Just two days later, Hand of the King Jon Arryn moved fast. Leo received word that the modest farmstead north of the Blackwater now belonged to him.
The ride from King's Landing took only an hour or two.
Leo went to see it himself. The "manor" was a simple two-story building of wood and rough stone—nothing fancy, but still a palace compared to the average peasant hut. It came with a tiny village of maybe a dozen households, some fields, a small wood, and a handful of rocky hills and meadows. All told, roughly three or four hundred acres.
Only about half the land was good for farming. The rest was stony hills that no one had ever bothered to clear. If you rode the full boundary, you could circle the entire fief in less than half a day. Classic knight's holding.
Leo met the villagers—fewer than a hundred souls. They stared at their new lord with dull, numb eyes.
He felt neither thrilled nor disappointed.
For a foreigner who had only been in Westeros a few months, landing even this small patch of dirt was already a massive win. But the place was tiny. After taxes, the yearly grain and rents would barely cover a comfortable life for an ordinary knight.
For Leo and the future he had in mind, it was almost worthless.
He told the old steward and village head to keep running things exactly as before, then rode straight back to King's Landing. His real focus now was preparing to sail for Essos.
Even though Leo had told everyone he crossed the Sunset Sea to reach Westeros, he had zero actual experience with ocean voyages.
Luckily, Varys—eager to test him—had introduced Leo to his old friend and partner: Illyrio Mopatis.
Illyrio's trading fleet regularly crossed the Narrow Sea, carrying spices, gems, and a few less savory cargoes on the side. He did business with half the powerful men in King's Landing and knew how to stay friendly with everyone.
Varys's plan was simple: put Leo on one of Illyrio's ships so he could track his movements and let the fat magister quietly test where Leo stood on the Targaryen exiles.
The moment Leo met Illyrio and learned who he was, everything clicked.
This is the Pentoshi magister.
The same man who had sheltered Viserys and Daenerys, arranged Dany's marriage to Drogo, and—most important of all—given her three dragon eggs as a wedding gift.
Leo had actually been wondering how he might track Illyrio down and try to buy one of those eggs. Now the man had walked right up to him.
Talk about killing two birds with one stone.
He had to wonder what game Varys was playing by handing him such a key contact.
Leo already knew the secret pact between Varys and Illyrio. Add in Varys's constant talk of "wise rulers" and "the good of the realm," and it was obvious.
They want to recruit me into their little conspiracy.
A wealthy outsider with no Westerosi ties and serious fighting skill? Perfect recruit.
So Leo decided to play along.
He greeted the jovial Illyrio with a warm smile. Within minutes the two men were chatting like old friends. Over the next few days they dined together several times, laughing and drinking as if they had known each other for years.
Leo planned to steer the conversation toward the dragon eggs when the time felt right.
He also couldn't help admiring Varys's sheer nerve.
Here was the Master of Whisperers, pretending to hunt the Targaryen children for Robert while secretly protecting them—and even housing them in Illyrio's Pentoshi mansion. And now he was casually introducing Robert's own assassin to the man guarding the targets.
Guy's got balls the size of Valyrian steel.
One more thing: Varys had hinted that Littlefinger was mixed up in the poisoning. After checking it out, Leo never confronted the Master of Coin. He knew Littlefinger was the spark that would ignite the War of the Five Kings. No point making an enemy of him yet.
Besides, Varys could have been lying just to stir trouble.
As both Varys and Littlefinger liked to say: in King's Landing, trust no one.
So Leo spent the next few days acting like nothing was wrong—eating, drinking, and letting his men prepare the voyage.
A few days later Illyrio's fleet was ready to sail, and so was Leo.
That was when two unexpected visitors showed up at the Sapphire Inn.
One was Brienne of Tarth, the woman he had fought in the tourney melee.
The other was a minor Riverlands knight named Brule Wayne—the same man Barristan Selmy had unhorsed in the jousts.
Both of them had come for the exact same reason.
They wanted to sail with Leo to Essos.