Chapter 10: The Knight of the Laughing Tree

Chapter 10: The Knight of the Laughing Tree

281 AC, Month of the Smith

The raven arrived bearing the sigil of a black bat on a silver field, but the news it carried was cause for celebration throughout the Seven Kingdoms. Lord Walter Whent, in a fit of profligate grandeur, announced he would host a tourney at his great and gloomy castle of Harrenhal. The prizes promised were staggering, ensuring that every knight of skill and lord of ambition from Dorne to the Wall would attend. The realm, weary of the King's sour moods and the Hand's grim austerity, seized upon the announcement with a joyful fervor. It was to be the greatest pageant in living memory.

Damon, sitting in the quiet luxury of The Atelier, read the proclamation with a predator's stillness. He saw past the promises of glory and sport. He saw a confluence, a unique gathering of every major asset and liability in the kingdom in one convenient location. It was the single greatest business opportunity of his lifetime. He would not be trading in perfumes or land, but in the raw, uncut currency of hope, pride, and greed. He was going to become a bookmaker.

The plan he formulated was audacious in its scope and simplicity. He would not be seen placing a single bet. His hands would remain spotlessly clean. Instead, he would use the network of loyal, intelligent young men he had cultivated from the street urchins of his early days. They were his eyes and ears in the city, but for the tourney, they would become his dealers.

He summoned his most trusted lieutenant, a sharp-eyed man now in his early twenties named Kael, who had once been the nimblest pickpocket in Flea Bottom. They met in a secure cellar beneath a warehouse Damon owned on the waterfront.

"The tourney at Harrenhal will attract tens of thousands," Damon began, a massive, hand-drawn map of the castle and its surrounding fields spread on the table between them. "They will be soldiers, merchants, squires, and lords, and they will all have two things in common: an opinion on who will win, and a purse full of coin. We are going to provide them with a means of connecting the two."

Kael listened, his expression intense. He had been with Damon long enough to know that his master's plans, however strange they sounded, were always meticulously logical and brutally effective.

"You and ten of our best men will travel to Harrenhal ahead of the crowds," Damon instructed. "You will not go as a group. You will establish yourselves as independent bookies. Each of you will have a different persona: a gruff Dornishman, a jovial Reachman, a taciturn Northman. You will set up stalls in the tourney town, in the taverns, in the camps. You will be unconnected, rivals in the eyes of the public."

"We're to take bets?" Kael asked, a glint in his eye.

"You are to build a portfolio of wagers," Damon corrected him. "This is not simple gambling. This is financial management. Your primary purpose in the early days is to generate volume. Offer attractive odds, especially on the lesser-known knights. Pay out small wins promptly and with a smile. Build a reputation for being fair, even generous. We need to absorb as much of the loose coin in that camp as possible."

Damon's foreknowledge of the tourney's events was his ultimate advantage. He knew which long-shot knights would have surprising victories in the early rounds. He would instruct his men to offer inflated odds on these men, drawing in money against them, only to take a small, calculated loss that would build immense goodwill and trust.

"The real money," Damon continued, his voice dropping, "is in the final jousts. The public will bet heavily on the great names: Barristan Selmy, Arthur Dayne, Brandon Stark. We will encourage this. But the final purse, the grand championship, will be won by Prince Rhaegar. This is a certainty."

"The Prince?" Kael was surprised. "He is a great jouster, but against the Sword of the Morning?"

"He will win," Damon stated with absolute finality. "Your job is to ensure that by the time the final tilt begins, the vast majority of the money in your collective coffers is wagered against him. You will subtly shorten the odds on his opponents, make them seem the more attractive bet. When Rhaegar is crowned champion, the public will have lost, and their losses will flow from your dozen separate purses directly into mine. We will control the house, and the house always wins."

It was a brilliant, large-scale arbitrage, leveraging his secret knowledge to exploit a market of thousands. Kael, his mind racing, saw the genius of it. He left the meeting with a heavy bag of gold for operating capital and a detailed list of jousting outcomes that he believed his master had derived from some impossibly complex network of spies.

Damon, of course, had to attend the tourney himself. His absence would be more conspicuous than his presence. He arranged to travel as part of the entourage of Lord Lucerys Velaryon, a position that afforded him proximity to the royal court without the onerous duties of a sworn lord. His cover was perfect: the reclusive Purveyor, venturing out to observe the colors and pageantry of the realm to find inspiration for his next exclusive collection of scents. He traveled with a small, elegant pavilion and a single, silent servant, projecting an aura of artistic contemplation.

The tourney grounds at Harrenhal were a city unto themselves, a sprawling, chaotic mass of tents, pavilions, and humanity. Damon, walking through the crowds in a simple but well-made traveler's cloak, was a sensory sponge. His telepathy, honed over years, drank in the atmosphere. It was a tidal wave of emotions: the nervous energy of the squires, the boisterous pride of the knights, the avarice of the merchants, and the collective, joyful hope of a populace starved for spectacle.

He found his agents' stalls with ease. They were masterful, each playing their part to perfection. He watched as a grizzled knight placed a heavy purse on Ser Barristan Selmy to win his first tilt, getting fair odds from Kael's 'Dornish' bookie. Damon knew the knight would win his bet, and would return later to bet, and lose, a much larger sum.

His primary interest, however, lay with the key players. He knew the incident with the Knight of the Laughing Tree was a crucial, if mysterious, event. It was a story of northern honor, and its protagonists were the Starks. He dispatched one of his agents to discreetly observe the Stark camp.

The report came back as expected. A small, unassuming man, Lord Howland Reed of Greywater Watch, had been bullied by three squires. Damon's agent, a master of creating subtle diversions, had managed to cause a horse to bolt nearby at the critical moment, preventing the squires from giving Reed a more serious beating than they did. It was a tiny, invisible nudge to the timeline, an insurance policy to ensure the little crannogman was able to recount his tale to the She-Wolf.

That night, at the great opening feast in Harrenhal's cavernous hall, Damon took his place at a respectable, but not prominent, table. The hall was a kaleidoscope of color and sound. King Aerys was there, a rare public appearance. He looked like a madman from an old story, his eyes wild and suspicious, his beard a tangled mess, his long, yellow fingernails clicking on his goblet. He watched his son, the magnificent Rhaegar, with a venomous envy that was a palpable force in the room.

Damon extended his senses, tasting the minds of those at the high table. He felt Brandon Stark's wild, arrogant confidence, Robert Baratheon's booming, uncomplicated lust for wine and his betrothed, Lyanna. And in Lyanna, he felt a spirit like a caged fire, a fierce, willful intelligence that chafed at the role the world had assigned her. He felt her anger on behalf of Howland Reed, a righteous fury that would soon find a memorable expression. In her mind, she was a wolf, and wolves did not suffer bullies.

The next day, the mystery knight appeared. A small knight, clad in ill-fitting armor, bearing a shield painted with a laughing weirwood tree, rode into the lists. The Knight of the Laughing Tree challenged and defeated all three of the knights whose squires had attacked Howland Reed, winning a small fortune in horses and armor. The crowd roared, delighted by the mystery. The King, however, raged, believing the knight was his enemy, the laughing face a mockery of him.

Damon watched, knowing the truth. He felt Lyanna's fierce, triumphant pride pulse through the crowd, a secret she shared only with her brothers and, unknowingly, with him. He saw Aerys dispatch men to unmask the knight, and he felt Rhaegar's quiet, intense curiosity as he observed the proceedings.

That evening, the prince sought out the mystery knight himself. Damon, from a distance, could not hear their words, but he could feel the emotional exchange. He felt Rhaegar's gentle grace and Lyanna's defiant, fearful spirit. He knew the history: Rhaegar had discovered her identity and had protected her from his father's wrath. It was here, in this moment, that the seed of their fated, tragic connection was truly planted.

The tourney continued, and Damon's bookmaking operation performed flawlessly. His agents bled coin from the crowds, building their pot for the final act. Damon, meanwhile, moved through the event like a ghost, gathering intelligence. He listened to the minds of drunk lords boasting of their wealth, confirming his own data. He felt the strategic concerns of Lord Jon Arryn and the quiet loyalty of Ned Stark. He was building a complete psychological profile of the men who would soon lead the rebellion.

Finally, the day of the championship arrived. The lists were a sea of color and noise. The final tilt pitted the beloved Prince Rhaegar against the living legend, Ser Barristan Selmy. The betting had been furious. Kael's agents had, as instructed, made Ser Barristan the overwhelming favorite. The odds on Rhaegar were long. It was seen as a sentimental bet, not a serious one. Damon knew that nearly eighty percent of the tourney's total gambling purse was riding on Barristan the Bold.

The joust was magnificent. The two knights were a blur of silver and black. They broke lance after lance, each pass a thunderous collision of skill and courage. But Damon watched with the dispassionate eye of a man watching a film whose ending he had already read. Rhaegar would win.

And he did. On the final pass, Rhaegar's lance struck true, a thunderous impact that lifted Ser Barristan from his saddle and sent him crashing to the ground. A moment of stunned silence, then the crowd erupted. The Prince was the champion.

Damon didn't watch the cheering crowds. He watched the key players. He watched King Aerys, whose face was a mask of sour fury at his son's triumph. He watched Brandon and Robert, who cheered for their friend's opponent. And he watched as Rhaegar received the victor's laurel, a crown of blue winter roses.

Then came the moment that would seal the fate of a dynasty. Rhaegar urged his horse forward. He rode past his own wife, the Dornish princess Elia Martell, whose gentle smile faltered in a wave of public humiliation that Damon could feel like a physical blow. He rode to the end of the lists, to where the Starks and Baratheons were seated. And he lowered the crown of blue roses into the lap of Lyanna Stark.

The silence that fell upon the tourney grounds was absolute. It was a silence filled with a thousand emotions that Damon drank in like a fine wine. He felt the shock of the crowd. He felt Brandon Stark's face flush with murderous rage. He felt Robert Baratheon's possessive fury, a black, ugly thing. He felt the deep, pained sorrow of Princess Elia. And from Rhaegar and Lyanna, he felt a powerful, resonant chord of shared destiny, a tragic, beautiful, and utterly ruinous harmony that drowned out everything else. In that one gesture, the rebellion had become inevitable.

Later that night, long after the scandalized lords had retired to their tents to whisper and conspire, Kael brought the final accounting to Damon's pavilion. The tent was lit by a single candle, the table covered not with maps, but with neat stacks of gold dragons and heavy purses of silver stags.

"The final tally, Master Damon," Kael said, his voice hushed with awe. "After all payouts, the net profit is… staggering. More than the tax revenue of Lannisport for a full year."

Damon looked at the hoard of gold, his expression unreadable. This was his war chest. Earned from the pride and foolishness of men who believed they were watching a simple sport.

He dismissed Kael. He was alone with the profits of his knowledge. He reached into a small, velvet-lined box and pulled out a single, perfect blue winter rose. One of his agents had plucked it from the ground after Lyanna had dropped it in her confusion. He held the flower to the candlelight. It was beautiful. A symbol of a prince's passion and a kingdom's doom.

To Damon, it was a financial instrument. It was a reminder that the greatest follies of men, their loves, their honors, their prophecies, were merely market forces to be analyzed, predicted, and exploited. And he, the silent purveyor of secrets and scents, was poised to make a killing.