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"One silver stag for a tumble, love~"
A well-built brunette in cheap stitched cloth called out to a cluster of soldiers, flashing a practiced smile. A wooden sign beside her read Lady of Casterly Rock — Margaery Snow.
Next to her stood other women with dyed-red hair, dressed and painted to look like Catelyn, Sansa, and Jeyne. They charged extra and swore the likeness would make the men braver on the battlefield — and that one day they'd march all the way to Casterly Rock and claim the real prizes.
"I want Margaery!" a stormlander knight from Griffin's Roost shouted, waving a gold coin like it was the woman herself.
"Twenty gold dragons for Margaery!" a richer-looking lord called out.
The Griffin's Roost knight flushed but refused to back down. "Thirty!"
"Fifty!"
The bidding for "Margaery" climbed fast. In the end the stormlander knight lost. His name was Roland Connington, nephew of Jon Connington. His family had backed the Targaryens during Robert's Rebellion, and Connington himself had fought well enough at the Battle of the Bells to send Robert fleeing into a whore's bed for safety. Robert had punished Griffin's Roost by stripping away most of its lands. The loss of income left young Roland unable to outbid wealthier men.
He had come to this war hoping to prove his loyalty to Stannis and restore his family's standing.
Once the bidding for Margaery ended, the rest of the camp followed suit.
"I want Lyanna Stark!"
"Give me Sansa Stark!"
"Why isn't there an Alerie?"
"I'm Alerie!" a heavily painted woman in her late forties pushed forward.
"Bugger off. Alerie's barely forty and her hair isn't made of sheep's wool. I'd rather fuck an actual goat."
"Goat? That's a Vale man talking. You lot will fuck anything with four legs and a tail!"
The soldiers had never seen whores marketed like this before. They swarmed the stalls.
In just a few days a proper little town had sprung up around Harrenhal. Whores, peddlers, jugglers, and even a ragged mummer troupe had followed the sixty- or seventy-thousand-man army. The camp followers turned the area into something that almost looked like a real settlement.
The men were well fed and had little to do. Their lords' purses were full. Twisted entertainment filled the gap, and the soldiers — far from home and ground down by camp discipline — used it to keep their spirits up.
While the common men threw their coin at fleeting pleasures, Stannis and his lords sat in Harrenhal's great hall and felt the weight of the coming fight.
Marching all the way to Casterly Rock and taking it would not be easy.
Jon had already proven himself in large-scale field battles and in the clever use of terrain. The Green Fork was the fight that made his name — he'd flooded the field to break the Lannister advance and turned a near-rout into a victory even though most of his men had been broken remnants. Then he'd held King's Landing's walls against far greater numbers, showing terrifying skill at moving troops under pressure.
"And at Beheading Bay he beat eight thousand ironborn with barely a thousand men," Axell said. Even as an enemy, he was starting to respect how dangerous Jon had become.
They still held the numbers, but no one felt confident.
"We have the advantage in men," Bronze Yohn Royce said calmly. "The Vale's cavalry and longbowmen are the best in the realm. Jon won at the Green Fork because he broke the riverbank. He won at King's Landing because the Lannister-Tyrell alliance was already cracking. He won at Beheading Bay because the ironborn grew careless. We learn from those mistakes and we can win."
Yohn's steady voice settled some of the nerves in the room.
They had strong cavalry and archers. They would choose open, solid ground where those strengths could shine and avoid the kind of disaster the Lannisters had suffered. Their lords were united, so they would not repeat the Tyrell-Lannister mistakes. They already knew how dangerous Jon was, so they would not repeat the ironborn's arrogance.
Listening to Yohn, Stannis felt his own confidence slowly return.
He had held Storm's End against the Tyrell host. He had beaten ironborn fleets before. If not for that Imp's wildfire, he would have taken King's Landing himself. And Jon had only taken the city because Stannis had already drawn off most of the defenders.
Stannis's certainty grew. Jon was not invincible.
Then the thought that he needed to talk himself into believing it made him angry. A king preparing to crush a traitor should not have to give himself mental encouragement. It was humiliating.
"The pretender's main force is gathered around Riverrun — roughly thirty thousand men. We have seventy thousand. The numbers favor us heavily. In the south, the Stormlands keep the Reach army pinned down. The Tyrells are strong but they cannot reach the Riverlands in time. The moment for a decisive battle is ours. But to the north, the rebel army from Winterfell is marching south fast. We must stop them before they can link up with Jon and ruin everything."
Inside the Hall of a Hundred Hearths, Bronze Yohn Royce laid out the plan. Jon's strength had forced them all into a very practical frame of mind: respect the enemy on the battlefield, but believe in victory on the larger scale.
Harrenhal's position was strong. To the south lay the vast waters of the God's Eye, protecting their left flank. To the north, barely a day's march away, ran the Trident. The river let them move supplies quickly and cheaply and gave them a barrier against sudden attacks. The short distance between the castle and the river was already thick with supply wagons.
Both flanks were secure. The center was the massive fortress of Harrenhal itself. With seventy thousand men inside those walls, it did not look like a losing position.
The only real worry Stannis had before the final clash was the North.
At the start of the War of the Five Kings, Robb had used his cavalry to crush Jaime Lannister at the Whispering Wood and then again in a night attack on the camp. Northern horse had a fearsome reputation. Stannis did not want Robb to pull the same trick on him while he was locked in battle with Jon.
So before they fought Jon, they needed to take the Twins and seal the Neck, keeping the northern army bottled up.
"That pretender's army just finished a long campaign on the Iron Islands," Adrian Florent said. "The men were barely home before they were called up again. Both the soldiers and their lords are going to be carrying a lot of resentment."
Stannis looked at him with mild surprise. For once the man wasn't being a complete wet blanket.
It was the one clear weakness in Jon's position that everyone could see. The Iron Islands campaign had lasted nearly half a year. Men who lived far from home had returned, spent maybe two nights with their wives, and been dragged back into the field. That kind of thing hurt morale in any army.
By comparison, Stannis's own forces were relatively fresh. The Stormlands army had been resting for over a year. The Crownlands troops that had fought on the Iron Islands had mostly stayed aboard ship and seen little real fighting. The Vale army had sat out most of the War of the Five Kings and was itching for a real battle.
Terrain, numbers, and troop condition all favored the Iron Throne's coalition. Everyone in the room felt the advantage was theirs.
And Stannis still had Robert's two bastards close at hand. In the right moment, king's blood might prove useful after all.