Chapter 124 121

Ser Jorah Mormont.

Entering the service of the beggar king had been easy enough: a little flattery toward the House of the Dragon, a few choice words of contempt for the Baratheons, and agreement at all the right moments. Mormont had not managed to find anything to respect in Viserys, for there was nothing to respect. The Targaryen was hot-tempered, arrogant, and lived inside some private fantasy of himself. Jorah remained here only for the promise of a royal pardon, but that lifeline had been severed barely a month ago when contact with Varys went dark.

"This savage doesn't understand, we need to sail for Westeros," Viserys was wound tight, venting to his most obliging audience. "The moment is perfect: the usurpers' power is weakened, the lords are exhausted from war, and the common people cry out against the lawlessness. The people of Westeros are waiting for their true king. Rhaegar's daughter and the Dornishmen are waiting for me so that together we might shatter the traitors. You agree, Mormont?"

King Robert was dead. Axel Arryn had resigned as Hand. Varys had vanished somewhere. Every person of influence who had known of his role as a spy was now... unavailable. Jorah had no desire to place himself at the mercy of the new government, the Lannisters. The lions were not to be trusted, least of all in the middle of a civil war. And so Jorah, having no idea what else to do, resolved simply to go with the current. His life had already seen worse.

"I agree, Your Grace," he said. Months of practice had given him a reliable pattern for these conversations, one that kept him clear of arguments nobody needed. "But Drogo's khalasaar is already stretched to its limit. They cannot be pushed faster without taking enormous losses."

"I don't care about the lives of horse-lovers. All that matters is my Iron Throne, and at this pace it will be an age before I return to Westeros." Jorah had grown accustomed to the king's periodic episodes, fortunately.

"The Dothraki are the backbone of your army. If they suffer heavy losses, you will have no means of reclaiming the throne of your ancestors." The thought that his king's entire army consisted of savages made Viserys's cheek twitch involuntarily.

"Never mind, it's temporary." The situation displeased the Targaryen enough that he had already found his own solution. "Why not simply buy some Unsullied?"

"A sound idea, but we have no surplus funds at the moment." In plain terms, the beggar king had none whatsoever; all real wealth sat in Khal Drogo's hands. "Everything plundered goes toward financing your eventual return: ships, provisions, weapons, sailors, horses. War is an expensive undertaking in general."

"Money is no problem. I've heard the wealthy masters prize dragon eggs greatly. I believe two or three thousand Unsullied could be had for them. They'll serve us better than old stones."

It was a foolish idea. The eggs belonged to Princess Daenerys, who adored them. She was no longer the frightened girl without a voice she had once been; she was the khaleesi of the mightiest khalasaar now, and carried the title accordingly. To the Dothraki, Viserys was nobody, and any attempt to steal from the khal's wife would end with the thief simply killed.

"Your Grace, the dragon eggs were a gift from Magister Illyrio Mopatis. He is one of your foremost allies and has supported you for a long time. Selling his gift would send a troubling signal. It is not worth offending your faithful servant over so small a matter."

"...You're right. Illyrio is one of the few men who has remained true to me." Here Jorah might have raised certain questions about the depth of an Essosi magister's loyalty to a disgraced Westerosi dynasty, but it was not his place to voice them. "I am a generous king, and it ill befits me to humiliate a servant over trifles. Faithful friends are worth more than some castrated soldiers."

"Wise words."

"I can trust only a handful of people, those who stood with me in my darkest hour." Thinking of himself and Mopatis, Jorah was forced to concede the irony of that. "When I return, hundreds of lords will come crawling to kneel before me and swear their loyalty. They will fawn and beg for clemency, but there will be no mercy. Only their own blood and the blood of others will prove their devotion. I'll need to entice the lesser houses into revolt, remind them of whom they once swore to. And reward the most capable, ideally those who remained loyal to the dragons until the end. The Tyrells and the Martells are the only faithful great houses; I will not forget that. The rest will forfeit their Lord Paramount titles. The Baratheons, the Starks, the Arryns, the Tullys, the Lannisters have all forgotten that it was only by my ancestors' grace that they were not stripped of every title they held. It is time to remind them that a king can take as well as give. The Darrys will replace the Tullys, the Graftons will replace the Arryns, and any other house at all will replace the Starks, the Baratheons, the Lannisters."

"House Grafton is gone. The Falcon's eye wiped them out and stripped them of all titles."

It took Viserys a few seconds to absorb the fact that his brilliant plan would not unfold quite as he had imagined.

"Filth of a traitor." Jorah was well aware of Viserys's hatred for the man who had humiliated him, and the reaction came as no surprise.

"As far as I know, there was a rebellion of lords in the Vale not long ago. Where there is rebellion, there are men who have grievances against the Falcon's eye. I am certain there are many people ready to support the true king of the Seven Kingdoms."

Viserys looked at Jorah in an odd way. Something shifted in the Targaryen's expression, a dawning comprehension, even something like revelation. Having settled something in his own mind, he asked:

"I have never thought to ask what you were condemned to death for. I would like to remedy that."

"I was in debt, and rather than execute poachers I sold them into slavery."

"Foolish law. The dregs of society, those incapable of living honest lives, ought to serve their country in at least that way. When I am king, no one will be able to condemn you any further, my Hand." The young man drew himself up and shifted into a ceremonial register. "Ser Jorah, it is my wish to appoint you to that position."

"I am not worthy of such an honor," he said, dropping to one knee.

"That will be for me to decide," Viserys said flatly. "Ser Jorah, I am the last hope of this dynasty, and its fate has weighed on my shoulders since I was five years old. Everyone has forgotten their oaths to my great ancestors, but not you. You are a clever and loyal man with long experience of war. I choose you."

"With the greatest honor, Your Grace."

Jorah was stunned, though he felt little in the way of joy. His life had taken another sharp turn, and he had become the second man of a king,a beggar king, but a king nevertheless, yet how many times had the gods already brought him down from the heights? Enough times that he had stopped believing in good endings.

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