Chapter 12: A Crown of Roses, A Cascade of Thorns

Chapter 12: A Crown of Roses, A Cascade of Thorns

282 AC, Month of the Wolf

The calm, stretched taut and thin since the tourney at Harrenhal, finally snapped. The news did not trickle into King's Landing; it crashed like a rogue wave, a torrent of rumor and scandal that sent the court into a frenzy. Prince Rhaegar, the hope of the realm, had vanished. And with him, Lyanna Stark, the wild and beautiful betrothed of Lord Robert Baratheon.

Damon felt the event not as a shock, but as a confirmation. It was the click of a final tumbler falling into place. While the lords whispered of abduction and the ladies of a scandalous elopement, Damon was in his study, the world outside his window fading into an irrelevant hum. He received three separate, coded reports within hours of each other. The first, from his agent in the North, confirmed that Brandon Stark, the hot-headed heir to Winterfell, was riding south with a cadre of young lords, screaming for the Dragon Prince's blood. The second, from his contact on Dragonstone, reported the Prince's ship had never returned from a trip to the Riverlands. The third, from his own watchers on the Kingsroad, detailed the last known sighting of Rhaegar and Lyanna, traveling south at speed, disguised but unmistakable.

He laid the reports on his desk, his face a mask of calm concentration. The realm was on the verge of panic. The market for gossip and fear was at an all-time high. For Damon, it was simply the ringing of the opening bell. The war he had spent fifteen years preparing for had begun.

He summoned Silas. His financial man arrived pale and sweating, the panic of the city clinging to him like a shroud.

"Master Damon, the city is in an uproar! They say the Starks will demand war! The markets are…"

"The markets are behaving exactly as predicted," Damon cut in, his voice a blade of pure, cold steel that sliced through Silas's hysteria. "And we will capitalize on it. Your peacetime footing is now rescinded. You will activate our war protocols immediately."

He pushed a new, thicker ledger across the desk. It was bound in black leather, its pages filled with the cold arithmetic of conflict.

"First, logistics," Damon began, his finger tapping a section of the book. "An army, Silas, is a ravenous beast. It consumes food, steel, and leather. Its blood is wine for cleaning wounds, and its flesh is bandage cloth. We will become the beast's sole provider."

His instructions were rapid-fire, precise, and breathtaking in their scope. "Liquidate our shares in the Pentoshi weaving guilds. Use the capital to enact a bulk purchase of all available grain futures from our contacts in House Tyrell. Offer them twenty percent above market value; they are fools and will see it as a windfall, not realizing the price will triple once the fighting starts. All shipments are to be diverted to our secure warehouses in Duskendale and Maidenpool."

"You will use our shell corporations to place massive orders for iron ore from the mines in the Stormlands. Lord Baratheon will need steel for his armies, and we will be the ones who sell it to his smiths. Do the same for leather from the Vale. Lord Arryn will need saddles and armor. We will be their tannery."

"And medicine," Damon's eyes glinted. "Triple production of the Hightower pain-balm. Begin mass production of clean, sterilized linen bandages. Buy every cask of strong, cheap wine you can find. When men start losing limbs, a cask of wine to clean the stump will be worth more than a cask of gold."

Silas was scribbling frantically, his mind struggling to comprehend. Damon was not just investing in war; he was creating a vertically integrated monopoly on the very act of fighting.

"Next, financial warfare," Damon continued, his voice dropping lower. "We know the alliances that will form. I have prepared a list of houses loyal to the Targaryens. You will begin discreetly calling in their debts. Squeeze them. Force them to sell land or assets at a loss to fund their levies. We will bleed the dragon's supporters before they even take the field."

He slid another piece of parchment forward. "Conversely, these are houses that will side with the rebels. You will anonymously extend them generous lines of credit. Jon Arryn will need gold to pay his knights. Hoster Tully will need silver to fortify his borders. We will be their silent, benevolent benefactors. Robert Baratheon can fund his rage with our money. When the war is over, the victors, whoever they may be, will owe their success to a bank that has no name."

It was a strategy of such complete, amoral pragmatism that it bordered on the sublime. He would profit from the sale of swords, and then profit again from the sale of bandages. He would fund both sides, ensuring that the only true winner of Robert's Rebellion would be him.

In the midst of these grand preparations, a strange and unexpected opportunity arose. The Red Keep had become a true madhouse. Tywin Lannister, his pride wounded by the appointment of his son and heir to the Kingsguard, had resigned the Handship and returned to Casterly Rock. The court was left rudderless, guided only by the whims of a lunatic.

Stuck in the middle of it all was Ser Jaime Lannister. Damon, through his contacts in the Kingsguard, knew the young lion was miserable, his dream of glory turned into a nightmare of serving as chief warden to a deranged shut-in.

One evening, Ser Jaime appeared at The Atelier, unannounced and out of uniform, looking more like a troubled young lord than the golden lion of the Kingsguard. He had used his familiarity with Damon's products as a pretext.

"Master Damon," Jaime began, his tone striving for a casualness that his tense posture betrayed. "I confess, your… creations… are a curiosity to me. The King's tasting kit. How does it truly work?"

Damon met the young knight's gaze. He saw past the famous good looks and the cynical swagger. His telepathy opened a window into Jaime's soul, and what he saw was a raging inferno of conflict. He felt Jaime's all-consuming, forbidden love for his twin sister, Cersei, a love that was his one true north. He felt the crushing weight of his father's disappointment and the bitter irony of his white cloak. And he felt a deep, profound, and growing hatred for the slobbering, cruel man he was sworn to protect.

"It works on simple principles of alchemy, Ser Jaime," Damon replied, deciding to play the role of a wise, detached observer. "Certain pure metals react to impurities. It is no different than a good sword resisting rust." He poured two glasses of wine. "But I suspect you did not come here to discuss metallurgy."

Jaime looked surprised, then gave a short, bitter laugh. "Is it that obvious? I suppose it is. I am the most glorious bodyguard in the history of the world. I guard a drooling madman from his own food."

"Aerys was not always this way," Damon stated quietly, a deliberate probe.

"He was always cruel," Jaime shot back, his voice venomous. "Now he is simply insane. He talks to the walls. He speaks of burning the city to 'cleanse it'. And the things he says about my… about Lord Tywin…"

Damon listened, his face a mask of serene neutrality. He let the young lion vent his frustrations, offering quiet, cynical observations that validated Jaime's own growing disillusionment.

"A king is a man, Ser Jaime. And men are fallible. Some are undone by wine, others by women. Aerys is undone by fear. A man who fears everything can be made to do anything."

"And my father is undone by pride," Jaime added, a note of grudging admiration in his voice. "He would rather the realm burn than admit a mistake."

"Pride is the armor of a king, even one who has no crown," Damon said. He was planting seeds, carefully chosen words that would resonate with Jaime's own thoughts. He wasn't creating the Kingslayer, but he was providing a philosophical framework for the act when the time came. He was becoming the devil on Jaime's shoulder, a devil who spoke in the calm, reasonable tones of a philosopher. By the time Jaime left, a strange bond had been formed. Damon had become a confidant, a neutral party to whom the most conflicted knight in Westeros could speak his mind. It was a priceless connection.

The situation in the city deteriorated rapidly. Brandon Stark, true to his wild wolf's blood, arrived at the gates of the Red Keep, screaming for Rhaegar to "come out and die." He was promptly arrested and thrown in the dungeons. When his father, Lord Rickard Stark, was summoned to court to answer for his son's actions, Aerys's madness reached its zenith.

Damon received the news in real time from his Kingsguard contacts. Aerys had demanded a trial by combat, but had named fire as the champion of the Crown.

He watched from a distance as Lord Rickard Stark was suspended from the rafters of the throne room, dressed in his full steel plate, while a fire was lit beneath him. He watched as Brandon Stark was brought out, a leather cord around his neck attached to a Tyroshi strangling device, with his own longsword placed just beyond his reach. He knew the history. He knew that the noble Lord of Winterfell would be cooked alive in his own armor, while his son strangled himself to death trying to reach the sword to save him.

Damon made no move. He felt no pity, no horror. This was a necessary, historical atrocity. The North needed martyrs, and Aerys was obliging. He did, however, use the moment. As the screams echoed through the Red Keep, he sent a message to Ser Gerold Hightower.

Lord Commander, the King's agitation is extreme. The smoke and the… atmosphere… will surely inflame his humors. I have a new incense, a blend of chamomile and lavender from my personal gardens. It is said to soothe a troubled mind. Perhaps burning it in the royal chambers tonight would grant His Grace some small measure of peace.

It was a masterful act of psychopathy. While men burned, he was offering aromatherapy. Ser Gerold, desperate for any way to manage the King after the horrific events, readily agreed. Damon's influence crept even deeper into the heart of the madness.

The news of the brutal executions of the Warden of the North and his heir spread across the realm like the plague. Aerys, in his final, fatal act of folly, sent a raven to the Eyrie, demanding that Lord Jon Arryn hand over the heads of his two remaining wards: Eddard Stark, the new Lord of Winterfell, and Robert Baratheon, the Lord of Storm's End, whose betrothed had been 'stolen'.

The demand was a death sentence. Jon Arryn, famously honorable, gave his answer by calling his banners. The houses of the North, the Stormlands, and the Vale rose in open rebellion.

Damon stood before the great map in his study. The pieces were no longer being positioned. They were in open conflict. He placed new markers on the board: a soaring falcon for the Arryns, a direwolf for the Starks, a stag for the Baratheons, all arrayed against the three-headed dragon of the Targaryens.

His monopolies were in place. His lines of credit were being drawn upon by the nascent rebel lords. His agents were embedded, his intelligence flowing. The calm was over. The storm had broken. And from its heart, he would orchestrate the symphony of its destruction, ensuring that when the thunder faded and the dead were counted, his would be the only house left standing, built on a foundation of gold, secrets, and the bones of kings.