sealing the cases. If the offering purchased favor while leaving the craftsmen unpaid, its meaning inside FireStorm would be clearer than anything written on the manifest.

They packed a plain replacement goblet and two spare bottles of spirit in a separate box. Neither appeared on the ceremonial list. A cracked glass at Robert's table could become insult through no fault of the maker; a reserve allowed a steward to solve the problem without turning breakage into politics.

At dawn, Ser Alistair's guards brought the packhorses forward; Arlan handed him the manifest and indicated the separately sealed sword case. Morton had already checked the seals against the inventory, while Rodrick kept a duplicate list in FireStorm's records so nothing could quietly vanish between the village and Storm's End.

"The evidence travels under your authority," Arlan said. "These do not. They are gifts from House Ashenblade. The glass service and blade are for Lord Renly. The spirits are tribute for the King's household when Robert arrives."

Alistair opened each case only far enough to confirm its contents. He showed no surprise at the glass and did not test the blade. On a fifth strip of parchment he wrote the hour at which his report had been sealed, then asked Arlan and Morton to witness it.

"Storm's End will decide what the gifts say," he said.

"That is why they are gifts instead of terms."

He ordered two men assigned specifically to the gift train and had the crates listed separately from the evidence chests. That separation pleased Arlan. If anyone later claimed FireStorm had tried to bury papers beneath tribute, Alistair's own manifest would show exactly which packhorse carried what.

Arlan passed him the smaller sword box last. "That one goes into Renly's hands, not a steward's store."

"Understood."

The column rode out with judgment in one set of chests and intention in another. Arlan watched the glass map disappear beneath waxed canvas. On it, FireStorm remained a point beneath Storm's End. The decision waiting at the other end of the road was whether Renly wanted that point strong, constrained, or gone.

Before the train crossed the lower bridge, one wheel pin worked loose beneath the map case. The carter heard the change, stopped, and replaced it from the spare bag Wayne had required. Alistair waited without impatience. A gift meant to shape policy still depended upon a small iron pin and a man willing to check the sound of his axle.

Rain began before the second milestone. The guards tightened waxed canvas over the glass and shifted the sword case to a saddle where floodwater could not reach it. One cask leaked at the bung and was transferred under Alistair's eye, its loss marked on both manifests. By the time Storm's End's towers rose above the road, the cargo had already required more judgment than its polished surfaces suggested.

Nothing arrived untouched by the journey.

Alistair delivered the record of every loss with the surviving cargo.