While the boorish King Robert kept his wife, Queen Cersei, firmly under his shadow, Gawen Crabb needed to find a ladder for his own ascent.
If he were to request an audience outright, the proud Cersei Lannister would most likely dismiss the so-called "half-wildling" House Crabb.
The raven was only the groundwork—the key would be seizing the right moment to display both his ability and his strength.
The Crab Claw Peninsula was largely barren and poor, made up mostly of marshes, forests, and valleys.
In every dark valley there was a lord, and both lords and smallfolk trusted no outsiders.
Most inhabitants were descended from the First Men. When the Andals tried to conquer the peninsula, they met resistance at every turn.
When they were not fighting foreign enemies, the people of the Crab Claw Peninsula fought among themselves—family blood feuds as dark and deep as the marshes.
From time to time, a hero would bring a fragile peace, such as the Crabb family's legendary Clarence Crabb. But once he died, things would return to their old ways.
During the Conquest, Aegon sent Visenya Targaryen to bring the peninsula into the fold, making its lords his direct bannermen. From then on, the Crab Claw Peninsula was fiercely loyal to House Targaryen.
Gawen handed the finished letter to Steward Herschel.
He paused, rubbing his ink-black, slightly wavy hair with his long fingers.
About a hundred miles east-northeast of Whispers Hall lay a stretch of farmland that, by peninsula standards, was rich soil.
That land had once been part of the domain of the family's ancestral seat—Whispers Keep. According to Herschel, it had once fed a thousand Crabb men-at-arms and secured the family's dominance over the surrounding region.
After Robert's Rebellion, under pressure from within and without, Gawen's mother had taken the remaining retainers and relocated to a safer military fortress, renaming it Whispers Hall.
More than ten years later, the ancestral keep lay in ruins, and the Crabb family no longer held sway over those fertile lands.
"Surana, my mother must have had a hard time back then."
"My little lord, even now, thinking back makes my heart race. In the beginning, my lady slept with two swords at her side—one long, for the wildlings who might attack at any time, and one short, for herself."
Gawen chuckled. "She was formidable."
Even Surana, usually so composed, allowed a faint smile. "She left this world at peace, my lord. You were her greatest pride."
After Surana left, Gawen turned over her last, veiled words in his mind.
With harvest season approaching, the wildling lords in the nearby hills had set their eyes on the Crabb lands, newly bereft of their lady.
Everyone was poor, but the Crabb farms had always drawn jealous eyes.
A perfect opportunity.
The young heir, sheltered all his life under his mother's wing, now stood alone. The wildling clans united for once—if they weren't going to raid him, who else? The advantage was theirs.
Surana was not overly worried about the fighting itself.
The Crabbs had two hereditary household knights, Ser Pell Piri and Ser Morsen Beck, descended from the most steadfast retainers in the world, honed over centuries in the peninsula's dangerous environment.
The standing force numbered over two hundred battle-tested soldiers, twenty of them in full plate armor—worth ten unarmored wildlings apiece.
Surana herself had campaigned often at Lady Crabb's side, quick and deadly, with a short sword few could match.
What she feared was that the hot-blooded young lord, leading men in battle for the first time, might throw himself into the charge and fall in his first fight.
With Gawen the last male heir, his death would mean the collapse of all who sheltered under the Crabb banner, and the extinction of the house itself.
Gawen wanted to tell her outright: Don't worry, I'm cautious, not reckless.
But for the sake of a lord's dignity, courage had to be shown, so it went unsaid.
Since merging with his new body, he woke each morning feeling stronger in every way.
His sword hand itched for action.
Still, with a mature mind, he reminded himself this was just one of the "Top Ten Illusions" of a strengthened body.
You're the lord. You have soldiers. Steady now—don't be rash.
Aside from a cousin three years older and married off four years ago, Gawen was the family's sole surviving male—a perilous position for any old noble house.
The Crab Claw Peninsula was no peaceful realm. A lord here lived by the sword, as his ancestors had before him.
To be a lord on the peninsula was a high-risk calling.
What if the last Crabb fell? Even the shrewdest would feel the ground shift beneath them; loyalties might falter.
House Crabb's title was hereditary baron.
Fittingly for their awkward place in the realm, Gawen's marriage prospects were a problem—too high for some, too low for others.
By fifteen, he ought to have been betrothed already.
Surana knew a lord's marriage was not a matter of romance. The causes and consequences of Robert's Rebellion were a constant warning to nobles not to let love cloud their judgment.
So, she thought, even a bastard would be better than nothing—Gawen needed an heir, tradition and law be damned.
Not to curse him, but to reassure the people's loyalty.
With an heir, a lord's marriage could be negotiated from a position of strength.
Surana had a son and a daughter; her eldest was sixteen and apprenticing under Herschel.
Her younger daughter, Karlea, was thirteen, healthy, pretty, and—most importantly—trustworthy.
Surana had watched Gawen grow, and knew he was not a cruel or selfish man.
Bearing a bastard might not be honorable, but in the current state of the Crabb lands, it would be a service.
The child would bear the Rivers surname of bastardy, but carry Crabb blood.
And for the mother, it would mean a farmstead, lifelong security, and a better life than most women could hope for.
Everyone would win.
When in Rome… Gawen was grateful he had merged with the original's memories.
With those memories, his conduct would not be too jarringly out of place. Change could come gradually, without raising suspicion.
As a former Targaryen loyalist, he could not afford to leave any obvious handle for others to seize.
In the Faith of the Seven, behavior too far outside the norm could see one branded a heretic, and the Seven's followers were everywhere in Westeros.
Thirteen years old… He leaned back in his chair, eyes on the ceiling for a long while.
The clash with his own modern sensibilities was too great. Best reconsider.
After several quiet days of counting, Gawen tallied roughly two thousand direct subjects, living mostly by hunting, with some farming.
About a thousand clustered near Whispers Hall, the rest scattered across ten villages.
One village lay to the south, by the sea, home to just over two hundred fisherfolk.
"Fishing Village" was a poor name. That would have to change—at least "village" should be "port."
When time allowed, he would go there himself, inspect the place, and make plans.
A poor lord needed more gold dragons.
Ser Morsen Beck, out for three days now, was following Gawen's orders to survey every blacksmith, carpenter, and craftsman in the domain.
Herschel had begun preparing empty houses.
They would gather all resources, centralize production, divide labor, and train artisans—the groundwork for a weapons manufactory.
The Crabbs had fine yew groves in plenty. If they could field a host of longbowmen, the advantage would be theirs.
True longbowmen needed more than skill with a bow—they needed discipline, something that took time to build.
First, Gawen would mobilize all the strength his lands could muster, crush the nearby hill tribes, and give the realm a measure of security.
Above all, they were too poor. For now, he would change the family motto to:
"Force is better than toil."
They could change it back when the coffers were full.
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🔥 The Throne's Last Flame — A Song Forged in Ice and Wrath 🔥
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