"My Prince?!" Areo Hotah had never seen his master so flustered before, not even when he read the news of a war, "What happened? Is it Prince Oberyn? Is he injured?"
"Injured? No, not... or perhaps..." Doran let out in a unsteady manner as he fell back down on the bench with a dazed look on his face, his head feeling as if someone had taken a hammer and repeatedly slammed him with it, 'This is not a joke, right? But this is indeed Oberyn's writing, so...'
"Call Obara from me," he whispered in an eerily calm tone after a few minutes of silence.
"At once," Areo nodded and immediately set off to comply with his wishes without asking any unnecessary questions, as he knew that the matter must be very shocking if it left his master so flustered.
It was about five minutes later that his niece appeared in the garden wearing sweaty garments and a very irritated look on her face.
"I was training, Uncle," she began almost as soon as she reached in earshot of him, while sending a nasty glare at Areo, who had probably been forceful in bringing her here, "What was so urgent that—"
"Did you know about this?" he interrupted her while showing her the letter in his hand.
The girl took the letter with a very confused look, but the moment she finished reading the content of the letter written in her father's hand, her eyes also widened in shock in a very similar way to Doran's, giving her Uncle the answer that he had wanted.
"H-How could they have done this without telling me?" she said through gritted teeth, her eyes showing a betrayed and angry look, and the letter almost got torn in her hands as they tightened into a fist, "I should have known that something was wrong when those two were so happy to go with him."
"Wait! Your sisters knew about this, too," Doran urgently asked with a frown on his face as he took in this new piece of information.
"Probably," Obara replied as she took a deep breath to calm her anger, "Otherwise, father would not have taken them along with him, would he? Ugh! Those cunning bitches," she cursed at the end in a low voice.
"Who else could have known?" Doran asked while completely ignoring his niece's foul language, "And why in seven hells did your father not bother to tell me about something like this?" he asked irritably.
"Perhaps because he was afraid that you were going to deny him the chance after you learnt of his plan," Obara replied with a somewhat rude shrug, which made Areo frown.
"Of course, I would deny him," Doran replied with a snort, "Do you know how insane it is to enter the Westerlands with no help other than his two teenage daughters, and then take out someone like the Mountain, and his group. And not only that, but to then bring them along as hostages all the way to Dorne," he finished before shaking his head in disbelief, "I still can't wrap my head around how he could even achieve something like this?"
"Hmm, I guess he must have had Jon's help along the way..." Obara said with a thoughtful look on her face.
"Jon? Jon Snow?" Doran asked with a strange expression on his face.
"Yes, him." Obara replied with a complicated expression on her face, "He is the only one who would have the ships, the men, and the information network to pull something like this in an enemy territory." There was a lot of confidence in her voice as she said that.
After all, the girl had spent a lot of time following his orders during their stint in Essos, so she knew better than most about how capable the boy was.
"But why?" The Prince of Dorne asked with a confused expression on his face. Why would someone like him want to help their family in their revenge? 'It can't be just because of friendship, right?' he mused with a sceptical look on his face, as he disdained the very idea that someone would go to such lengths for anyone just based on flimsy feelings.
"Who knows?" Obara replied with a shrug as the girl didn't really care about the reason; she was just a bit peeved that her father had achieved something like this and her sisters got to take part in it, while she was left behind doing something stupid like guarding their uncle, 'Speaking of which,'
"So are we still going to Kingslanding then?" The girl asked with a somewhat apprehensive expression on her face.
She knew that the news would have either reached or would soon reach the Capital of what her Father had done, and that would easily make the capital a very dangerous place for a Martell, even more than earlier.
But the thought did not scare the girl one bit; in fact, it only excited her as she imagined herself going inside that treacherous place and showing those good-for-nothings what she could do with her spear.
She was just worried that her somewhat cowardly uncle would get cold feet at the last second and order their party to turn around because of the increased threat.
"Of course, we are," Doran looked up with a gleam in his eyes, "We have come so far, so how can we just leave without meeting all those distinguished nobles in the capital?"
"What about Lannisters, then?" she asked with a raised eyebrow, somewhat taken aback by his response, "They are definitely going to come after us for this. Are you not worried?"
"Oh, I wish they would," he replied with a smirk on his face, "After all, only then would our trip become a little interesting," he could just imagine the frosty look on that Old lion's face when he would see Doran come right up to him after pulling something like this.
...
The Council Room, Kings Landing.
"...so including the additional tents, the enlarged Tourney grounds, and the additional cost to maintain all this for a month," Lord Baelish finished with a very convincing tired look on his face, as if he had been working himself hard all night, "Safe to say, that we have already exceeded the budged allocated for the Tourney, and would need to take more from the treasury,"
Lord Arryn groaned, Lord Stannis looked grim, Lord Renly meanwhile kept trying to check his reflection in the golden chalice in front of him, King Robert as usual ignored all the boring talks of copper counting, Lord Varys was listening intently with an ever present amused smile, and finally, the Grand Maester was doing his old man act and continuously bobbing his head as if he was paying attention, while trying to sneak in a nap.
"Fine, I will approve this expenditure," Lord Arryn replied after a few minutes of silence, seeing as no one else had any idea of a solution, "Just... make sure to keep it in check from now on," he said with an exhausted look on his wrinkled face, not knowing how many times he had repeated the same line before.
"It will burden the treasury quite a bit, My Lord," Baelish said with a troubled look on his face, "But I will try my hardest to find the coin for it, you can rest assured."
"But how could the treasury be burdened, Lord Baelish?" a voice suddenly interjected, making Petyr's eyes twitch in irritation, "Because from what I heard in passing, the treasury should be raking in a lot of gold, because of all the taxes that all those new foreign traders entering the city are paying, not to mention the taxes from Inns, the Brothels, and the Taverns. As far as I understand it, just the income that the dock had earned over the past month was more than whole of last year, so shouldn't the treasury be flush?" Lord Varys asked with a innocent tilt of his head, "but of course, that is just what I heard in 'passing' so it may not be the truth, hehe," he tittered.
A few simple words from the spider were enough to draw the attention of the council member towards their Master of Coin.
After all, as far back as they remembered, this little finger only ever told them about how much deficit the Treasury was in, but never how much it earned.
Unfortunately for the spider, this was not Baelish's first time, so he did not look flustered at all.
"You are, of course, not wrong about the additional income, Lord Varys. The treasury indeed earned a few more gold coins this month than before," he replied with a calm look on his face, but the involuntary curl of his lips gave his displeasure away. "But you must also then have heard about all the additional expenses. From doubling the city watch's patrol, hiring more temporary workers, paying the cleaners to constantly remove horseshit from the roads, and of course, seeing how much we are 'raking' in. All our debtors also want to wash their hands in the river and want me to increase their instalments," he finished with a sip of his water, before asking, "Do you want me to write all the expenses down for you if you can't remember?"
"Would you?" Varys asked without skipping a beat, "Not for me, of course. After all, I trust you implicitly, but... just for the sake of records. You understand, right?"
"Sure," Baelish replied with a snort as he looked away from the hateful face of nemesis and turned towards the bored King, "Speaking of which, I do not know if you are aware of this, Your Grace. But the one you are going to so much trouble for, has still not graced the capital with his presence," he said with a very worried look on his face, as if genuinely distressed by this.
"Who?" Robert asked back with a confused look on his face as if he was talking in a different language.
"Jon Snow, your grace," Baelish clarified with the forced patience of a parent handling a toddler, "The bastard of Eddard Stark, the one in the name of whom you are holding this Tourney for. He has still not arrived in the city, and considering that there are only three days left until the day of the tournament, I think it's a little concerning that he hasn't yet presented himself before you."
"He is not here yet?" he asked with a frown on his face, as he finally remembered Ned's boy, the one who had defeated the pirate king, "Why? Doesn't he know how stupid I am going to look if he is not here in time to get knighted? Is he even coming?" he asked out loud with displeasure on his face.
"Perhaps he simply forgot about it, you grace. After all, he indeed has quite a few responsibilities with how big his company has gotten," he said with a very harmless smile on his face, as if very concerned for the boy.
"What? Does he think—"
"He is indeed coming, your grace," Lord Arryn spoke up before the King could rile himself up at a perceived insult, "I just met Robb Stark last evening, and he assured me that his brother is almost here, that he just got a bit waylaid because of a storm his ships encountered on the seas."
"Ah, that makes sense," Robert said with a nod as his expression mellowed out. "Who can predict the weather out there in the middle of nowhere?" he said as his eyes became clouded, and long-buried memories, the ones that he had almost forgotten about, came up, which he immediately suppressed with a big gulp of ale.
"Ugh! That Robb! Why did he not meet me yet?" he asked with a grumble while looking at his foster father through his hazy eyes.
"He just arrived yesterday, your grace, and he did want to meet you first, but you were otherwise occupied..." Arryn explained with disapointed glare at King, who ignored it with the ease of long experience, "So he greeted me and then went back to settle his men. He also told me to notify him about when you are free, so if you want to meet him now—"
"Let's go then," Robert said as he immediately stood up, "Let us see the boy that Ned had raised in his frozen home, Haha,"
"Of course, your grace. I'll lead the way."
///
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