Title: The Audit of Honor
Title: The Audit of Honor
Year and Month: 113 AC, 4th Moon
From the wind-lashed shores of the Stormlands, the Royal Progress turned north, its path leading to the most impregnable and insular of the six kingdoms: the Vale of Arryn. To journey to the Vale was to journey upwards, into a land of breathtaking beauty and dangerous verticality. The fertile lower vale, with its prosperous towns like Gulltown, soon gave way to the towering peaks of the Mountains of the Moon, a jagged, impassable barrier that had protected the kingdom of the First Men for millennia.
My audit here was of a different nature. The Vale was not poor, nor was its military weak. Its primary asset, and its most profound liability, was an intangible one. It was their honor. The lords of the Vale were bound by a code of chivalry so ancient and so rigid it bordered on parody. Their entire culture, their laws, their very identity, was built upon this abstract concept. They were "as high as honor," a motto that had made them proud, noble, and dangerously resistant to change. In my assessment, their honor was a systemic inefficiency, a cultural artifact that impeded true justice and rational governance. It was a variable I intended to regulate.
The journey to the Eyrie was a logistical nightmare and a security risk of the highest order, which is precisely why I undertook it. A lesser king might have summoned the Lady of the Vale to King's Landing. By coming to her, by ascending her unassailable mountain, I was making a statement: no place in my realm was beyond my reach. The main body of the progress, including my Queen and our children, remained in Gulltown, under the protection of Lord Grafton and a significant portion of the Royal Fleet commanded by Lord Corlys. To ascend the Giant's Lance was too perilous for a royal heir.
I made the final ascent with only my personal Kingsguard, a small retinue, and, unseen high above, my ultimate security detail.
Through his eyes, I saw the true scale of the Vale's defenses. I saw the three waycastles—Stone, Snow, and Sky—that guarded the ascent. I saw every blind corner, every potential ambush point. I had a god's-eye view of my own procession, a level of strategic awareness that rendered any potential threat moot. I let the knights of the Vale, with their plumed helms and proud banners, escort me up their mountain, all the while knowing I was the one truly watching over them.
The Eyrie itself was a breathtaking, absurd piece of architecture. A castle of white towers clinging to the top of a mountain, open to the sky, clouds drifting through its halls. It was a place of serene, cold beauty, and immense impracticality. Its ruler was a woman as formidable as her castle: Lady Jeyne Arryn, the Maiden of the Vale. She was a shrewd, unmarried woman who had held her often-rebellious bannermen in line for years through sheer force of will.
She received me in the High Hall, with the infamous Moon Door, a circle of white weirwood, set in the floor beside her high throne of pale stone. She was a plain-faced woman, but her eyes were sharp and intelligent. She did not seem awed by my presence.
"Welcome to the Eyrie, Your Grace," she said, her voice clear and formal. "Few kings have deigned to make this climb. Your grandfather was the last."
"My grandfather came to celebrate the bonds of friendship," I replied, my voice cool. "I have come to conduct an audit of the state of justice in your lands, my lady."
A flicker of surprise, then irritation, crossed her face. The lords of the Vale assembled around her—the proud Lord Royce of Runestone, the fiery Ser Gerold Grafton, the ambitious Lord Corbray—shifted uncomfortably.
That evening's feast was a stiff, formal affair. The knights of the Vale spoke of honor, of tourneys, of lineage. I spoke of tax revenues from Gulltown and the efficiency of their port. We were speaking two different languages. My Queen, had she been present, would have found a way to bridge the gap with her northern pragmatism. But I was not here to build bridges. I was here to realign their entire system.
The next day, I convened the council. I came directly to the point.
"My lady, my lords," I began, my gaze sweeping over their proud, armored forms. "The Vale is famed for its honor. Your knights are paragons of chivalry. Your word is your bond. But your system of justice, the very foundation of that honor, is a chaotic and inefficient liability."
A collective intake of breath, a rustle of mail and silk. Lord Royce, a giant of a man clad in bronze armor, scowled. "You question our honor, Your Grace?"
"I question your methodology," I countered smoothly. "I have reviewed the records of the past twenty years. Over forty percent of major disputes in the Vale—disputes of land, of inheritance, of violent crime—have been settled not by evidence or testimony, but by trial by combat. A man's guilt or innocence is decided by his skill with a longsword. This is not justice. This is a lottery."
"It is the judgment of the gods!" a Corbray declared. "The Seven guide the hand of the righteous man!"
"The Seven," I said, my voice turning to ice, "seem to have a remarkable fondness for men who are larger, stronger, and have better training, regardless of the evidence presented against them. A system of justice that can be defeated by a well-aimed thrust of a lance is not a system of justice at all. It is a system of might-makes-right, cloaked in the language of piety."
I then turned my attention to the most infamous aspect of their culture. "And then there is this," I said, gesturing towards the Moon Door. "The sky cells. The Moon Door. A method of execution and a means of settling disputes that is little more than judicial murder. You throw men from a mountain and call it the will of the gods. I call it a failure of governance."
Lady Jeyne's face was a pale, tight mask of fury. "You go too far, Your Grace. These are our most ancient traditions. They are the pillars of our way of life."
"Your traditions are inefficient," I stated flatly. "They are bad for business. A wealthy merchant from Gulltown can have his entire enterprise stolen by a landless knight with a strong sword arm, and you call it 'honor.' A lord can execute a rival by tossing him out a door and call it 'justice.' This creates instability. It discourages investment. It is a primitive system that has no place in the modern, unified realm I am building."
I unrolled a scroll. My scribes had been busy. It was the 'Crown's Decree on Judicial Standardization.'
"As of today," I announced, "the practice of trial by combat to determine the guilt or innocence in a criminal or civil matter is hereby outlawed in the Seven Kingdoms."
An uproar went through the hall. Knights shot to their feet, their hands on the hilts of their swords.
"This is tyranny!" Lord Royce roared. "You cannot strip a knight of his sacred right to defend his own honor!"
"A knight can defend his honor in a tourney, my lord," I replied, my voice cutting through the noise like a razor. Balerion, circling high above, let out a low, guttural growl that was not heard, but felt, a deep vibration in the stone of the mountain that silenced the room instantly. "A courtroom is a place for evidence. From this day forward, all major disputes will be settled by a panel of magistrates, appointed by the Lord Paramount, but trained and certified by a new Royal Judiciary I am establishing in King's Landing. Their judgments will be based on testimony, on evidence, and on the unified legal code of the realm. Not on the strength of a man's arm."
I then addressed the final point. "The sky cells will be sealed. The Moon Door will be permanently closed. Any lord found to be using it will be charged with murder. Executions, when required by law, will be carried out by a headsman's axe, a swift and efficient method, not a barbaric spectacle."
I had just dismantled the entire foundation of their culture. I had taken their honor, their tradition, their sacred rites, and dismissed them as inefficient business practices.
Lady Jeyne Arryn, the Maiden of the Vale, rose from her throne. She was shaking, but not with fear. It was with a cold, contained rage. "King Aeryn," she said, her voice trembling with the effort of her control. "You have flown all this way to spit on a thousand years of our history. You believe you can remake us in your own, cold image. The Knights of the Vale are sworn to uphold the honor of this land. They will not stand for this."
"They will stand for it, my lady, or they will be replaced," I said, my voice utterly calm. I looked past her, at the proud, angry faces of her bannermen.
"Your honor has made you stagnant," I told them. "It has made you insular. You sit in your mountain castles, convinced of your own moral superiority, while the world changes around you. While the Reach perfects its agriculture, while the Westerlands builds a new economy, while the North awakens, you polish your swords and speak of a glorious past. The past does not pay taxes. The past does not build roads. The past is a closed account."
I walked towards the center of the hall, towards the dreaded Moon Door. I stood on its edge, looking down at the clouds swirling thousands of feet below.
"This," I said, stamping my boot on the weirwood door, "is a symbol of your isolation. A symbol of your refusal to join the rest of the realm in an age of reason and law. It is a liability." I turned back to them. "My reign is about turning liabilities into assets. I am offering you a better way. A system of justice that is fair, predictable, and uniform. One that will encourage trade and ensure stability. Your people will be safer. Your lands will be more prosperous. All I ask in return is that you abandon a few barbaric traditions that have no place in a civilized kingdom."
I held out my hand. "Join me, Lady Jeyne. Join me in the future. Help me lead the Vale into a new era of prosperity, built on the rule of law, not the rule of the sword."
She stared at me, her mind clearly at war. Every instinct, every fiber of her being, screamed at her to defy me, to defend her house's honor. But she was also an intelligent ruler. She knew my power. She knew the truth in my words, however insulting the delivery. She knew that my proposal, while it wounded her pride, would ultimately make her kingdom stronger and more just. She knew that to fight me was to be swept away by the tide of history I was creating.
With a look of profound, weary resignation, she slowly walked forward and placed her hand in mine. It was a gesture of surrender.
"The Vale… serves the King, Your Grace," she said, her voice tight with unshed tears of pride.
The Audit of Honor was complete. I had faced down the proudest and most tradition-bound house in the realm and bent them to my will. I had not used fire, nor dragons, nor armies. I had used logic. I had used reason. I had used the undeniable, brutal force of a better business model.
As I prepared to descend from the Eyrie, leaving behind a kingdom whose soul I had just fundamentally rewritten, I knew that this victory was perhaps the most significant of my reign so far. I had proven that nothing was sacred before the march of progress. Not even honor itself could stand against a well-reasoned audit.