Chapter 121: Battle
With the turning of the calendar to a new month, the three-month anti-slavery operation in Pentos finally drew to a close.
As promised, Ian received his "activity fund surplus" of five hundred gold dragons from Magister Illyrio.
What surprised him, however, was that the end of the operation did not ease the city's tensions. Instead, the partisanship in Pentos grew more intense than ever.
Following a failed meeting between Prince Hazan, Governor Hauket, and Governor Tetrus at the Red Temple, Prince Hazan and Governor Hauket's daughter, Delif, announced their wedding date.
Before the Iron Bank had doubled their offer to win House Hauket over to the Braavosi Party, they had been a close ally of House Tetrus. Delif Hauket had, in fact, been betrothed since childhood to Suda Tetrus, the governor's third son.
The Hauket family's unilateral breach of the contract, and Delif's rapid fall into the arms of Prince Hazan, was enough to ignite Suda Tetrus's fury.
Shortly after the wedding date was announced, Suda and several companions went to the great Red Temple atop the city's highest hill. There, before the sacred Fiery Red Heart and a crowd of priests, he swore a public oath to kill Prince Hazan.
Unfortunately for him, before he had a chance to act on his vow, he was captured by his own eldest brother, who had rushed to the temple after hearing the news.
For the moment, the matter was concluded, but how it would ultimately end remained to be seen.
This information was shared with Ian by Hazru, the leader of the 'Little Mice'—whom Ian had privately nicknamed 'Big Mouse'. Over the past months, the boy had come to regard Ian as a friend.
He had come to Illyrio's manse today to deliver his report to the Magister, and afterward, stayed for lunch with Ian and the others.
During the meal, Butler Mills offered his own views on the matter. He told Ian that Governor Tetrus was not a man who suffered insults lightly. Having been so publicly humiliated, he would surely take greater action to exact revenge upon the Braavosi party, and perhaps upon Prince Hazan himself.
Steward Mills's guess was soon confirmed.
On the second day after Suda Tetrus was taken into custody by his brother, he sent a formal invitation to Prince Hazan, with his father's blessing, challenging him to a trial by combat.
The rules stipulated that each side would field seven champions, including Suda Tetrus and Prince Hazan themselves. The contest would be a series of one-on-one duels to the death. The winner of each match could be replaced to rest but would have to fight again later. The competition would continue until all seven combatants on one side were slain.
After the contest, the governor of the losing faction would be required to make a public apology to the victor before the Grand Council.
The proposal heavily favored House Tetrus. Their ally in the Volantis party, the 'slave trader' Governor Cecito Morn, commanded a large number of slave warriors, including several champion gladiators from the fighting pits of Meereen.
Under these rules, Prince Hazan's side had almost no chance of winning.
But perhaps it was a man's pride at work, for Prince Hazan seemed unwilling to yield before his fiancée's former betrothed. After persuading his own father and his prospective father-in-law, Governor Hauket, he chose to accept the challenge. His only condition was that the contest be set for one month later, to give him time to prepare.
And so, a deeper cloud of intrigue began to settle over the city of Pentos.
Ian felt as though he were shrouded in a dark cloud of his own.
One month from now was the day the Khal was due to arrive in Pentos.
Although the original histories contained very little description of the city, the arrival of the Horse King was the event that marked Daenerys's first point-of-view chapter.
If such a grand and violent contest were taking place at the same time as the Khal's welcoming banquet, it was impossible that no one would mention it.
This meant that in the current timeline, some other players had exerted their influence on the city's factional struggles, triggering a butterfly effect that led to this competition.
Of course, that didn't mean the players were the masterminds. Perhaps they were merely acting as speculators, like Littlefinger, or influencing these powerful men through other, more subtle means.
Regardless, it was a development that demanded his caution.
It was a pity that even with his good relationship with the largest intelligence network in Pentos, Ian still could not find a single clue that might lead him to the other players.
In the time that followed, he could only ask 'Big Mouse' Hazru to investigate whether any unusual characters had appeared in the city over the past two months, while he himself continued to practice the arts of the skinchanger, honing his own strength.
During this period, Ian also asked Illyrio if he could attend some of his banquets, hoping to find an opportunity to meet the ambassador of Braavos and the local head of the Iron Bank. Illyrio, however, refused.
The Magister's reason was irrefutable. 'Viserys would not want his first vassal to be one of my men.'
Illyrio was obviously right. If Ian were seen openly trailing the Magister all over Pentos before he had even sworn allegiance to Viserys, there was no telling how the news might reach the Beggar King's ears. A man with such fragile pride as Viserys would surely be enraged.
Ian was unwilling to take that risk. He abandoned the plan and focused on improving his strength with a quiet mind.
Half a month passed. The atmosphere in the city grew tense as news arrived that a Dothraki host, one hundred thousand strong, had crossed the Rhoyne and was entering the great plains via Norvos.
According to 'Big Mouse' Hazru, rumors were spreading through every street and alley.
They said the largest khalasar in history was marching on Pentos, that the mighty Khal Drogo was coming to wed the last princess of the kings of the west.
Accounts of the khalasar's exact size varied wildly. Some said there were forty thousand warriors with bells in their hair—a Dothraki custom, a bell for every victory won—and that with the other tribesmen, women, and slaves, the host numbered a hundred thousand.
Others claimed that the hundred thousand was merely the number of warriors, and that the total khalasar exceeded half a million. Some tales even swelled the number to a terrifying two million.
To welcome these 'friends', the Governor's Council quickly passed a resolution to hire mercenaries and temporarily double the size of the City Guard. This action, however, would put Pentos's actual strength far above the six-thousand-man limit agreed upon with Braavos.
In order to secure the support of Ambassador Oranto, the Council finally reached a compromise: the temporary addition of two thousand mercenaries would be placed under the command of three men.
They were Prince Hazan of the Braavos party; a close associate of Illyrio, who favored the Braavosi position; and Governor Tetrus of the Volantis party himself.
It was worth noting that while scouting Pentos in his eagle form, Ian discovered that the Black Falcon mercenary company he had deployed in the city, the one he had never once contacted, had also taken a private contract to join Pentos's expanded 'City Guard'.
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