Chapter 217

The Vale. Gates of the Moon. 300 AC.

Axel Arryn.

“My apologies for the delay.” The men gathered simply nodded at that, and Robar handed over the letter.

“The Golden Company has landed in Westeros, and after a decisive assault, has taken Griffin’s Roost.” While I read, Robar began laying out the purpose of our meeting. “The Hand of the King, Lord Jon Connington, has sent word to every castle calling for support for the true King of Westeros, Aegon of House Targaryen, sixth of his name, and so on, and so forth.”

“Gods… just when you think the Targaryens are down to nothing, they start breeding like Freys.” Morgan’s simple joke drew a few smiles around the room. “Which one is this, on the Iron Throne roster of dragons? Third? Fourth?”

“Viserys, Rhaenys, Daenerys, and now Aegon. That makes four.”

“With Daenerys, it’s not quite so clear cut. She seems to be putting her son, Rhaego, forward as the future king instead,” Eyris put in, sounding less than certain of himself. “Whatever the khaleesi thinks she’s doing, it’s pure madness.”

“What has the world come to, a newborn Dothraki as King of the Seven Kingdoms…”

“Enough laughing for one day.” Given the sheer volume of questionable decisions coming out of House Targaryen lately, the joking could easily have gone on for hours, and the letter itself was short besides. “How many men, who’s answered the call, and how are the rest of the ‘dragons’ reacting?”

“The crossing wasn’t the smoothest. The Golden Company ran into a storm, and lost a number of ships in the process. According to our spies’ reports, Aegon’s forces number around fifteen thousand: a thousand knights, an equal number of squires, two thousand archers, and more than twenty war elephants.” As former members of the Company ourselves, gathering intelligence on the Golden Company’s strength was never much of a challenge for us. As for support, that remained unclear, though Tarth had surrendered without a fight. I couldn’t very well blame Lord Selwyn for that, his position was hardly enviable. Viserys categorically denied Aegon’s legitimacy, insisting he was nothing but an impostor. Rhaenys and Daenerys had said nothing at all.

Looking at things objectively, the Reach was about to see yet another bloodbath. Tarly, having driven the Dothraki back to the Red Mountains, had turned to crushing the opposition within the region itself, and it wouldn’t be long now before Highgarden fell. After Rhaenys threw away an enormous number of loyal soldiers, Doran had taken the reins of the army back into his own hands, which meant the Dornishmen had gone passive. To my surprise, Rhaegar’s daughter occasionally showed flashes of actual sense. She’d allied herself with Drogo’s khalasar, tipping the scales back in her favor and regaining some of the ground she’d lost. The right move in the short term, wrong in the long run. The Dothraki weren’t the kind of allies a person kept as friends for long. Their combined strength was enough to fight Renly’s forces to a standstill. And Renly, the last Baratheon standing, understood well enough that losing the Tyrells would leave him finished before long, and would throw everything he had into fighting his way back. Now add fifteen thousand fresh sellswords to the Stormlands, and Baratheon would have no choice but to throw himself into the fight with everything he had, since there was no alternative left to him.

The only ones this wouldn’t touch, the Lannisters, the Starks, the Greyjoys, and us, the Vale. The squids and the lions had their own chemistry brewing in the Riverlands, the northerners couldn’t care less about the south’s troubles right now, and I intended to simply sit back and watch the whole show unfold without lifting a finger. Whatever the outcome, I’d be perfectly satisfied.

“Let’s continue.”

…..

The Reach. Highgarden.

Randyll Tarly.

Highgarden… how much feeling that name stirred in the people of the Reach! The castle’s beauty was the stuff of legend. The fortress sat drowning in gardens, adorned with groves and fountains, shaded pavilions and marble colonnades. Minstrels, performers, fiddlers, harpists, poets, all of them flocked to the heart of the most blessed region in the Seven Kingdoms. And three rings of white stone battlements kept any enemy from ever laying a hand on that work of art.

People spoke of Highgarden with something close to reverence, for it embodied everything best about the Reach. Though not everyone shared that view. To the region’s older noble houses, the seat at the heart of the Reach stood as a grim reminder of fate’s injustice. The Tyrells, mere descendants of stewards, had climbed to an intolerable height above families of far nobler blood, and they’d done it through betraying their own benefactor and King. It was a humiliation to the descendants of Garth Greenhand, but the Iron Throne’s backing, along with no small amount of political skill, had let the upstarts hold their seat this long.

The question of “noble blood” held no interest for Randyll himself. There were the Tyrells, his liege lords, and there were the Tarlys, their vassals, and nothing else mattered beyond that. Only his liege lords’ recent conduct had left Tarly no choice but to strike a deal with the Lannisters and raise his banners in rebellion. Let Highgarden fall, and the rebellion could be counted a success. And so, having driven the Dothraki back toward the Red Mountains, Randyll turned his army toward the Tyrell seat itself.

The three concentric curtain walls of Highgarden are built from finely dressed white stone, rising in tiers up the slopes of a broad, verdant hill. The outer wall girdles the very foot of the hill, standing as the lowest and thinnest barrier, while the middle wall sits higher up the slope, separated from the base by a massive, twisting labyrinth of thorny briars. At the summit, the inner wall stands as the highest, thickest, and most imposing ring of all, completely enclosing the heart of the palatial keep and its ancient groves. All three tiers are crenellated for defense and flanked by slender, graceful towers, with the stark white stone beautifully softened by a lush overgrowth of green ivy, climbing roses, and grapevines.

Two months. One of the strongest castles in all of Westeros, taken in just two months. Remarkably fast, though a number of factors had come together to make it possible. Mace Tyrell had halved his own garrison’s strength, Randyll’s reputation as the “savior of the Reach” had won over a great many of the wavering, and swelled the ranks of forces already under his control, and that same reputation had helped him seize two of the three rings of walls in short order. The first wall had been opened to him by sympathetic militiamen who considered him a hero. The second, by common traitors who’d decided the Tyrells were a sinking ship. They would have handed over the third as well, if Tyrell loyalists hadn’t managed to put down the uprising in time. Only the third wall had to be taken by proper siege, by every rule of war.

“My lord, Margaery and Alerie Tyrell weren’t found in their chambers. Willas and Garlan are missing as well, we’ve found neither them nor their bodies.” Not the news he’d hoped for, though hardly unexpected either.

“A hidden passage, most likely.” Randyll wasn’t surprised that a castle like this one kept its own secrets. “Send out parties to search five around the castle. Have them comb through every nearby village. Pay particular attention to the road toward Oldtown. Find me Hobert, whatever it takes, but I want the Tyrells found and brought back to me.” Randyll doubted a cripple and a pair of pampered ladies could get far. And Hobert was the finest hunting hound he had. “Are you still standing there?!”

“Lady Olenna requests an audience.”

“Send her in.”