Chapter 23: Old Debts and New Bonds

Chapter 23: Old Debts and New Bonds

286 AC, Month of the Planting

The peace of King Robert's reign was a time of frantic, silent industry for Lord Alaric Blackwood. While other lords focused on rebuilding their keeps and replenishing their treasuries, Alaric was building the infrastructure of an empire. Blackport grew daily, a marvel of stone and commerce rising from the sea. The Onyx Legion, now five hundred strong, had been forged into a small, perfect army. His trade fleet, the de facto merchant marine of the Crownlands, filled his coffers with a ceaseless river of gold. He had power, wealth, and security. But these were sterile assets. Without a dynasty to inherit them, they were meaningless.

His proposal of marriage, carried by royal raven to Oldtown, had been a stone tossed into the deep, still waters of Hightower politics. For weeks, the only response was silence. Alaric was unconcerned. He knew the Hightowers. They were proud, ancient, and cautious. They would not be rushed. They would be dissecting his offer, analyzing his meteoric rise, and calculating every possible advantage and disadvantage. He was, in effect, being subjected to the same cold analysis he applied to others. He respected the process.

The response, when it came, was exactly as he had predicted. It was not a simple acceptance, but a formal diplomatic overture. Lord Leyton Hightower, in his wisdom, would be pleased to consider the King's gracious proposal. He was dispatching his second son, Ser Baelor Hightower, to King's Landing to discuss the terms of the betrothal with the Hand of the King and the most esteemed Lord Alaric.

Ser Baelor, known as "Baelor Brightsmile" for his easy charm and handsome features, was the perfect envoy. He was the public face of the reclusive Hightowers, a celebrated tourney knight, and a shrewd negotiator. Alaric met him in the Tower of the Hand, with Lord Jon Arryn acting as the official representative of the crown.

"Lord Alaric," Baelor said, his smile as bright as his polished silver armour. "It is an honour. The tales of your victories, and now of the city you build at Blackport, have reached even the quiet halls of Oldtown."

"Ser Baelor," Alaric replied, his voice a calm counterpoint to the knight's practiced charm. "The honour is mine. Your house is the light of the south. To be joined with it would be the crowning achievement of my own."

The pleasantries were brief. This was a negotiation.

"My father, Lord Leyton, is most intrigued by this proposal," Baelor began, getting to the heart of the matter. "An alliance between our ancient house and your new, dynamic one would indeed strengthen the King's peace. However, such an alliance must be built on a foundation of mutual understanding and... reciprocity. We must speak of the arrangements. The dowry, the bride price..."

He was testing, probing. He knew House Blackwood of Raventree Hall was a minor, land-poor house. He expected Alaric to ask for a large dowry from the wealthy Hightowers to compensate, a common practice for up-and-coming lords seeking to marry into a greater house.

Alaric had anticipated this line of inquiry perfectly. "Let us speak plainly, Ser Baelor. My father's house is ancient and honourable, but its wealth is in its name, not its coffers. House Blackwood of Raventree Hall will provide no dowry. To ask it of them would be an insult to their honour, and I will not have it."

He saw a flicker of disappointment in Baelor's eyes. This was the opening the Hightower knight had expected.

"Instead," Alaric continued, his voice as hard and clear as diamond, "let us speak of what my house—House Blackwood of Serpent's Head—brings to this union, and the price I am willing to pay for the honour of your sister's hand."

He slid a heavy, leather-bound ledger across the polished table. "This is a summary of the assets and revenue of the Blackwater March for the last fiscal year, prepared by my Lord Treasurer. You will find it includes detailed reports on our shipping fleet's profits, the tax revenues from the port of Blackport, and the income from our various commercial enterprises."

Baelor opened the book. His smile slowly faded as he read, replaced by an expression of stunned disbelief. The numbers within were astronomical, dwarfing the incomes of all but the Lannisters. The projected growth rates were even more incredible. Alaric wasn't just a lord; he was the CEO of a small nation-state.

"As for the bride price," Alaric said, leaning forward, "I am prepared to deliver to Lord Leyton the sum of one hundred thousand golden dragons upon the signing of the betrothal contract."

Jon Arryn, who had been listening silently, choked on his wine. One hundred thousand dragons. It was a sum that could fund a war, a bride price unheard of in the history of Westeros. It was a statement of power so immense, so overwhelming, that it transcended negotiation.

"Furthermore," Alaric added, "a dower of equal value will be placed in a trust for my lady wife, for her sole and exclusive use. And a jointure granting her ownership of three of my most profitable shipping vessels and the income from the port duties of Blackport for the rest of her life, should I predecease her. She will be the wealthiest woman in the Seven Kingdoms, after the Queen herself."

He sat back. "I believe you will find these terms... acceptable."

Baelor Brightsmile was no longer smiling. He was staring at Alaric with the expression of a man who had come to negotiate the price of a horse and had just been offered a dragon. He was a good negotiator, but he had come armed for a polite haggle, and Alaric had just dropped a mountain of gold on the table, ending the war before it began.

"My lord," Baelor said, his voice now filled with a genuine, profound respect. "My father will be... most pleased. The honour you do my sister, and my house, is beyond measure."

The betrothal was secured. The business was concluded. But now came the messier, less efficient matter of family.

"A grand match, my lord," Jon Arryn said, once Ser Baelor had departed. "But such a marriage requires the presence of family. You must travel to Raventree Hall. You must inform your father and your kinsmen. They must be present at the wedding. It is a matter of protocol and respect."

Alaric knew the Hand was right. Politically, he needed to be seen as honouring his roots. He could not appear to be a man entirely disconnected from kin and duty. It was an inefficient, sentimental requirement, but a necessary one. He agreed.

The journey north to his ancestral home felt like a journey into a past life. He traveled with an honour guard of twenty Onyx Legionaries, their black plate a stark contrast to the verdant greens of the Riverlands. The province was healing under the King's peace, the fields once more planted, the villages rebuilt. But it all seemed so small, so rustic, so… quaint compared to the grand, logical, industrial scale of his own domain.

Raventree Hall stood as it had for centuries, a solid, respectable castle of moss-covered stone, shadowed by the colossal, ancient weirwood tree that gave it its name. Its dead white branches, home to a flock of a thousand ravens, seemed to claw at the sky. It was a place of history, of ghosts and old ways.

His arrival was not triumphant. It was awkward. His father, Lord Theron, greeted him in the courtyard. The Lord of Raventree Hall seemed to have shrunk, his authority completely overshadowed by the presence of his son's military entourage. His mother, Lady Elara, wept with joy, clutching him in an embrace that felt alien to Alaric. She looked at him with a mother's love, but also with the fear of a stranger.

His brothers were there as well. Torrhen, the heir, was a big, bluff man now, a knight in his own right. He looked at Alaric's maester's chain and the impassive soldiers at his back with a sullen, envious resentment. He was the lord-to-be of this small keep, while his younger brother was a prince of the realm.

And then there was Martyn. His second brother had completed his maester's chain and was now serving at Raventree Hall, a quiet, scholarly presence. The reunion between them was the most tense of all. They were brothers, but they were now fundamentally different beings, living in separate moral universes. Martyn's eyes held no anger, only a deep, abiding sorrow for the boy he had lost and the man who had taken his place.

That evening, Alaric gathered them in the solar, a room that had once seemed large to him but now felt small and cramped.

"I have come to share news," he announced, getting straight to the point. "King Robert and Lord Arryn have approved my betrothal. I am to be wed to the Lady Lynesse of House Hightower."

The silence that followed was absolute. His family stared at him as if he had just announced he was going to marry the moon. A Hightower. It was a concept so far beyond their station that they could barely process it.

"A... a Hightower?" Lord Theron finally stammered. "Daughter of the Lord of Oldtown?"

"The same," Alaric confirmed. He then proceeded to lay out his plans for them, not as a son consulting his family, but as a CEO issuing directives to a regional branch office.

"This marriage will elevate our family name to the highest echelons of the realm. But we must present a united and powerful front. Therefore, certain arrangements must be made."

He turned to his father. "Father, you are and will remain the Lord of Raventree Hall. But this keep is... inadequate. I am granting House Blackwood a yearly stipend of twenty thousand golden dragons." He had doubled the amount he'd promised before, a gesture of overwhelming generosity that was also an assertion of absolute dominance. "You will use it to restore these walls, expand your lands, and increase your household guard. Our ancestral home must reflect our new station." He was, in effect, making his father the wealthy caretaker of a family museum.

He then faced his eldest brother. "Torrhen. You are a knight of great renown in the Riverlands. But your talents are wasted captaining a small household guard. I am granting you a formal commission in the Onyx Legion, at the rank of Tribune. You will command a full cohort of one hundred men. You will have wealth beyond your dreams and a chance to fight in real wars, should they arise. You will have glory." He was offering his brother a gilded cage, a position of honour that was also one of direct subordination. Torrhen, a man who understood strength better than subtlety, looked both resentful and tempted.

Finally, he looked at Martyn. "Brother. You are a maester of the Citadel. Your chain is complete. Your mind is an asset. But your service here is a waste. I have spoken with Lord Arryn. He has agreed to recommend you for the position of maester at Starfall, the seat of House Dayne in Dorne."

The room went cold. Dorne was still a place of bitter resentment.

"Why Dorne?" Martyn asked, his voice quiet and strained.

"Because I need a man I can trust in the south," Alaric said coolly. "I need to understand the Dornish. I need to know their plans, their resentments, their weaknesses. You will be my eyes and ears. You will observe, and you will report. To me."

Martyn stared at him, his face a mask of quiet horror. "You would make me a spy? Against my sworn oaths as a maester?"

"Your first oath is to your family," Alaric countered, his voice like ice. "And I am now the head of this family, in all but name. I am not asking you, Martyn. I am telling you. This is how you will serve the interests of House Blackwood."

It was a moment of absolute, brutal clarity. He had laid out his new world order for them. He was their patron, their commander, their spymaster. He was the sun around which their small world would now revolve. They were no longer his family; they were his assets.

He left Raventree Hall the next morning. His mother wept. His father stood stiffly, a man lost in a world that no longer made sense. Torrhen watched him go with a dark, complex look of envy. Martyn simply stood by the ancient weirwood tree, a silent, sorrowful judge.

As Alaric rode south, back towards his own world of steel and gold and relentless ambition, he felt a strange sense of… closure. He had confronted his past, not with emotion or sentiment, but with the tools he understood best: wealth and power. He had restructured his own family, turning them into a functioning part of his grander enterprise.

He had no regrets. Regret was an inefficient emotion. His gaze was fixed on the future. On the great fortress rising at Serpent's Head. On the powerful, beautiful bride who would soon be sailing north to meet him. On the sons she would give him. His work at Raventree Hall was done. The tedious business of family had been managed. Now, he could return to the far more important business of forging a dynasty.