Chapter 190: In the Light and in the Shadow

Arthur came back to the desk and touched the petition with one finger, and set out what would replace it.

“So this document is going to be rewritten. It becomes an agreement on defense cooperation and security. Its substance: House Manderly acknowledges its failure of supervision in the Morgan affair; and in order to make amends, to secure White Harbor, and to keep the aid moving north, it invites the Lord Paramount of the Trident to send a small military advisory party and a port security detachment — the number to be controlled, say five hundred men — to be quartered in White Harbor, and to assist House Manderly with the defense of the port, the screening of persons, counter-infiltration, and the safety of the shipments. White Harbor cooperates fully and provides every convenience. House Manderly further undertakes that its harbor, its fleet, and its resources will give priority to relief operations for the North coordinated by the west and the Trident, and that it will sever every abnormal contact with the Vale. In return, the west and the Trident guarantee the safety of White Harbor’s sea lanes against ironborn, pirates, and Vale hulls, and are obliged to provide military support if the city is attacked.”

Wendel listened, and something began to open in his mind. The lord’s version was far cleverer than his father’s. On its face House Manderly stayed independent and White Harbor’s sovereignty was untouched; inviting an ally to help with defense was ordinary, sensible, and precisely what a great house in a crisis was expected to do. It gave the west a lawful reason to be physically inside the most important point in the eastern North, and it cost nothing in the coin of reputation. And a body of five hundred men under the words advisory party would not raise anyone’s hair, and would be entirely sufficient to watch White Harbor and to ensure it never grew a second heart.

“That said,” and Arthur’s tone changed, “an agreement and a garrison are not enough. I need something that tells me your cooperation is real and not a posture that lasts as long as the weather does.”

“Say it, my lord.”

“A ward.” Arthur let the word sit. “Lord Wyman will send me a close blood relation, someone of standing in the family and near his own heart, to Casterly Rock. Publicly, to improve understanding between our houses and to study governance and arms. In fact, a hostage. He will be honorably treated and he will remain under my hand. As long as House Manderly keeps to the agreement, he is safe, well taught, and better placed at the end of it than at the beginning. If your house grows a second heart—” He did not finish it, and there was no need.

Wendel tasted something bitter, and knew at the same moment that it was inevitable. A ward given is the oldest guarantee an alliance has. Would his father agree? His father had no choice worth the name. And who? Not Wendel himself, who ran the family’s trade and administration and could not be spared for a year. Which left his elder brother Wylis, Lord Wyman’s heir, the man who would one day sit in the New Castle. To trade the heir of the house for the survival of the house was cruel arithmetic, and it was the arithmetic his father would do.

“There is more,” Arthur said. “The agreement will state that White Harbor’s tax and trade accounts are reported to my people regularly and truthfully. That major decisions — anything touching war, diplomacy, or dealings with the Vale, King’s Landing, or the other great houses of the North — require my prior consent. That the head of my advisory party serves also as deputy commander of the city’s defense, with the right to take part in and oversee every arrangement made for it. And that my security detachment holds the docks, the warehouses, the lighthouse, and the other key works. Those are what the word assist means in this house, and they go into the text.”

A chapter from the author's published page is shown here without permission; returning to that page supports the person who wrote it.

It amounted to putting the military and economic arteries of White Harbor under western supervision while calling it cooperation, and it would leave House Manderly with its autonomy on the surface and its decisions made a thousand miles to the south. A protectorate, in everything but the word.

Wendel drew a long breath. It was the price of being forgiven. Lose a portion of sovereignty and of freedom; keep the family, the wealth, and the appearance of dignity; gain the protection of the strongest power in Westeros; escape being liquidated by Alfie or by Jon; and get out from under the Vale for a season. In the position his house was actually in, that was not merely acceptable. It was better than anything he had dared put in front of his father.

He stood and bowed deeply. “My lord’s arrangements are thorough and just. On behalf of my father and of House Manderly, I thank you for the chance to begin again and to serve under your banner. We will comply with every article. As to the ward, I will write tonight, and I am certain my father will send a suitable man. Draft the agreement as you see fit and we will keep to it. I ask only that the advisory party and the detachment be sent quickly, to settle the city’s nerves, and to persuade Lord Alfie Karstark to stop where he is.”

“I will deal with Lord Alfie myself.” Arthur nodded, and something in his voice eased by a fraction. “When you get home, revise the documents and make the public statement as we have discussed. The men will not come around the whole of Westeros to reach you; they will come out of Moat Cailin and Oath Keep, which is a fortnight nearer, and my envoys will ride with them. Expect them inside three weeks of your own landing. And remember this, Ser Wendel: it is your last chance. Loyalty will be repaid. The other thing will not be forgiven twice.”

“We understand, my lord. House Manderly will not disappoint you.” Wendel bowed once more, and withdrew with a very complicated set of feelings.

Alone, Arthur stood in front of the map and looked at the place where White Harbor was marked, and his expression moved through several things.

Taking the Manderlys’ surrender and exercising control through the language of defense cooperation was, he judged, the best available answer. It was far cleverer than annexation. It avoided sharpening the one conflict he could not afford, which was the North’s suspicion of outsiders, and it put the port’s supply line and its intelligence node into his hand without a single banner being raised over the New Castle. Alfie’s stroke had been reckless, and it had also, without meaning to, levered open the gates of White Harbor and pushed the Manderlys toward him.

“In the light, a great house invites an ally to help it defend itself against a common enemy,” he said to the empty room. “In the shadow, White Harbor is already inside the snare.”

He would owe Jon an explanation, and he intended to use this new cooperation to strengthen both his support of the man and his hold on him. Alfie had been an excellent blade and would now need a warning, because a blade that swings itself will eventually cut the hand. And the Vale, King’s Landing, Highgarden, and Sunspear would all feel White Harbor turn, even quietly, and would all begin recalculating.

He went back to the desk and began drafting, in his own hand, the orders for Alfie Karstark, the letter for Jon Snow, and the instructions for the officer who would command in White Harbor. He already had the man in mind: a steady Battanian veteran who knew ports and salt water and had never in his life been impressed by wealth.

The two boards, the one in the light and the one in the shadow, had both been pushed into a new and more complicated phase by what had happened in that northern harbor. On the first, Arthur Greyoak went on expanding quietly and firmly as a friend of the North and an enemy of the Vale. On the second, through wards, garrisons, and account books, the arteries of White Harbor and of the eastern North were being gathered, a little at a time, into one hand — the whole of it under the excellent and unimpeachable heading of standing together against a common enemy.