Title: The Audit of Roses

Title: The Audit of Roses

Year and Month: 112 AC, 7th Moon

Leaving the rugged hills and cold, hard calculations of the Westerlands behind, the Royal Progress descended into the Reach. The transition was like stepping from a well-lit counting house into a vibrant, impressionistic painting. The air grew warmer, scented with flowers and ripening fruit. The grim stone keeps of the west gave way to elegant white castles, their banners bright against the endless green of the fields. This was the beating heart of the Seven Kingdoms' prosperity, a land of chivalry, song, and an agricultural bounty so vast it was considered a gift from the Seven themselves.

I, however, did not see a gift. I saw a poorly managed, inefficiently distributed, and dangerously sentimentalized primary asset. The Reach was the breadbasket of Westeros, yet its bounty was subject to the whims of weather, the greed of local lords, and a distribution system that was little more than organized chaos. Famine was still a recurring threat in the northern kingdoms, while here, surplus grain could rot in a silo for want of a buyer or a decent road. It was an operational disgrace. My audit here would not be one of uncovering a hidden crisis, but of optimizing a successful but deeply complacent department.

Our reception at Highgarden was a spectacle of calculated grace. Lord Martyn Tyrell, a man whose personal sigil should have been a peacock rather than a rose, met us with a host of knights whose armor was more decorative than functional. He showered my Queen, Lyanna, with praise, comparing her northern beauty to a rare winter rose, a line so practiced it was almost impressive.

Lyanna, who had grown into her role as Queen with a quiet, formidable grace, accepted his flattery with a polite nod that offered nothing in return. She had learned the southern game, and her refusal to play it with enthusiasm was a subtle power move that left many courtiers off-balance. Our two-year-old twins, Jaehaerys and Visenya, were presented to the Tyrells and their bannermen. My son, Jaehaerys, regarded them with his usual solemn curiosity, while my daughter, Visenya, immediately tried to pull a golden rose from Lord Martyn's doublet, her fierce grip surprising the portly lord.

Highgarden was a masterpiece of landscape architecture, a castle of sweeping arches and graceful spires surrounded by miles of manicured gardens, shimmering fountains, and labyrinthine hedges. It was designed to soothe, to charm, to lull visitors into a sense of blissful contentment. I was not soothed. I saw the immense cost of its upkeep, the thousands of gallons of water diverted for its fountains instead of irrigating fields, the army of gardeners who could have been productive laborers.

The true power in Highgarden, as my intelligence had long confirmed, was not the charming Lord Martyn, but his mother, the Dowager Lady Olenna Tyrell. She was a tiny, ancient woman, her face a roadmap of wrinkles, but her eyes were as sharp and intelligent as any man's on my council. She received us not in the grand hall, but in her private gardens, a place of quiet beauty and subtle power plays.

"Your Grace," she said, her voice a dry rustle, offering a perfunctory curtsy. She eyed Lyanna with a critical gaze. "The wolf has thorns, I see. Good. The roses in this garden can be cloying. It is good to have something with bite." She then turned her sharp eyes on me. "You have terrified the lion in his den and paved the road to the vipers' nest. I am told you now wish to count our petals. A strange hobby for a Dragon King."

"A beautiful flower is still a plant, my lady," I replied, meeting her gaze. "It requires proper cultivation to achieve its maximum yield. I have found the gardens of the Reach to be… under-managed."

A flicker of genuine surprise crossed her face, quickly replaced by a look of intrigued calculation. She, unlike her son, understood the language of power that lay beneath my words.

That evening's feast was an exercise in competitive opulence, designed to showcase the Reach's bottomless bounty. But the next day, in the castle's council chamber, I brought them back to the hard reality of business. I had summoned Lord Martyn, Lady Olenna, and their most powerful bannermen—Lord Hightower of Oldtown (a cousin to the now-sidelined Otto), Lord Redwyne of the Arbor, Lord Tarly of Horn Hill.

"My lords, my lady," I began, forgoing any pleasantries. "The Reach is the envy of the Seven Kingdoms. Your lands are fertile, your harvests plentiful. You are the foundation of the realm's sustenance." I paused, letting the praise settle. "And that foundation is built on a dangerous complacency."

A murmur of protest went through the room. Lord Rowan, a portly man, huffed, "Complacency, Your Grace? We feed the kingdoms!"

"You feed the kingdoms in years of good harvest," I corrected him, my voice sharp. "And in years of drought or flood, your people starve alongside the rest. And in years of great bounty, your surplus drives down prices, bankrupting the very farmers you rely upon. Your system is reactive, inefficient, and subject to the whims of fortune. A well-managed enterprise does not rely on fortune. It engineers its own success."

I unfurled a series of charts and scrolls my scribes had prepared. They detailed rainfall patterns, crop yield statistics from the last fifty years, and population data I had commissioned from the Citadel.

"As you can see," I said, pointing to a chart showing the wild fluctuations in grain prices, "the market is volatile. This volatility creates instability. A stable kingdom requires a stable food supply. Not just for one year, but for the next hundred. Therefore, I am not here to request your bounty. I am here to regulate it."

I unveiled my 'Realm's Granary Initiative.' It was a plan to transform the Reach from a collection of independent farms into the centrally managed agricultural heart of my empire.

"First, the census," I began. "Maesters from the Citadel, under royal charter, will conduct a full agricultural census of the Reach. Every farm, every field, every bushel of wheat will be counted and recorded. We will know, for the first time, the true productive capacity of your lands."

"Second, the granaries. The Crown, with financing from the Bank of Casterly Rock and the Iron Bank of Braavos, will fund the construction of a network of Great Granaries. These will not be simple silos. They will be massive, stone-built structures, climate-controlled through clever engineering, capable of storing millions of bushels of grain for years without spoilage. There will be one in every major region of the Reach."

"Third, the system." This was the revolutionary core of the plan. "In years of bumper harvest, the Crown will buy your surplus grain at a fixed, guaranteed price. This will prevent market crashes and ensure your farmers are always paid a fair wage. This surplus will be stored in the Great Granaries. In years of poor harvest or famine, the Crown will open the granaries and sell the grain back to the populace, again at a fixed, stable price. This will prevent price gouging and starvation. We are eliminating market volatility. We are, in effect, ending famine."

The lords of the Reach stared at me, their minds struggling to comprehend the sheer scale of what I was proposing. I was not just talking about storing food. I was talking about central planning, about price controls, about a state-run system for managing the single most important commodity in their world.

"This is… socialism," Lord Tarly muttered, using a word from my old life that had no true meaning here, yet perfectly encapsulated the fear of a land-owning aristocrat.

"This is prudent management, Lord Tarly," I corrected him. "It ensures your people will never starve, and your tenants will always be able to pay their rents. A stable food supply leads to a stable populace. A stable populace is a taxable populace. It is good for your people, it is good for you, and it is very, very good for the Crown."

Lady Olenna, who had been listening with an unnerving stillness, finally spoke. "You would make the King the master of our harvests," she said, her voice a sharp, piercing dart. "You would make the entire kingdom dependent on your granaries for their daily bread. The man who controls the food, controls the world."

"Precisely, my lady," I said with a thin smile. "I am glad you see the strategic vision so clearly."

She stared at me, and for the first time, I saw a look of genuine, profound respect in her ancient eyes. It was the respect of one master strategist for another. She saw the immense power grab hidden beneath the benevolent language of ending famine.

"And the cost?" Lord Martyn asked weakly. "Who will pay for these… Great Granaries?"

"The Crown will finance the construction," I explained. "And we will pay you for your surplus grain. But the ownership of the granaries, and the grain within them, will belong to the Crown. In return for this stability and this guaranteed market for your goods, you will grant the Crown the land for the granaries and agree to the terms of the census and the fixed-price system. It is a partnership. You provide the product; I provide the infrastructure and the stable market."

I leaned forward. "My lords, you are the most powerful men in the richest kingdom. But your power rests on the turn of a season. A single bad winter, a single long drought, could bring you to your knees. I am offering you certainty. I am offering you an end to the fear that has haunted every farmer and lord since the dawn of time. I am offering to make your bounty not a gift from the gods, but a predictable, manageable, and eternally profitable asset."

I had offered them a deal that was impossible to refuse. It promised wealth and stability for them and their people. And the only price was their complete and utter economic dependence on the Iron Throne. It was the most lopsided contract in the history of Westeros, and they were desperate to sign it.

The council ended with their unanimous, if somewhat dazed, agreement. The Audit of Roses was complete. I had assessed their greatest strength and shown them how it was also their greatest weakness. I had offered them a future free from famine, a future of predictable profit, and in doing so, I had taken control of the very food that sustained the Seven Kingdoms.

That evening, as Lyanna and I walked through the famed rose gardens of Highgarden, the scent of a million blossoms hanging heavy in the air, she was quiet.

"You promised them a world without hunger," she said, her voice full of a wonder that was new to her. "Is that truly possible?"

"It is a matter of logistics, not miracles, my Queen," I replied. "Hunger is a symptom of inefficiency. I am merely… streamlining the system."

"You are making yourself a god," she whispered, looking at me in the twilight. "The god of the harvest. The people will worship you for this."

"I have no interest in their worship," I said, stopping to look at a particularly perfect white rose. "Worship is a fleeting emotion. Dependency, however… dependency is a binding contract. The Reach will feed my kingdom, yes. But they will do so on my terms, from my granaries, at my price. I have not simply audited their gardens, my love. I have taken ownership of the soil itself."

Lyanna did not reply. She simply looked at me, the she-wolf of the North, the pragmatic queen, now fully understanding the nature of the dragon she had wed. He did not breathe fire to conquer kingdoms. He used numbers, systems, and the promise of a better world to bind them to his will in chains of gold and grain, chains far stronger and more lasting than any forged in a smith's fire.