Chapter 43: The Vulture’s Fortune
Chapter 43: The Vulture's Fortune
299 AC, Month of the Bleeding Tree
In the quiet, orderly sanctum of Serpent's Head Keep, Alaric Blackwood watched a kingdom bleed. The War of the Five Kings, a chaotic, passionate, and ruinously expensive affair for its participants, was for him a meticulously managed business venture reaching its most profitable quarter. His scrying bowl, no longer a tool for mere observation but a precise instrument of market analysis, showed him the pieces moving on the great board of Westeros exactly as he knew they would. He watched Robb Stark, the Young Wolf, win battle after brilliant battle in the field, a tactical genius who was a strategic infant. And he watched the old, venomous spider, Lord Walder Frey, fume in his twin castles, his pride wounded by a broken marriage pact.
Alaric knew that the righteous indignation of a slighted old man, when properly leveraged and funded by a cunning lion, was a more potent weapon than any army. The Red Wedding was not a possibility; it was a coming entry on a balance sheet. And with the cold, dispassionate precision of a master businessman, he began to prepare the accounts.
His first move was subtle, a masterpiece of economic warfare masked as benign commerce. He called Lord Nervo to the Chamber of Accounts.
"Nervo," he began, pointing to the region on the great map surrounding the Twins. "Our grain shipments to the northern armies have been… exemplary. Perhaps too exemplary. I am hearing troubling reports of increased 'pirate activity' along the Green Fork. We must protect our assets. Divert all shipments south to our warehouses at Fairmarket. Inform Lord Stark's quartermasters that due to these unforeseen risks, future deliveries will be delayed, and the price will have to be… adjusted to account for the increased security costs."
Nervo nodded, his face betraying nothing. He knew there were no pirates. His lord was creating a famine. By cutting off the primary food supply to the northern army, Alaric was making them hungrier, more desperate, and more reliant on the hospitality of their allies. He was making the feast at the Twins, the one he knew was coming, an irresistible lure.
His next move was even more audacious. Through intermediaries in Braavos, he began to quietly buy up the considerable debts of House Frey. Lord Walder, for all his wealth in tolls and sons, was perennially overextended, funding his vast, grasping family's ambitions. Alaric, using a shell corporation fronted by the Iron Bank, became the sole, secret creditor for The Crossing.
Finally, he extended a financial lifeline to the war effort of Lord Roose Bolton. The Leech Lord was Tywin Lannister's key conspirator in the north, but even treacherous lords needed gold to pay their men. A low-interest, unsecured loan, offered through a third-party merchant house, cemented a quiet, deniable connection. Alaric was now funding the butcher, the baker, and the candlestick maker of this grand, murderous play. He had created the conditions, financed the conspirators, and now, all he had to do was wait for the inevitable returns.
On the night of the wedding of Edmure Tully and Roslin Frey, Alaric was not in his solar or his bedchamber. He was deep within his sanctum, the air cold and humming with power. The two dragon eggs rested on velvet cushions, their dormant energy a palpable presence. The Valyrian steel swords were laid out on the granite altar. This was not a night for scrying a simple image; it was a night for arcane analysis.
He knew what was about to happen. The brutal, physical details held no interest for him. He was not a voyeur of slaughter. He was a student of power. He wanted to witness the metaphysical consequences of such a monumental betrayal.
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He closed his eyes and let his consciousness drift, not to the Twins itself, but to the magical fabric of the world around it. He did not see the crossbow bolts fly or hear the screams. Instead, he felt it. A sickening, tearing sound in the metaphysical world. A great, ancient ward of trust and hospitality, woven by centuries of tradition, was being ripped apart. He felt a wave of raw, chaotic energy radiate outwards from the Twins—the psychic scream of a thousand broken oaths. It was an energy of pure chaos, of trust turned to dust, and Alaric, with a predator's instinct, found that he could draw a sliver of it into himself, using it to fuel his own reserves of power. It was a tainted, ugly energy, but it was potent.
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Alaric pulled back, his mind reeling but his purpose clear. He had just witnessed the death of an idea, and he had learned how to feed on it.
The news of the Red Wedding fell upon the Seven Kingdoms like a shroud. The realm was paralyzed with horror. The Young Wolf was dead. His army was shattered. The war in the North and the Riverlands was over.
Alaric's public reaction was a carefully orchestrated performance. He flew the banners of Serpent's Head Keep at half-mast. He sent a raven to King's Landing, expressing his profound shock and condemnation of the "craven and dishonorable actions" of Houses Frey and Bolton. He declared that the Blackwater March would not recognize the legitimacy of any house that so flagrantly violated the sacred laws of gods and men. He placed himself firmly on the moral high ground, a position that cost him nothing and earned him immense respect from the shell-shocked lords of the Vale and the Stormlands.
Then, behind the scenes, the vulture began to feast.
His first move was on the new Warden of the North, Roose Bolton. A polite but firm message arrived at the Dreadfort, reminding the Leech Lord of his financial obligations and suggesting that a long-term, exclusive trade agreement for northern timber, wool, and silver, at prices highly favourable to Blackwood Mercantile, would be a fine way to begin repaying his "loyal friend." Roose Bolton, his new power still precarious, had no choice but to agree. Alaric now owned a significant stake in the economy of the North.
His second move was on the new Lord of Riverrun, Walder Frey. An envoy from Alaric, flanked by ten Onyx Legionaries whose black plate seemed to absorb all the light in the Frey's stuffy hall, arrived at the Twins. The envoy was not a warrior, but a scribe from Nervo's office, armed with a heavy ledger. He politely informed Lord Walder that his house's entire debt was now held by Lord Alaric Blackwood. He did not make threats. He simply outlined the payment schedule.
Walder Frey, who had just betrayed his king for a lordship, now found himself a debt-vassal to a boy half his age. Alaric offered to "restructure" the debt. The terms were simple. In exchange for forgiving a portion of the interest, House Frey would cede control of all trade tolls on the Green Fork to House Blackwood, grant Alaric ownership of several key tracts of land that bordered his own domain, and sign a formal treaty of mutual defence—an alliance that made the Freys a protectorate of the Blackwater March. The treacherous old weasel had won his castle, only to find the deed was now owned by the serpent next door.
With the political and economic landscape of the Riverlands shattered, Alaric made his final, most brilliant move. He sent his Onyx Legion across his borders, not as an invading army, but as a "humanitarian peacekeeping force." They established garrisons at key crossroads and bridges, their official purpose to "protect the smallfolk from roving bands of broken men and restore the King's Peace." They were greeted as saviours by the terrified peasantry. In reality, they were an army of occupation, securing all the strategic points of the region.
The final piece of his plan involved his own family. Raventree Hall was now an island in a sea of Frey-controlled territory. His father, Lord Theron, sent him a raven filled with anguish and fury.
They have murdered our king and our liege lord's son! Hoster Tully weeps in his chambers! This is an affront to every honourable house in the Riverlands! We must raise our banners and avenge them!
Alaric himself traveled to Raventree Hall. He found his father a broken man, his simple, honourable world shattered. His brother Torrhen was full of a warrior's rage, demanding they march on the Twins.
Alaric met them in the solar, beneath the mounted head of a great stag his grandfather had killed. "There will be no marching," he said, his voice a quiet command that silenced the room.
"But our honour!" Torrhen blustered.
"Honour is the word fools use to justify their own extinction," Alaric replied, his eyes cold as winter frost. "The Starks and the Tullys chose honour. They are now dead or defeated. Their houses are broken. I choose victory. I choose survival. I choose dominance."
He laid out the new reality for them. "The Freys are treacherous beasts, but they now hold Riverrun. They are, for the moment, the recognized authority. But I hold their debts. I control their income. I garrison their roads. Their power is an illusion, a mask that I allow them to wear. The true power in the Riverlands," he said, his voice dropping, "is now me."
He looked at his father. "You wished for me to serve our homeland. I am doing so. I am bringing order where there is chaos. I am bringing stability where there is war. Lord Tully is a spent force. The Freys are contemptible. The smallfolk need a new protector. I am naming you, my lord father, Theron of House Blackwood, as my Warden of the Trident. You will govern these northern riverlands in my name. You will dispense my justice, and my legion will enforce your rule. You will bring peace to this land."
He had taken his father's grief and rage and twisted it into a tool for his own ambition. He had deposed the Freys and Tullys in all but name, and made his own father his regent. It was a move of such breathtaking cunning that Lord Theron could only stare at him, speechless.
Alaric stood on the battlements of Raventree Hall that evening, looking out over the lands of his birth. The ancient weirwood tree stood silent in the courtyard, its white branches like bones in the fading light. He had returned to his homeland not as a saviour, but as a vulture, to feast on the corpse of the war.
The Red Wedding had been a tragedy for the houses of the North and the Riverlands. For him, it had been the single most profitable venture of his life. He had neutered his rivals, expanded his territory, secured his financial dominance, and even fed his own magical power on the psychic fallout.
He felt the familiar thrum of the Valyrian steel sword at his hip. His family was safe. His domain had effectively doubled. His power was absolute and unassailable. He had consolidated his winnings with ruthless efficiency. Now, he could afford to be patient once more, to watch the remaining kings tear each other apart, secure in the knowledge that no matter who won the game of thrones, they would have to come to him to finance their reign. The vulture had feasted well, and its shadow now fell across a very large portion of the board.