Title: The Hostile Takeover
Title: The Hostile Takeover
Year and Month: 126 AC, 5th Moon
For thirteen years, I had ruled the Seven Kingdoms. Or, to be precise, I had managed the Six Kingdoms and cultivated a controlling interest in the seventh. The Dornish initiative, my grand experiment in economic conquest, had been an unqualified success. The Unconquered Kingdom was, for all intents and purposes, conquered. They simply hadn't realized it yet. Their pride, their history of defiance, remained intact, but their economy, their very sustenance, was now a wholly-owned subsidiary of the Iron Throne.
The reports that crossed my desk painted a clear and irrefutable picture. Dornish lords, grown rich from the wine and spice trade flowing north through my paved roads, were now building new manors with timber imported from the North. The merchants of Planky Town and Sunspear were using loans from the Bank of Casterly Rock to finance their shipping fleets. The common people, for the first time in memory, had a steady supply of affordable grain from the Reach, thanks to my Royal Granaries. They had become dependent. The infrastructure of their prosperity was entirely owned and operated by the Iron Throne.
Their political independence was now a fiction, a sentimental vanity they could no longer afford. The Unconquered Market had been saturated, its supply chains captured. The hostile takeover was moving into its final phase. It was time to inform the local management that their company had been acquired.
I convened the Small Council in the throne room. The mood was one of quiet, professional confidence. My reign had been one of unprecedented peace and growth, and my lords had grown accustomed to the success of my unorthodox methods.
"My lords," I began, my voice echoing in the hall. "For over a decade, we have pursued a policy of economic integration with the Principality of Dorne. I have reviewed the quarterly reports from Lord Beesbury and Lord Corlys. The data is conclusive. More than sixty percent of Dorne's gross domestic product is now directly tied to trade with the Six Kingdoms."
I let the stark number hang in the air. Lord Corlys Velaryon, my Master of Ships, permitted himself a thin, predatory smile. He understood what was coming.
"We have invested in their economy," I continued. "We have built them roads. We have given them a stable market for their goods. We have made them prosperous. And in doing so, we have placed a golden leash around their neck. It is time to pull that leash."
"You mean to force the issue of vassalage, Your Grace?" asked Lord Lyonel Strong, my new Master of Laws, a shrewd and capable man I had appointed years prior.
"The term 'vassalage' is archaic and inefficient," I replied. "It implies a feudal relationship based on oaths I do not trust and sentiments I do not value. I prefer the term 'full political integration.' Dorne will become the seventh administrative district of the realm. Prince Qoren Martell will bend the knee. He will be named Lord Paramount of Dorne and Warden of the South, and he will sit on this council. His people will receive the full protection of the Royal Army and the benefits of the King's Justice. Their laws and customs will be respected, so long as they do not contradict the supreme law of the Crown."
"Prince Qoren is a proud man," Lord Strong cautioned. "He has consistently refused any discussion of fealty in his negotiations with our envoys."
"His pride is a non-performing asset he can no longer afford to maintain," I said coldly. "His lords will not allow him to refuse. The merchants of Sunspear will not allow him to refuse. The smallfolk eating bread from the Reach will not allow him to refuse. I have made prosperity the most popular political party in Dorne, and I am its undisputed leader."
"I am not sending a raven with a request," I announced. "I am delivering the final terms of the acquisition in person. I will journey to the Prince's Pass, to the border of Dorne. I will summon Prince Qoren to meet me there. Lord Corlys, the Royal Fleet will take up positions along the southern coast. It is not a blockade; it is a 'naval exercise.' Prince Daemon, you will muster a legion of the Royal Army—the Iron Shield from the Stormlands. They will accompany me to the Marches. It is not an invasion force; it is a royal honor guard."
My meaning was clear. I was moving my knight and my rook into position, a checkmate disguised as a diplomatic visit.
And then there was the final piece. The ultimate show of force.
"And I," I concluded, "will be accompanied by the Black Dread."
A deep silence fell over the council. To bring Balerion to the very border of Dorne, the dragon that had burned their ancestors, was the most profound and intimidating statement I could possibly make.
The journey south was a display of overwhelming power. The ten thousand professional soldiers of the Iron Shield Legion, their black steel armor gleaming, marched with a discipline that terrified the local lords they passed. The Royal Fleet, a hundred warships, was a forest of masts off the coast. And I, the King, traveled with a small retinue, moving swiftly, my family remaining safely in King's Landing.
I flew most of the way. The bond with Balerion was a silent symphony. He was ancient, his thoughts vast and slow like the grinding of continents, but the serum still hummed in his veins, a spark of unnatural vitality in his ancient heart. He did not feel the weariness of his years as he once might have.
They are vipers we are about to place in a cage of their own making, old friend, I replied.
We made camp in the Prince's Pass, in the shadow of the great red mountains that had guarded Dorne for millennia. Our camp was on our side of the border, but the presence of ten thousand soldiers and the sight of Balerion circling high above, his shadow a creeping blot on the sandy plains, was a message that needed no translation.
I sent a single rider to Sunspear with my summons. It was not a request. The King of the Six Kingdoms invites the Prince of Dorne to a parley at the border to finalize the Treaty of Commerce and discuss the future of our two great nations.
For three days, we waited. It was a calculated pause, allowing the pressure to build. I knew the debate that must be raging in the halls of Sunspear. I knew the merchants would be panicking, the lords calculating, and Prince Qoren's pride warring with the undeniable reality of his position.
On the fourth day, a host appeared on the horizon. It was not an army. It was a small, dignified procession under the banner of the sun and spear of House Martell. Prince Qoren had come.
We met in a magnificent pavilion of silk that my servants had erected precisely on the border line. Half the pavilion was in the Seven Kingdoms, half in Dorne. I sat on a simple but imposing throne of carved weirwood we had brought with us. Qoren Martell sat opposite me on an equally fine chair his people had provided. We were two kings, meeting on neutral ground. Only I knew that the ground was anything but neutral.
He was a handsome man in his late thirties, his face intelligent, his eyes dark and wary. He had aged in the years since my wedding. The pressures of ruling a kingdom I was slowly consuming had taken their toll.
"King Aeryn," he began, his voice smooth and controlled. "You have come a long way. Your… honor guard is most impressive." He gestured vaguely towards the legion encamped behind me.
"The security and prosperity of my realm are my chief concerns, Prince Qoren," I replied. "And after a decade of fruitful trade, I have come to believe that the final barrier to true prosperity for both our peoples is the political uncertainty that still exists between us."
"Uncertainty?" he asked, raising an eyebrow. "Our trade is flourishing. Our peoples are at peace. What uncertainty is there?"
"The uncertainty of your status," I said bluntly. "You are an independent kingdom in a world where you are entirely dependent on another. You drink my water, but you refuse to acknowledge my well. This is an unstable, inefficient arrangement. It is time to regularize the relationship. It is time to finalize the merger."
I then laid out the final terms. My voice was calm, reasonable, the voice of a CEO explaining the undeniable benefits of an acquisition to the board of a company he was about to absorb.
"Dorne will swear fealty to the Iron Throne," I stated. "You, Prince Qoren, will be named Lord Paramount of Dorne and Warden of the South. You will retain the right to call yourself Prince, a unique honor befitting your history. Your laws, your customs, your right of inheritance will be respected and protected by the Crown. In return, you will become a part of the Seven Kingdoms. Your people will have the full protection of the Royal Army and the Royal Fleet. My granaries will guarantee you against famine. My banks will finance your growth. Your house will have a permanent, honored place on my council and in my court."
I leaned forward, my tone shifting from that of a king to that of a generous partner. "I am not here to conquer you, Qoren. I am here to offer you a permanent, protected place within the most prosperous and powerful economic bloc in the world. I am offering you a guaranteed future."
He listened, his face an unreadable mask. When I had finished, he was silent for a long time.
"And if I refuse?" he finally asked, his voice a low whisper. "If we choose our freedom, our independence, over your… prosperity?"
This was the moment. The closing argument. The point where the velvet glove came off the iron fist.
"Freedom," I said, my voice turning to ice, "is a luxury, my prince. A luxury your people can no longer afford. If you refuse, there will be no war. There will be no invasion. The dragons will not burn your cities."
I paused, letting the silence stretch.
"I will simply… close the accounts," I said. "The King's Scales roads will be shut down. Lord Corlys's 'naval exercises' will become a full and impenetrable quarantine. The Bank of Casterly Rock will recall all its loans to your merchants. The Royal Granaries will cease all grain shipments to your ports. The preferential tariffs will be revoked and replaced with punitive duties so high that a single cask of your wine will cost more than a common man's home."
"In six months," I concluded, my voice a flat, unemotional statement of fact, "your burgeoning economy will collapse. Your lords, who have grown rich on my trade, will be bankrupt. Your people, who have grown accustomed to full bellies, will begin to starve. And they will ask you, their Prince, why you chose a proud, impoverished freedom over a prosperous, protected peace. They will ask you why you have condemned them to ruin. I will not need to conquer you, Qoren. Your own people will tear you down for me."
I had laid my weapon on the table. It was not a sword. It was the prosperity I had so carefully cultivated for them. I had given them a taste of a better world, and now I was threatening to take it away.
Prince Qoren Martell stared at me, his dark eyes filled with a mixture of hatred, disbelief, and a dawning, terrible understanding. He saw the truth of my words. He saw the cold, inescapable logic of the trap I had laid for him over thirteen years. He looked past me, through the opening of the pavilion, and he could see the endless, disciplined lines of the Iron Shield Legion. He could feel the shadow of Balerion high above. He was a king with no army, no navy, and no economy that could stand against me. He was the CEO of a company that was being offered a buyout by a global conglomerate, and the offer was his only alternative to immediate, total liquidation.
He looked down at his hands, then back up at me. The pride of a thousand years of Martell princes was at war with the undeniable reality of his situation. I saw the struggle in his eyes, the agony of a king forced to choose between his history and his future.
Slowly, deliberately, Prince Qoren Martell, the last independent monarch in Westeros, slid from his chair and knelt on the dusty ground before me.
"Dorne… yields, Your Grace," he said, his voice thick with the taste of ashes. "We accept your terms."
The hostile takeover was complete. I had done what the Conqueror and his dragons could not. I had conquered Dorne without spilling a single drop of blood. I had simply made them an offer they couldn't refuse. The Seven Kingdoms were, at last, truly one. And the books were, at last, perfectly balanced.