For four moons, everything went well. The foundations of the three main towers were ready, deep and wide. The bricks were prepared for laying. Now the only limitation was the mortar. A gallon of sap mixed into the mortar allowed it to be diluted enough to lay twenty thousand bricks. In those four moons, he obtained another six barrels, for a total of eight. Seven would be used in construction, and the rest would be for research.
Now the problem was volcanic ash. He obtained several tons of DragonStone. At first, he began a constant supply trip, but it stopped two weeks after the dragons were born.
Viserys also stopped responding to his letters. He sent two letters to King's Landing, one to the king and the other to his mother. They said that obtaining the ash was, for the moment, not possible. It was as if his older brother wanted to hinder the construction process. He had managed to get them to start working with the available volcanic ash, but it ran out during the previous moon.
He sent letters to Jon Arryn, the guardian of the Vale. The man had somehow managed to keep his position, a controversial decision, although his heir, a young man named Hardyng, was being raised at Casterly Rock with Tywin Lannister.
In Arryn's letters, he inquired about inactive volcanoes in his lands and requested the trade of volcanic ash. The old man replied that he would consult his oldest maps, but did not expect to find any.
He would have gone to King's Landing, but the idea of leaving Dany alone pained him. Not only because the administration would fall more heavily on her, but because if anyone discovered the dragons, he would have to act quickly. So he sent Torrhen. He was not a politician, but he was much more talkative than Brandon. He went on a Drakkar and returned shortly after. The king refused to see him. His mother allowed him a conversation, but she did not say much about DragonStone, only that it was not possible to extract the ashes at the moment.
They put him off again and again. Ever since they offered him Harrenhal, he knew it was a poisoned gift, but he accepted it gladly. He knew he could turn it into something extraordinary. And step by step, he was succeeding. If his brother hadn't meddled, everything would have been better.
The idea that it was Rhaegar who ordered his murder was growing stronger.
Even the village on the banks of the river began to grow. Previously, there had been several fishing villages, but they merged to form a city. He had allowed the fishermen to use the Drakkars for fishing, not their best use, but as long as they weren't traveling to King's Landing, it was better to use them for something.
The town was more bustling and lively. Several merchants had arrived to buy the prince's products. He couldn't accommodate them in Harrenhal, so they stayed in the village. It was the representative he left in the town, Edric, who gave him the idea of building more inns. He financed the construction with loans and allowed the villagers to manage them. They would repay the gold by paying higher taxes until the debt was fully covered.
He could have given the gold away, but he didn't want his people to become lazy. Nor did he want to manage each of the inns.
The merchants brought more people with them, and in four moons, more than three thousand people migrated. Some of them were skilled craftsmen, such as carpenters and potters. The former found work in the shipyards, and the latter requested to purchase clay for their work. The prince offered to buy them some vases and plates to give them some initial work and a little recognition.
Little by little, the city offered more. Some merchants even asked to buy a piece of land. He refused, but offered to build warehouses and rent them out. He planned to create a market in the future when the city grew larger.
This market would be built near the castle. The town was quite close to Harrenhal, and his idea was to let it grow around the castle, surrounding it, with a space of half a league between the town and the castle walls. Every two weeks, the city filled a ship with goods, and small merchants bought the products to resell them in King's Landing. Those taxes would not bring him much profit in the short term, but they would help the town grow gradually. At least Rhaegar had not interfered with his trade.
He could not say the same for the religion of R'hllor. His business in Essos was extinct thanks to them. He no longer generated income in Essos and had lost nearly a hundred thousand gold dragons. Of the 500 Unsullied he had in Essos, 200 died, and the rest returned, ashamed. They brought back a group of 600 slaves.
He knew he had to deal with R'hllor, but he wasn't ready to fight against an entire religion just yet.
He needed to know more about R'hllor. Was he a god or a demon? His presence was limited in this world. He had ordered Elhaz runes to be carved into the walls. These offered protection, not only physical but also against higher beings. He did not want Rhllor to reach his door.
He also carved runes on stones that he hid around the weirwoods.
He used the runes Kano (ᚲ), which represented fire and would attract it. Isa (ᛁ), which represented ice, would serve to contain and stabilize the fire. Perth (ᛈ) meant rebirth, and its function was to transform that energy into something else, into magic.
He wanted to add the runes Eiwaz (ᛇ), which would help integrate the energy into the tree, and Fehu (ᚠ), which would turn that energy into prosperity, helping the tree to grow. Kano (ᚲ) was also associated with light, and sunlight was absorbed as a source of energy. The dilemma was whether or not to carve the tree. The books said nothing about the consequences of such an action. He didn't want to offend the old gods.
The previous runes were created with a specific intention in mind. A single rune can have several meanings, but it was the intention behind inscribing it that made it work. That is why inscribing protective runes on bricks was easy, because even if only slightly, during their creation, the intention was to create something resistant.
Jaehaerys stood on the walls of Harrenhal, his wife at his side. A silk scarf covered Dany's hair. The fire had left her bald, both of them, and she was sad to have her hair short, as it was just beginning to grow.
The last few months had been turbulent. And that turbulence was about to increase.
His wife was now helping to manage all the construction. She began by repairing the mansion. In the mansion, she ordered the installation of pipes to distribute water to bathrooms and kitchens. The mansion lacked them, partly because Jaehaerys had already planned to leave that task to her as preparation.
She did a good job, ordering a water storage tank to be built on the roof and the pipes to be laid. Dany made sure that the structure could support the weight of the water and had to order the creation of pillars to reinforce it.
For the pipes, Jaehaerys had to intervene himself to talk to the blacksmiths and explain precisely what he wanted, the plans he had drawn up, and the processes involved. At that moment, he missed Mikken, the blacksmith from Winterfell. He would have stolen him if he could, but he was too loyal to Stark.
They both watched the black banner approach their city. The three-headed dragon was visible. It arrived without warning, probably wanting to take them by surprise. And it partially did. He had recently ordered Ros to create a network of spies; the girl was good at reading people. She had begun to approach merchants, even financing some of them. She managed to obtain information from some, but she was limited by distance. Between Harrenhal and King's Landing, there was only a seven-day distance; it could be 14 if it were a vast army.
Rhaegar traveled light; they were all horsemen. In the distance, he couldn't see how many Targaryens there were, but it should be all of them, except Viserys and Daemon, of course.
"We must prepare to receive them," he heard Daenerys say beside him.
For moons, they had kept the dragons inside their mansion, and then, when they became too large, they sent them to the Godswood and forbade anyone from entering. He even chained them to prevent them from flying away. They melted the chains even though the iron was inscribed with runes to improve its strength.
'Dragon fire can break runes,' he theorized.
Now all of Harrenhal had seen the dragons soar through the air, so it was no surprise to see the king heading there, but he reacted too soon. Rhaegar was obsessed with the three-headed dragon.
"They're a small group, at least we won't have much trouble housing them," she said, more frightened than she wanted to show.
She considered the dragons their children, and Jaehaerys was sure that in some way they were.
"The dragons will be safe, won't they?" she asked, frowning.
"Yes. If Rhaegar brought Visenya, they would be," Jaehaerys wondered if his brother would dare to kill him. There were 600 men at Harrenhal who were his army. 100 kept order in the city, and the rest kept order in the castle.
"She's too young for this," Daenerys was a little apprehensive about his plan.
"She won't suffer, besides, she'll make a good lady companion," he smiled, knowing that the little girl would be chaos.
His first plan was to send the dragons to the Isle of Faces. But the island had not called him, and when he tried to approach it on the raft, the water pushed him away. The island did not want visitors. Perhaps because the old gods had ruled it, and dragons were believed to belong to the Valyrian gods. Dragons were beings that just no one could dominate; he could not send them away without expecting them to become wild dragons, like the cannibal.
"I hope everything goes well," whispered Daenerys.
"Well, if it goes wrong and I die..." 'You could marry Daemon,' he wanted to add in a sour humor.
He often employed a black sense of humor when he was nervous.
"I'll burn Westeros," the princess interrupted him and walked away, Brandon following her like his faithful shadow.
"You're smiling, My Prince," he heard Torrhen say.