Chapter 40: The Business of Vultures
Chapter 40: The Business of Vultures
298 AC, Month of the Red Messenger
The raven that arrived from King's Landing was draped in black, its message sealed with the golden wax of the Hand of the King. But the hand was no longer Jon Arryn's. The official proclamation was as stark as the man who had penned it, Eddard Stark. King Robert Baratheon, First of His Name, was dead, killed by a wild boar in the kingswood. His son, Joffrey, now sat the Iron Throne. Lord Stark, as acting Regent, had been arrested and charged with high treason for conspiring to usurp the rightful heir. All loyal lords were commanded to come to the capital at once to swear their fealty to King Joffrey.
Alaric read the proclamation in the sunlit solar of Serpent's Head Keep, the gentle sea breeze rustling the parchment in his hand. He felt nothing. No grief for the boisterous king who had granted him his lands. No shock at the downfall of the honourable Hand. He felt only the cold, quiet satisfaction of a mathematician seeing a long, complex equation resolve exactly as predicted. The first domino had fallen. The controlled demolition of the Seven Kingdoms had begun.
His public response was a masterpiece of political theatre, a carefully crafted performance of a dutiful, yet cautious, lord caught in a tragic crisis. A raven flew back to the capital within the hour, addressed to the Queen Regent and the Small Council.
Your Grace, my lords, it began, Alaric's own precise script a stark contrast to the feigned emotion of the words. I am struck with a grief beyond measure at the tragic loss of our beloved King Robert, a man to whom my House owes its very existence. The news regarding the former Hand, Lord Stark, is as shocking as it is confusing. One can only pray that this matter is resolved with the justice and wisdom for which your new reign will surely be known.
As Lord Paramount of the Blackwater March and Warden of the Southern Coast, my primary duty in this time of uncertainty is to the security of the realm. I have placed my domain on high alert to guard against any opportunistic incursions from Dorne or the sea. I must secure this vital province before I can ride to the capital to swear my oaths in person. I await the clarification and wise counsel of the Iron Throne, and I place my army, my fleet, and my granaries at the service of the King's Peace.
He was not refusing the summons. He was merely delaying it, using the impeccable excuse of his sworn duties. He wrapped his non-participation in the language of loyalty. He made it clear he was a force for stability, a responsible lord securing his lands, while subtly establishing his neutrality. He would not be drawn into the viper's nest of King's Landing until the vipers had finished biting each other.
With the public mask in place, he convened his true war council. In the Chamber of Accounts, with Ser Damon and Lord Nervo, he laid out the strategy that he had been preparing for a decade.
"The War of the Five Kings has begun," he stated, his voice devoid of emotion. He was not a lord speaking of war, but a CEO announcing a new market opportunity. "Renly Baratheon will soon crown himself in the south, with the support of the Tyrells. In the north, the Starks will call their banners to rescue Lord Eddard. In the Iron Islands, Balon Greyjoy will see this chaos as another chance to claim his driftwood crown. And on Dragonstone, Stannis Baratheon, the rightful heir by law, will grind his teeth and plan his own meticulous war. The continent will burn."
He looked at his two lieutenants. "And we, gentlemen, will sell the torches, the water to douse the flames, and the stones to rebuild the houses. Our policy is one of absolute and profitable neutrality. We will not shed the blood of the Onyx Legion in another house's squabble. We will shed their gold instead."
Nervo, his eyes gleaming with the thrill of a predator entering a target-rich environment, was ready. "The 'Harvest Scythe' contingency is already in motion, my lord. We control nearly seventy percent of the last harvest's surplus from the Riverlands. The Lannister army is even now marching to invade. The region will be a famine by winter."
"Excellent," Alaric said. "Open back-channel communications with both Lord Tywin's quartermasters and the seneschals of Riverrun. Use different agents, different shell corporations. We will sell our grain to both the lions and the trout. The price will be high to start, and it will increase with every battle, with every burned field. Let them bleed each other white on the battlefield, and then let them come to us to pay a king's ransom for the bread to feed their soldiers."
He was setting himself up to profit from the starvation of his own homeland, a fact that caused not a flicker of hesitation.
"The forges," he continued, turning to a different ledger. "All production is to be shifted to arms and armour. Good, solid, but mass-produced steel. Nothing of the quality of our own legion's equipment, of course. We will sell swords to the Starks, pikes to the Lannisters, and arrows to the Baratheons. Whoever can pay our price."
"We will be arming all sides of the conflict," Ser Damon noted, not with disapproval, but with a soldier's pragmatic curiosity.
"Precisely," Alaric confirmed. "A prolonged, bloody war between evenly matched foes is the most profitable business venture in the world. We will ensure this war is very, very profitable."
The three pillars of his power, so carefully constructed during the years of peace, now moved in perfect, terrible concert.
His Domain became an impregnable fortress of commerce. While the lords of Westeros called their banners and marched their farmers off to die, the fields of the Blackwater March were plowed and planted. The port of Blackport became a haven of neutrality, its docks crowded with merchant ships from all over the world, paying handsomely for the privilege of trading in the only secure port in the south. The Onyx Legion, now a perfectly trained and equipped army of five hundred, patrolled the borders of his domain, their black serpentine banners a clear warning to any roving army, Lannister or Stark, that this land was not part of their war.
His Family, the dynasty he was building, was insulated from the coming storm. Lynesse, horrified by the news of war and the arrest of Lord Stark, a man she had met and respected at her own wedding, came to him in a state of anxiety.
"Is it true, Alaric? Is Lord Stark a traitor?" she asked, her voice trembling.
"Truth is a matter of perspective, my love," he told her, his voice a soothing balm of calculated reassurance. "In the game of thrones, a man is a traitor one day and a king the next. It is not our game." He showed her the reports from Nervo, the soaring profits from their enterprises. "Look. While the old houses destroy themselves over matters of honour and succession, our house grows stronger. While their sons are dying in the mud, our son is safe in his nursery, with a future more secure than that of Prince Tommen himself. That is the only truth that matters to us."
He was teaching her to see the world as he did: as a balance sheet. Her fear subsided, replaced by the comforting, familiar feeling of immense wealth and security. He was managing her emotions as he managed any other asset. He continued Tyber's education, using the unfolding war as a series of practical lessons. "See, Tyber," he would say, pointing to a position on the map, "Lord Stark has placed his trust in Lord Baelish. A man's honour is a liability when his opponent has none. Never trust a man whose only asset is his word." He was raising his heir not just to rule, but to dominate.
But it was his Magic, his secret, third pillar, that gave him his ultimate advantage. The war was a massive, continent-wide ritual, a storm of heightened emotion, spilled blood, and dying life-force that he could tap into. His scrying sessions became more powerful, more vivid than ever before.
He watched as if in a dream as Catelyn Stark arrested Tyrion Lannister. He followed the bloody progress of Tywin's army as it burned its way across the Riverlands. He was a silent observer in Robb Stark's tent as the northern lords declared him the King in the North. He witnessed Renly Baratheon's coronation in Highgarden, surrounded by a hundred thousand swords and the golden roses of House Tyrell.
He was the most informed man in the world, and he used this perfect information to guide his business ventures with unerring accuracy. He sold his grain contracts just before Robb Stark's brilliant victory at the Whispering Wood sent the Lannister forces reeling, maximizing his profits. He bought up the debt of houses he knew were about to be destroyed. He was playing the great game on a level no one else could even perceive.
He also turned his arcane senses towards the rising magical forces in the world. He focused his scrying on the island of Dragonstone. Here, he saw something new. He saw the red priestess, Melisandre, her hair the colour of fire, her ruby choker pulsing with a strange light. He saw her with Stannis Baratheon, a man so rigid and honourable he had been driven to embrace a power of shadow and flame. Alaric watched, fascinated, as she performed her rituals, as she birthed a shadow assassin that would go on to murder Renly.
He was not afraid. He was intrigued. He was a scientist observing a rival's methodology.
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The months bled into one another. The War of the Five Kings raged. The Riverlands burned. The great houses of Westeros spent their blood and treasure in a ruinous, chaotic struggle for a chair made of swords.
And in his fortress at Serpent's Head, Lord Alaric Blackwood grew richer and more powerful with every passing day.
One evening, Nervo brought him the latest reports. The profits were staggering. Their granaries were still full, while the armies of the North and the West were beginning to feel the first pangs of true hunger. Their forges were working day and night, selling steel to all sides.
Ser Damon entered next. "A raven from Lord Tywin Lannister, my lord."
Alaric took the scroll. It was a formal, pragmatic offer. An alliance. Lord Tywin, recognizing the immense strategic and logistical power Alaric wielded, was offering a marriage pact between Alaric's young daughter, Cassia, and one of his own infant grandsons, to be sealed when they came of age. He was offering to bring House Blackwood into the golden fold of the lions.
Alaric looked at the offer, a flicker of amusement in his eyes. Tywin Lannister, the great Lion, was trying to buy him, to chain him to his cause with a promise of marriage.
He thought of the other offers he had received. A desperate plea for a grain shipment from Robb Stark's steward. A request for a loan from the Tyrells to fund Renly's massive army. A cold inquiry from Stannis about the price of chartering his fleet.
He held the fate of all five kings in his hands, in his ledgers and on his ships. They thought they were playing the game of thrones. But Alaric was playing a different game entirely. He was the proprietor of the entire casino.
He looked at Tywin's offer and gave a simple, cold command to his scribe. "Send a polite refusal to Lord Lannister. And enclose our latest price list for grain shipments to his army in the west. Inform him the rates have increased by twenty percent due to… market volatility."
He would not be a lion, or a wolf, or a stag. Why be a piece in someone else's game, when you could own the board? The serpent would remain coiled in its fortress, watching, waiting, and feeding on the carnage. And growing stronger with every death, every bankruptcy, every desperate plea for the bread and steel that only he could provide.