Chapter 12: The Queenmaker's Gambit
The return to Dragonstone was not a retreat, but a strategic consolidation. The display in the Kingswood had sent its message. Now was the time to build upon that fear, that awe. Rhaenyra's words had anchored me, but the anchor itself was made of iron resolve. Her safety, her crown, was the ultimate goal. Everything else was a means to that end.
Our first priority was her image. She could not just be Viserys's named heir, a title given and just as easily taken. She had to be seen as a ruler in her own right.
"The people love a story," I said to her, spreading a map of the Crownlands across the table in the Stone Drum. "And they love a protector even more."
I proposed a progress. Not a royal tour of feasts and flattery, but a "Queen's Journey." She would visit the lands that had benefited from the Dragon's Bank, the towns whose merchants were growing rich on our trade. She would not just accept tributes; she would hold court. She would listen to grievances about corrupt officials or unfair tariffs—grievances often ignored by the capital—and she would act. With the authority of Dragonstone and the silent threat of its shadow, she could deliver justice where the Iron Throne was slow to act.
"You will be the solution to the problems the Crown creates," I told her. "You will be their queen long before you sit the throne."
She embraced the idea with a fierce light in her eyes. This was action, not just waiting. She began planning her route, choosing which lords to subtly threaten and which smallfolk to openly champion.
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My work continued in the shadows. The Dragon's Bank was now a formidable web. But webs can be torn. We needed a hammer.
The design for the "Leviathan" was complete. It was time to build it. But such a project required more than the Arbormasters' skill. It required a fortune in iron, a specific type of dense timber, and craftsmen who could work metal on a scale never before attempted.
"We need the Rivermen," I stated to Yohanna and Rhaenyra. "The Darklyns of Duskendale control the best iron mines close to us. The Blackwoods and the Brackens control the forests and the shipwrights who know how to work river currents. They are perpetually at each other's throats, held in check only by the distant authority of the Tullys and the Crown."
I unrolled another scroll. It was not a design, but a genealogy of House Tully. "The current Lord Tully, Grover, is old. He sides with the Hightowers, believing a male heir is the only path to stability. But his grandson, Elmo, is more pragmatic. And his great-grandson, Kermit… he is young, impressionable."
A plan, cold and precise, formed in my mind. "We will bypass Lord Grover. We will offer the Darklyns, the Blackwoods, and the Brackens exclusive contracts. Iron and timber for us, at prices that will make them richer than their liege lords. We will make them financially dependent on Dragonstone, not Riverrun."
"They will never agree. It will be seen as an act of rebellion against House Tully," Rhaenyra said, though her eyes were calculating, seeing the move on the board.
"They will if they believe they have the Crown's silent support," I replied. "Or more precisely, the support of the Crown's heir. Your progress will take you near Duskendale. A meeting with Lord Darklyn, expressing your… concern… over the high cost of iron impacting the realm's trade, would be seen as a royal endorsement. We don't ask them to rebel. We just offer them a better deal. Lord Grover will be too slow, too traditional, to counter it. The Riverlands will be ours, not through conquest, but through contract."
It was a dangerous, brilliant gambit. It would inflame tensions in the Riverlands, but it would pull their economic heartstrings directly to us.
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Amidst these plans, a different kind of missive arrived. It was from Lady Jeyne Arryn. The tone had shifted from shared loneliness to something warmer, laced with a keen political mind. She wrote of her own troubles with recalcitrant bannermen, the Sunderlands and the Templetons, who tested her rule.
…they see a girl in the Eyrie and forget the blood of the Falcon that runs in her veins. I must remind them, daily, that my words are law. Your account of the boar hunt was… stirring. It seems we must both be dragons in our own courts, you with fire and I with frost.
I read the letter in my chambers, Shadowwing's restless presence a low hum in my mind. I saw an opportunity, not just for an alliance, but for a true connection. A partnership that could anchor our eastern flank permanently.
I picked up a quill. My reply was careful, but more open than before.
Lady Jeyne, A dragon alone is a fearsome thing, but a dragon with a falcon for an ally is unstoppable. Your frost is every bit as effective as my fire. Perhaps, when the spring thaw makes the high road passable, we might discuss how our storms might combine to weather the troubles both our courts face. A meeting, in the Vale, would be most productive. Yours, Aemon
I was playing a long game, on multiple boards. Rhaenyra's progress would secure the Crownlands. My economic assault would unravel the Riverlands. And a potential pact with the Vale would secure the East.
In the Red Keep, Otto Hightower worried about oaths and precedents. He was playing chess. I was building an empire, brick by brick, contract by contract, and placing my sister, the future queen, as its radiant, undeniable centerpiece. The Dragon and the Bank were stretching their wings, and soon, no kingdom in Westeros would be beyond their shadow.