Chapter 112 109

Lord Axel Arryn.

Due to the civil war, interregional trade had essentially died. The Vale was no exception, so Pentos and Braavos had become our new friends. In the south of Essos, where my influence was greatest, war had broken out, and they had no time for trade with me. From this alliance, however, I drew considerable benefit, namely shipwrights, geologists, craftsmen, and cheap labor.

Calling the Vale's fleet a fleet was frankly embarrassing. Every other "sea faring house" ran circles around us. The region had no proper fleet to speak of, only the Melcolms and the lords of the Three Sisters had anything worth mentioning.. The Melcolms alone, no matter how cleverly they maneuvered, could never cover the needs of the entire Vale. So the newly appointed lord of Gulltown, Lord Desmond, was given a substantial budget, introduced to the right people, and handed a clear objective: by the end of next year, the Vale was to have proper docks, trained personnel, and a real fleet.

The very first time I looked over a map of the Vale, I was immediately reminded of the Iron Hills, the Blue Mountains, and the Misty Mountains of Middle-earth. I refused to believe there was nothing of value in the Mountains of the Moon. It later became clear that the mountains had gone unexploited for many reasons, none of which personally concerned me. Too slow? I didn't care. The mountain clans were a nuisance? Kill them and they wouldn't be. No confidence in profitability? Everything I touched was guaranteed. Besides, all the materials were already prepared and waiting their turn.

I had planned to use geologists from the Westerlands, but that was no longer a practical option, so I put Braavosi workers to the task instead. They surveyed the terrain and found a dozen mineral deposits. I had to personally inspect each one and select the three most suitable for the current situation. Three fortress-mines were now being raised in the Mountains of the Moon, which would one day supply the entire Vale with metal and serve as bases for rangers.

I had counted heavily on the new deposits for many reasons, but first and foremost because of the situation with agriculture. It was a frankly idiotic state of affairs: all the iron went to swords, shields, and armor, with nothing left over for tools. The smiths were understandable enough, lords paid far better than smallfolk. Mills, new crop rotation methods, new means of food preservation, and a handful of other reforms had yielded remarkable results over the past few years, but iron tools would have multiplied those results many times over.

At this point I could say that carrying out reforms was a genuine pleasure. When people share a common goal, truly great things become possible. After the fish rebellion, the lords had already been quite receptive to my initiatives (P.S. heh, let them try playing coy next time, off with their heads), and after the feast at which I had laid out my ambitions openly, they had happily lent their hands to building a "bright future." It was gratifying when your people helped you achieve your desires.

Rigid thinking was the curse of all men, and the smallfolk of Westeros had it worse than most. They did not want to change. Why do anything differently when their father, grandfather, great-grandfather, and hundreds of generations before them had lived exactly the same way? Without the cooperation of the lords, the reforms would never have spread beyond my own domain.

The greater part of the reforms, technologies, and ideas had been drawn from the structure of Númenor. For all its flaws and occasionally foolish contradictions, it had been a truly great civilization. I had no desire for a second Númenor, it lay in the past, buried beneath fathoms of water, but that did not prevent me from bringing forth the finest things the Dúnedain had ever conceived.

I had long understood that someone was scheming against me, artificially stoking tensions within my house. I had dug and dug until at last I uncovered one of the chief culprits behind this mischief: Petyr Baelish. Littlefinger had proven to be quite the serpent, weaving the rebels into a web of debts, promises, ambitions, and blackmail. This ungrateful wretch had persuaded many to stand with the Rotten Fish. There was the answer to why the Graftons, the Tolletts, the Corbrays, and a number of other houses had somehow found the coin for armies.

The debtor lords were gathered and pressed for the exact sums owed. The figure was not small, but the treasury could bear it. Now the lords were in debt to me, and a death wish had arised in me for Baelish.

A "friend" in Pentos had reported that a Martell delegation was secretly sailing my way. Only their secret was no secret to most of the world. My lands were positively drowning in spies of every description. Morgan, who had become my informal master of whispers, complained about it constantly. Given the Targaryens to the south, even the greatest fool could guess the purpose of their visit.

I was genuinely curious what they would try to lure me with.