Chapter 120: The Trout Yields

The upheaval in the Riverlands spread across Westeros like a stone cast into a marsh. The first splash had been loud enough, but the ripples mattered more. They reached Riverrun, Highgarden, King’s Landing, Dragonstone, and every hall where frightened men gathered around maps and pretended fear was strategy.

At Riverrun, Edmure Tully received the news with the grey face of a man who had already lost the argument before he opened his mouth. Arthur Greyoak had accepted the charge of Lord Paramount of the Trident, and the lords of the western and southern Riverlands were bending the knee to him in numbers too large to dismiss as rebellion and too orderly to crush as treason. House Tully still had its castle. It still had its banners. It even had a claim, if one counted old words written by dead kings and guarded by men with too few swords.

What it no longer had was power.

Edmure did not choose his father’s defiance. Hoster Tully would have shut the gates and dared the realm to come take him. Nor did he choose Catelyn’s cold hunger for vengeance, the sort that could keep a heart beating long after sense had fled. Edmure had been mocked often for softness, and some of the mockery had been deserved. Yet softness was not always blindness. He knew what Riverrun could and could not survive.

His remaining counsellors were few: old household knights, servants who had known him as a boy, a maester with hands that shook when ravens came, and men whose loyalty had outlived their usefulness. They spoke through a long, bitter night beneath the leaping trout of House Tully. By dawn, Edmure had chosen the only road left that might preserve his blood.

He would go to Casterly Rock.

Not with an army. Not with threats. Not with another letter no one feared enough to answer. He would go as the representative of House Tully, the heir of the former Lords Paramount of the Trident, ostensibly to discuss the future of the Riverlands and the place of Riverrun in the order now forming. In truth, he went as a hostage, though everyone involved would be polite enough to avoid the word. Westeros has always been fond of wrapping humiliation in velvet.

Edmure rode south and west beneath the trout banner with a handful of attendants. There were no cheering crowds along the road. The Riverlands watched him pass from fields, ferry crossings, and village gates, not with hatred, but with the tired pity reserved for old houses that had failed too publicly. The smallfolk had long memories when it came to hunger and fire. They remembered who had failed to protect them, and who had repaired roads after the fighting passed.

Arthur received him at Casterly Rock with the courtesy owed to a lord whose fall did not need to be made uglier. The hall was not crowded. Diana was present, as were Alwin, Jason Mallister, and a few trusted officers. There was bread and salt, and no songs.

“My lord of Riverrun,” Arthur said.

Edmure’s mouth tightened at the title. He knew what had been omitted. “Lord Greyoak.”

They looked at one another for a long moment. Edmure seemed older than he should have been, worn thin by captivity, failure, grief, and the special cruelty of surviving more honorable men. Arthur felt no triumph in seeing him so. A beaten trout was still a poor meal.

“I have come for the good of my house,” Edmure said at last. His voice was flat, but steady enough. “And for the peace of the Riverlands. If the lords have chosen you, I cannot unmake their choice by shouting from behind Riverrun’s walls.”

“No,” Arthur said. “You cannot.”

A flicker of pain crossed Edmure’s face. “I would keep Riverrun. A small demesne around it. Enough for House Tully to endure. I will not raise banners against you. I will not invite Cersei, Daenerys, the Reach, or the Vale to use my name as a knife against the Trident. In return, my son and my line will be left in peace.”

Arthur rested his hands on the arms of his chair. He could have demanded more. A harsher man might have stripped Edmure of castle, name, son, and dignity, then called it prudence. Westeros had a surplus of harsher men and very few examples of them improving anything.

“Riverrun remains yours,” Arthur said. “Its lands will be reduced to what can be held without threatening the peace of the Trident. Your household retains its wealth, servants, and honor so long as House Tully does not seek to restore its former rule by force, intrigue, or foreign aid. You will remain at Casterly Rock as my guest until the Riverlands are settled.”

Guest. There it was, polished bright.

Edmure bowed his head. “And my son?”

“He will inherit Riverrun if he behaves more wisely than the realm has taught any of us to behave.”

That drew the ghost of a laugh from Jason Mallister. Edmure did not smile. He was too busy swallowing the last piece of his pride.

“So House Tully lives,” he said.

“House Tully lives,” Arthur answered. “It no longer rules the Riverlands.”

There were no dramatic vows, no swords drawn, no curse spat upon the floor. Edmure accepted because he had no army, no allies worth naming, and no better bargain. He was given a comfortable tower with fine chambers, good food, books, servants, and guards enough to remind everyone what comfort could be made to mean. House Tully passed out of the struggle for the Trident not with fire and blood, but with escorted dignity and locked doors. It was almost merciful, which in politics is usually just cruelty that has learned manners.

With Riverrun contained, the new order in the Riverlands hardened quickly. Arthur’s authority spread through oath, garrison, charter, road, and grain. Diana was appointed to coordinate the civil administration of the Westerlands and Riverlands under the framework already laid by the Riverlands Management Plan. Alwin took charge of coin, stores, and movement of supplies, with the grim resignation of a man asked to make arithmetic serve ambition. Loyal river lords were selected for a new council under the Lord Paramount of the Trident, men with enough standing to be respected and enough dependence to remember who had lifted them.

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Stoney Sept and the Twins became the two great hinges of Arthur’s river policy. Stoney Sept, rebuilt from old ruin into a market town and fortress, would serve as a center of administration, trade, and settlement. The Twins would remain a military and logistical bridge between west, river, and north, guarded strongly and stripped of every Frey shadow that could be stripped without tearing down the towers. Diana would travel between them, overseeing the reorganization of river levies into the new army and reminding the surrounding lords that Casterly Rock had not accepted their oaths for ornament.

The Riverlands settled, but peace in one place often makes neighbors nervous. The sharpest reaction came from the south.

Highgarden was all carved beauty, perfumed air, and thorns men forgot about until they bled. Lady Olenna Tyrell sat in her solar with Margaery beside her, listening as the raven’s message was read aloud. Her cane struck the floor hard enough to startle the servant holding the parchment.

“The Riverlands,” Olenna said, “have fallen into the hands of that western barbarian.”

Margaery’s brow tightened. “Grandmother.”

“Do not grandmother me into softness. Jason Mallister, Darry, Piper, Vance, all of them running west like geese before a storm. Cowards, most of them. Sensible cowards, which makes them worse.”

Margaery took the parchment and read it again, though she had understood it the first time. “If Lord Greyoak holds the Riverlands as well as the Westerlands, his reach now touches our northern border. He controls the roads south of the Neck, the river routes, and the crossings. Our pressure on the Westerlands becomes much less useful if he can move goods through the Trident, the North, Seagard, and White Harbor.”

“Less useful?” Olenna’s eyes flashed. “It becomes a sieve. He can bring furs and timber from the North, grain from the rivers, ore from his hills, fish and salt from the Iron Islands if the krakens decide to behave like merchants for a week. Give him time and he will knit half the western realm into one cloak, and then we shall all be expected to admire the stitching.”

“He has losses,” Margaery said. “The Wall cost him dearly.”

“And a wounded wolf is still a wolf, child. Worse, sometimes. They stop wasting strength on pretty leaps and go straight for the throat.”

Olenna leaned on her cane and stood. “Send to Randyll Tarly. The border is to be tightened at once. Patrols tripled. Passes watched. Every caravan searched until the merchants curse us in seven dialects. No refugee, trader, mule, or mouse crosses without our men knowing what is tied beneath its tail.”

Margaery’s expression did not change, though her hands folded more tightly. “And if that provokes him?”

“It is meant to.” Olenna’s smile had no warmth. “Small frictions. Bandits chased across the border. Western patrols accused of raiding. A burned cart here, a vanished scout there. Nothing so large that he can claim open war, but enough to remind him the Reach is not a rose painted on a child’s cup.”

“And King’s Landing?”

“Send to Cersei. Tell that mad lioness that if she wants the Reach to help strangle her dragon queen, she had best do more than drink wine in the Red Keep and wait for other people to solve her problems. Arthur Greyoak grows while she fumes. That should frighten her. If it does not, nothing we say will help.”

The Reach moved quickly. Patrols multiplied along the border. Checkpoints grew harsher. Merchants were delayed, searched, fined, and sometimes robbed in ways official enough to insult everyone’s intelligence. Western riders and Reach patrols clashed in the hills and along lesser roads. Blood was spilled, small amounts at first, which was how larger amounts often introduced themselves. Certain old Lannister bannermen, displeased by Arthur’s reforms and stripped privileges, began receiving quiet encouragement from southern hands. Storehouses burned. Bridges were damaged. Scouts vanished.

The southern border of the Westerlands tightened like a drawn bow.

Arthur called his council at Casterly Rock.

Smith stood over the map with one hand braced on the table. Diana had not yet departed for Stoney Sept. Alwin had brought ledgers because he believed any disaster improved when made numerically offensive. Kator, still recovering from his wounds, sat rather than stood and looked furious about it. Beland was present, along with Jason Mallister and several men from the new river council.

Smith tapped the red-marked border with two fingers. “The Reach moved faster than expected. They mean to drag us into waste. Hard patrols, trade harassment, false bandit hunts, pressure on our lesser lords. If we do nothing, the border loses heart, and every watching house decides we are weaker than we look. If we strike hard, we give Tarly the border war he wants, drain our new levies before they are trained, and offer King’s Landing a chance to move.”

“A neat trap,” Alwin muttered.

Arthur looked at the map. Westerlands. Riverlands. North. Iron Islands. The Narrow Sea. Dorne. Dragonstone. Highgarden. King’s Landing. A lovely arrangement of hungry mouths.

“We will not let the Reach choose the shape of the war,” he said. “If they close roads, we open rivers and seas. If they press the border, we make pressing expensive. If they try to isolate us, we make ourselves more useful to everyone else.”

He turned to Alwin. “Trade.”

Alwin opened his ledger with the solemnity of a septon opening scripture. “The blockade has hurt our land trade with the Reach, Stormlands, and King’s Landing. Badly. But Lannisport remains open, and our river access through Seagard and other ports is stronger now that the Trident answers to us. Trade with the North through White Harbor and the Moat Cailin route has improved. The Iron Islands are unsettled after Euron’s flight, but Asha or Victarion, whichever emerges stronger, appears interested in food and peace, in that order. Dorne has shown interest in timber, weapons, and wine. Sunspear may be willing to deal by sea and avoid the Red Mountains.”

“Good,” Arthur said. “Prepare an internal trade compact. Westerlands metalwork, tools, and coin. Riverlands grain and cloth. Northern timber, furs, and stone. Ironborn fish, salt, and ships if they can remember not to steal the goods before selling them. Tax incentives for merchant guilds that use the routes. Escorts for convoys. Lannisport’s shipyards are to speed construction of merchant hulls and armed escorts. Open talks with Braavos, Pentos, Dragonstone if possible, and Dorne. The Reach may close roads. It cannot close the sea unless the gods have become even more irritating.”

A few men smiled. Not many. The map remained ugly.

Arthur looked at Smith. “As for the border, we answer. Not with banners and trumpets. Small companies. Fast strikes. Patrols under the name of training and counter-harassment. Hit their outposts, wagons, and supply lines. Destroy watch posts where they overreach. Take prisoners when useful. Avoid anything larger than a regiment. I do not want a full border war unless I choose it.”

Smith’s eyes sharpened. “We can manage friction as well as the Reach.”

“Better,” Arthur said. “If we are to be petty, we will at least be skilled. Randyll Tarly should learn that blockading us means neither side sleeps well.”

Kator grunted approval. “I can send men.”

“You can heal,” Diana said without looking up from her notes.

Kator glared at her. Diana continued writing, proving once again that courage comes in many forms.

Arthur let the moment pass, then straightened. “Now the larger question. The Dragon and the Lion.”

Silence settled.

Cersei had declared war on Daenerys. The Reach was squeezing the Westerlands. Euron had struck Dragonstone with weapons no honest sea captain would put on a prow unless paid very well or cursed. The south was no longer drifting toward war. It had opened its mouth.

“Cersei hates us already,” Arthur said. “The Reach has acted openly enough. Daenerys Targaryen is wounded, but she still has two dragons, Unsullied, Dothraki, ships, and a claim older than the Baratheon-Lannister mess sitting in King’s Landing. More importantly, she is Cersei’s enemy.”

“The enemy of my enemy,” Jason Mallister said.

“Is often still a problem,” Arthur replied. “But sometimes a useful one.”