Blessed Baelor SI (ASOIAF)

[a guy1013]

Interesting being neutral

 

[BenMalek]

I feel like Baelor, whenever he turns up to a battlefield should have his men bearing religious imagery. I mean, apart from his personal heraldry bearing the Crone's lantern.


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That confrontation was far more epic than the pissmatch between Bracken and Blackwood

 

[WinRarArchivist]

Chapter XXXVI: Home, Sweet Home



​

The roads were abysmal. In certain places, calling the Kingsroad a dirt track was a most gracious compliment. Going from King's Landing to Woodhedge, and from Woodhedge to Harrenhal, then back to the Red Keep was a great chore. I had spent the last few years in King's Landing, busy preparing the Synod and working on the Seven-Pointed Star that I had forgotten their state.

I had met at Harrenhal with Daeron and his host and gave some last moment advice to him. I told him that if he bedded some whore, Elaena would have him gelded, and that the incomes bestowed upon her were great enough to hire the best of the worst to do the deed. I told him that if he felt craven-ish before a battle, getting drunk the night before it would just make fighting more dire – it was hard to split skulls when your own was split by a headache from a hangover. I told him to listen to his uncle Aemon and to Ser Olyvar, and not to make rash decision in his councils.

I then took leave of Harrenhal and made way to King's Landing. I was received at the gates of the Red Keep by my uncle Hand, who seemed surprised at the babe and the wetnurse that carried him. I had forgotten in my agitation to even send word of my judgement to my uncle.

He took me aside and whispered angrily in my ears: "When did you even had time to father a bastard? I thought you better than mine own son."
I laughed at him and whispered back: "The boy is a bastard, but not of royal blood. His father is either a Blackwood, or a Bracken – only the heavens know. It is the boy they quarreled over – I made him a lord, gave him all the lands ever in question between those two damn houses, which I have lessened in rank, and decided to foster the lad myself."

"I was not made aware of this … judgement." gritted my uncle. "I think it would be best to discuss it with the Small Council at the soonest opportunity."

"Dismiss them." I spoke.

"I have not yet even summoned them. I had thought to give you time to rest from the road." he answered.

"Nay. Dismiss them: thank them for good and loyal service, grant them sizeable pensions and honours, give a feast in their honour, and release them from their office – save for my uncle Velaryon." I answered, with a sudden stubbornness.

"Have they done something to anger you. It is not wise to do so – they would not thank you for it, and mayhap they shall speak ill to their peers of such a sudden decision."

"I have pondered it deep and long enough on the road, uncle. They are not my council. Half of them were my father's appointments, half my brother's – but they have always been entirely your men. I do not begrudge it – but I have ruled for seven years now, it is time to make the Small Council my own. You shall remain as Hand, I ask of you, if you do not feel sufficiently offended by such a decision." I said, with a resolute voice.

"And who would you appoint to their seat instead? Perhaps and Edgerton, and Edgerton… and an Edgerton?" he barked at me.

"Nay, they are quite useful were I put them – rather than move those pawns on the board, I'll add another few. Give me time to rest, and then we shall discuss this matter further in my solar." I replied, tired from the road, and in need of a featherbed to rest my weary bones and aching muscles.

Lord Hunter had been a competent enough Master of Laws, though inclined to favour those of his own estate, and think the words of lesser men of lesser worth. He was also very eager to please, a difficult when the two men he wished to ingratiate himself to were at odds – the Hand and the King.

Lord Ossifer Plum had only served as a figurehead for better men that held offices under him – and that I could not begrudge him. For all that he was no great learned men in matters of finance and economy, he was a man who had an eye for learned and competent men to do the things he could not do. Perhaps it was his laziness that pushed him to appoint fine men, so he would have a lesser burden in his position.

Maester Rowley was a fine enough Confessor, but as Master of Whisperers, he was not the best I could afford, and I had thought best to replace that office with a different one, whose master required a few other skills besides.

---

Once I had fallen into my bed, I slept until the next morning. After washing myself and after the Seven Prayers, I was ready once again to see to my realm.

I broke my fast in my solar, and it was to my surprise that it was not my uncle that first sought audience. No, it was the gaggle of scholarly septons that I kept at my court – Razyn, Kellam, Mawrey, and Banazyr, by some accident of fate all shorter in stature than an average man, though they could not be called dwarves.

Mawrey was the first to address me, trembling with anticipation: "Your Grace, we have put in order the latest of the fragments whose meaning we have disentangled, and it is our greatest of joys to announce that the first seven manuscripts of our translation have been finished. We have, by your gracious princely uncle's leave, enlisted the work of all scribes in the city that were not in current employ to make copies of it."

"Has the High Septon and the Holy Conclave been made aware of the fact, holy brother?" I asked him, joyous from good news so early in the day.

"We have not, sire. We had thought it wiser to await Your Grace's return, for it was you, sire, that has laboured the most at it. We can only call ourselves your clerks in this great endeavour. And perhaps we have been to eager to set the scribes to the task of copying it, but we had judged that the work of a man so pious, holy and learned will be accepted with the most open of arms by the highest of the Faith." said Kellam, who had stood at the back of the chamber, and had been the least vocal in his excitement.

The work they spoke of, a translation of the Seven-Pointed Star, had occupied, when I had leisurely time for myself, the greatest part of my reign until now. From acquiring the oldest manuscripts of the scriptures, several that were acquired at great expense from the Arryns, and others by exchanging many a Valyrian scroll with the Citadel, I had amassed the oldest and most original variants of the holy writ. Crushing Dorne beneath my heel brought me an unexpected advantage, for I took for myself all the works of fallen Rhoyne that Nymeria had brought with her, or the Martells had acquired in the centuries afterwards.

The most ancient versions of the sacred books were not written in Rhoynish too, but the earliest septon had more often than not learned their letters in the great cities of the Rhoyne that neighboured Old Andalos. False friends and borrowed words from Ancient Rhoynish were many in the old versions, and after the coming of the Andals, the translations from Old Andalic into the common tongue suffered from the ignorance of these particularities of the septon entrusted with this task.

I was certain that my own translation was more reliable than those in current use by the Faith, and if a King Baelor's Version of the Seven-Pointed Star became in use in the years following, I would be most pleased.

---

Next, though I expected him earlier, was Uncle Viserys, and his reason was as expected:

"Who do you have in mind for the Small Council, nephew?" he asked, not even bothering with a greeting.

I had thought on the matter on my way from the Riverlands, so my choices had been long settled: "For Master of Laws, I would have you summon Oscar Tully from Hellholt. He has ever been a most just man, and never failed to keep the conduct of his men in the bounds of chivalry and morality. To give him but a lordship, and a title – as vaunted as the Holy Hundred is – seems a poor reward. His nephew and the Riverlands would thank me for it – even more so if they would consider his appointment the proof that their kingdom has not fallen from my esteem after what happened with Blackwood and Bracken."

My uncle had nothing against it: "I suppose after the Vale, the Riverlands should have a place among your council. I must presume then that your next Master of Coin will not be from the Crownlords? Were he is to be from – have you a Lannister in mind?"

"Nay", I answered him, "the Lannisters have enough gold and coin that their lord would need all their ilk to count it. I need a man more suited for counting coppers, not gold. I need those two Edgertons in Chroy Ychor– they have brought the treasury a great deal of gold through their skills, have they not."

"Aye." he answered, with a pinched face. "I had thought you rose the Edgertons too high, but it seems you have appointed them for merit, not blood. If you are not to name their sons to their posts, then my worries that they would all but be overlords over the Greenblood would abate. The spice trade that that Lord Damion has organized with the Summer Islands brings even more coin than the Greenblood itself."

"Indeed" I reported to him. "Cousin Herman sent his latest reports directly to me in the Riverlands – they are on the desk if you care to read them. Lord Damion has used the royal merchant fleet to great use – buying and selling spices, silk, Volantene glass and other luxuries. And my cousin has taken to see if he might grow cotton and sugarcane in the lands left to the royal domain and his own. With the taxes from olive oil and the orchards of lemons and other such fruits, the Greenblood has been proven to be a great boon indeed."

"If not Lord Damion, or Lord Criston, then who?" inquired my uncle, mindful of the purpose of his visit.

"I have considered a Manderly, but I am not quite settled on it. Think about it and find me someone good with coin, from the Stormlands or the Reach, though if they shall be from the latter, I prefer them rather ashier than in full bloom, if you understand my meaning." I answered him.

He did, though he did not appreciate my use of such metaphors, nor my preferences. He continued:

"As for the Master of Whisperers?"

"I have decided to change the office. I shall name a Master of Diplomats, who shall oversee our relations with other nations – with permanent envoys. In the Free Cities and the Summer Isles for now, though I have given thought to a great convoy sent to YiTi, for trade and for diplomacy. He shall also oversee the work of the whisperers, at home, or abroad. Give the confessors over to Tully, save for a few – to deal with spies, or traitors and such." I informed him.

"I would have greatly wanted Cousin Herman for the task, but he is well suited to oversee the southernmost of my lands. Bring me a list of good men and I shall bring another – those who shall not get the greatest of prizes might very well become an envoy." I continued.

Struck by a sudden query, I changed the subject: "Speaking of journeys to far away places, I have not heard anything about Laena, save for her safe return. What misfortunes came her way, that we all thought her dead?"

"You spoke of a trade journey to YiTi, but Laena has already been there." said Viserys, with a mischievous glint in his eyes.

I was startled: "But I thought she was to sail south and to the west, not into the Jade Sea."

"And so she did." he delighted in informing me. "But she has been beset by the same misfortunes that once fell upon Elissa Farman. They found those island, mind you – and their unheard-of spices and fruits. But the journey back was not so easy. As the Lady Meredith had been swept away by winds and raging sea in the days of old, so did the Moondancer. They landed on the coast of Sothyoros, and Lady Laena had a brave enough crew that they thought her sudden decision to circle 'round Sothyoros a plausible one."

"The Moondancer entered the Jade Sea by way of the Saffron Straights, and she took a page out of her grandfather's book. She managed to persuade the Golden Emperor to give her enough silk and spices, and jade and other treasures - on credit – for she hardly had any great treasure on her ships. She came back with a dozen ship and a promise of great and wondrous treasures to bring to YiTi. She has sent you a letter, asking if you might be willing to part with some of your curious objects and artefacts – for it seems that Eastern Emperor is as scholarly a man as you. She's sold off most of her goods, so she has more than enough to pay back the Emperor, though she left two ships full as gifts to yourself, her gratitude for the Stepstones."

"And she has brought you a letter from the Emperor. There is a translation in the Common Tongue, no doubt by Laena's own hand, and it quite strangely addresses you as equal in right, as an Emperor. She said envoys of lesser rulers were forced to prostrate until their noses touched the ground, and that she had too pretty a dress to dirty on the floor. So, she made an emperor out of you. She further said that the Emperor was most impressed by your display of familial piety to your elder brother – that you destroyed a realm for his death by perfidious means."

"Speaking of family, it seems that the Velaryons can not keep to the right side of the bed."

"Has uncle Alyn fathered a bastard, for his lack of a son?" I asked, understandably curious.

"Nay, Laena came back with two half-YiTish babes, both healthy daughters. And judging by her high regard and words of praise for the Emperor, she need not name the father." he answered, somehow both amused and disapproving.

"It is quite likely she will never marry – send word to her that I shall legitimize the babies, though I disapprove of her behaviour. And send a proposal for a betrothal for her second daughter, if she would accept it."

"For whom? I would not have either Daemion or Aelor wed to a bastard girl, save if she were to inherit Driftmark and the Stepstones. And I mean no insult to my goodbrother Alyn." protested the Hand.

"Nay. I thought she would make a fitting bride for Solomon. A bastard boy wed to a bastard girl – surely none shall see it a misalliance?" were my assuaging words.
Viserys laughed: "So you are serious about fostering the boy then. Do not think I don't see your game boy. Lord of the realm would not ignore his bastard blood when it comes to marriage alliances, and you seek to give him a bride as great as he can have – one with Velaryon and Targaryen blood, and daughter to the Emperor of YiTi himself. Both Blackwood and Bracken would sulk at that."

Once the news about Laena were shared, he returned to the prior subject: "Any other appointments to be made, Your Grace?"

"The roads of the realm are horrendous. The roads need repairs, and the realm needs a Master of Works. I have heard of a great Braavosi architect by the name of Lenarro. No doubt he would be tempted by our gold to come to our shores. While the Faberards would not allow him to bring the contributions of his mind to raising the Sept, unless he abjures his gods and takes to the Seven, he will probably be quite willing to have the chance of making his mark of Summerhall, and the Water Gardens, and whatever project I may yet have. I have given thought to razing Harrenhal, have the entire Conclave bless and purify the land, and build a lesser and more useful castle instead."

Once uncle Viserys left, I visited the nursery to see young Solomon. He was babbling quietly in his sleep, ignorant on how greatly he had risen already, and how likely he was to rise even more. I sent a quick prayer to the One, to aid me in being a good father to him, so I could raise him to be a good man, a just man.