Don't Panic Chapter 29: Owens New Employers (Part 1)

Last Time: ... his old nan always said ‘the old gods provided for good men’. She also said you don’t look a gift horse in the mouth. So if the gods had seen fit to bail him out by sending him a hapless lordling with too much coin, who was he to complain?

And if the same hapless lord now offered him a stable income he could use to support his dear Sara without having to worry about Vale pirates … well he wouldn’t question that either. 

It helped that Sirius seemed an unusually friendly sort, for a lordling. The poor fellow would surely get fleeced by every man and his dog if Owen turned down this job. It was clear the man desperately needed a professional to manage this business.

“Aye, I’m your man.” he heard himself say, his mouth moving almost with a mind of its own “and I think I’ll take that drink now” he finished. After all, what’s the worst that could happen?

------------------------------------- 

Chapter 29 - Owens New Employers (Part 1)

Dobby kept to the shadows of the opulent Solar as he hopped down from the sill of Maester Cressen's window. He'd popped directly to the sill, having already determined which room belonged to the Maester . There was no need to creep through the halls when he could take the shorter route.

He knew the Maester was busy handling the usual petitioners at the gates, which meant that his solar should be unoccupied at this time. Nonetheless, he remained cautious. Dobby was on a mission. The trio had  taken time from their previously hectic schedule to review the newly populated marauders map for White Harbour, and none of them were surprised by the findings.

They had discovered a very clear red dot right in the middle of New Castle's main keep. There were other milder red dots scattered around, as you would expect in any major city, but this one was a vibrant red, which clearly marked the individual an enemy, or at least as an individual with directed ill intent towards the wellbeing of the city. It seemed Harry's earlier suspicions of the Maester had been correct.

They were all inclined to agree with Harry’s theory that the Maester and that weird Septon with the big hat had been working together. 

Harry had noted that a large portion of the tomes rescued from the Septon’s bonfire had the Manderly heraldry embossed on the covers, and some had property of House Manderly written on the inside. He’d reasoned that of all those in the castle, only the Maester would have been able to facilitate the theft of such a large volume of ancient tomes from the Manderly library.

Of course, Sirius had suggested that, if they knew the original owners, then they could rightly return those stolen tomes. At which point Harry inexplicably changed his mind and insisted that it saddened him greatly that there was no way to be certain who owned those tomes, and he’d have to begrudgingly keep them in his own library, much to the quiet amusement of both Sirius and Dobby.

Regardless of Harry’s dithering over the ownership of those books, all three of them agreed that the maester was likely working against the interests of both Lord Manderly and the North as a whole. It was dangerous; the man was in a position to overseeing most of the North's trade. Who knows what sort of disruptions he might be responsible for.

With Harry's suspicion supported by the Marauder's Map, Dobby had volunteered to investigate. 

The room was silent. "Dobby must find the proof, Dobby will find secrets," he muttered to no-one in particular, rifling carefully through drawers and shelves before using an easy swipe of elf magic to put any mess back in order. The place would be less dusty, but nothing else should be obviously out of place.

He found nothing at first, growing increasingly frustrated. "Tricky Maester, very tricky," he grumbled softly, until something caught his eye among the ashes in the fireplace.

He summoned what turned out to be three small and heavily charred pieces of parchment. Handling them carefully to avoid any further loss of structure he laid them softly on the desk and centred his magic before casting three powerful repair charms with a click. 

Dobby was pleased to see the papers reform themselves, at least partially. Making the previously charred remains into passably readable parchments. Though small bits were completely missing here and there. 

Dobby’s eyes narrowed, as he noted the same sigil on all three. He’d been studying up on the noble houses of Westeros for Harry and Sirius. If there’s one thing a house elf excelled at, it was noble protocol. Especially an elf who’d served in an ancient and noble wizarding household. It had seemed natural that he should be aware of the various nobles of this land as well.

He therefore found no difficulty in identifying this as the sigil of House Sunderland. One of the notorious houses ruling on the Three Sisters. Islands in the Vale to the south of White Harbour. 

They didn’t contain much information due to the limitations of raven messages Dobby assumed, but seemed to hint at Maester Cressen sharing shipping schedules and cargo manifests with the Sistermen, who were known to unofficially pirate the area. They hid beneath their titles, but they were pirates all the same. 

It didn’t take long for Dobby to connect the dots. Dobby was furious. This was treason. 

More importantly, this maester was directly responsible for some of the starvation that hit parts of the north this last winter. Dobby had seen the relief of the people they met on their way down from the wall, their food was snapped up as quickly as they could sell it.

To take direct action to subvert a much needed shipment of food in the middle of winter was calculated evil.

Dobby had intended to simply investigate, but this maester reminded him a bit too much of his scheming old master. Something would have to be done.

And while Harry had only asked him to investigate the Maester ... he hadn’t necessarily told Dobby not to take any subsequent actions based on what he found.

“After all, this is just one more mess for Dobby to clean up.” the house elf mumbled to himself as a thin smile crept onto his lips “and Dobby is very good at cleaning.”

------------------------------------- 

Maester Cressen was unhurried as he strolled back to his solar after another successful morning of rejecting various different merchant petitioners. After all, as the gatekeeper to the Marnderlys, he got to choose which business propositions made it all the way to the top, and if he had any say in the matter then none of them ever would..

With the exception of a new company grant that he’d been unable to subvert, White Harbour’s economy remained pleasingly stagnant.

Sure, on paper it looked to be thriving, but he had worked in the background to prevent growth. It was certainly not as thriving today as it was a decade ago when he took up the post. The change had been subtle enough that no one really noticed. 

He’d ensured that practically nothing new happened, and in the meantime, he’d taken down a few of the local merchants through some surreptitious dealings or via a raven note here or there, sharing sensitive information with the right parties. Usually enemies of the North. It was all too easy.

With those local merchants taken down, much of the trade was increasingly taken up by those from the south, which slowly but surely funnelled wealth out of the coffers of northern merchants or lords, and into its rightful place in the coin purses of good southern men.

His more recent dealings with the Sistermen were risky. A bit closer to home than he usually liked. But they’d been the only lever he could pull during the winter. Most of the usual contracted captains had retreated to warmer waters of their home ports.

Nonetheless, his messages had paid-off. He’d recently heard of yet another merchant family now fallen to their Iron Bank debts. Things were going well. 

Reaching for the door handle, he stopped abruptly. He could hear someone rustling around inside.

SHIT

Slamming the door open and reaching under his cloak for a hidden dagger to deal with this offender he froze. He found not a man but a strange short creature with big ears and colourful socks digging through his belongings.

His heart constricted in panic as he spotted the slightly charred notes in the creature's small hand. He was sure he’d burnt those. At least those were only the Sistermen notes, not the dangerous correspondence from Oldtown or the Faith.

Just as he started to lunge for the creature his feet lost traction with the ground, he was floating. Ropes sprung around him, binding him tightly, lifting him into the air. A sock forced its way into his mouth, muffling his startled shout.

The creature looked sternly up at him, trussed up and floating as he was.  "Sneaky grey rat caught at last, yes. Hands deep in the honey pot." was all he heard from the being.

The creature gripped him firmly before his whole body felt like it was being compressed and yanked through a pinhole. What demon was this?

They both vanished from the room with a POP

------------------------------------- 

Earlier:

Owen would be lying to himself if he didn’t accept the obvious. These two men were weird, yes, they were wealthy, yes, but more importantly... they were glaringly, obviously magical. 

That was mostly evident in the fact that his warehouse ... his poor burnt shell of a warehouse ... was now standing as though brand new. It was also evident in the fact that the warehouse was definitely bigger on the inside.

... and now, apparently, full of ancient sunken treasure chests which had clearly been recovered from the sea floor fairly recently. Yes, his new employers were definitely a bit different.

If they were trying to hide these facts, they would have done well not to hire the poor bugger who had owned the place for most of his working life.

“Now don’t get me wrong, Sara,” he said to his daughter, who had asked much the same questions he’d first thought of when seeing the renewed warehouse. “These are nice men, I’m sure of it. And they’re helpfully quite well off. They’ll be able to support us with a level of stability I wasn’t able to muster.” He momentarily frowned at his own failure but rallied on. 

“It’s just… I think... that they think... that they’re hiding their magic better than, well, better than this...” he gestured to the expanded interior “...would suggest.”

Sara giggled. “The only thing more obvious would be if a Child of the Forest walked through those doors.” She giggled again at the ridiculous concept. Such myths made for interesting stories, but they were no more real than grumpkins and snarks.

Still, she sobered up a bit as she considered their position. Sara was smarter than most would expect for a young girl, or a young woman as she liked to think of herself. 

“We do need to decide how to play this, Dad. We either pretend we’ve not noticed anything" she gestured around the obviously repaired warehouse and raised her eyebrows as though to share her thought that such a move would require them to be stupider than a nobleman trying to trade. "Or we raise it directly. It might help our position if we’re upfront.”

She frowned slightly as she looked to the dock, visible through the open doors where dock workers were scurrying about their business carrying goods between the neighbouring Manderly warehouse and a recently docked ship. “No one else seems to notice,” she added thoughtfully.

“If no one else notices these obvious changes, then it could be deliberate that we’re being let in on this. Maybe it’s a test to see how we’ll react. I imagine one of those grumpy Septons or visiting southron merchants would react poorly to this sort of thing.”

Ah, there was the sharp mind he knew. At six-and-ten, she was starting to show a formidable intellect. She also had some street savvy from her time around sailors and traders.

Owen considered her suggestion, among many other options. He wasn’t quite sure what to do with this knowledge, but he figured it was best to follow his old Nan’s advice in such a situation. She always used to say, “When in doubt about a magical merchant, it’s best to just keep calm and carry on.” 

To be fair, that had always seemed to be a strangely specific thing for his old Nan to say. Especially since most people didn’t even believe in magic. He’d assumed it was a metaphor for a merchant whose promises seemed too good to be true.

Now that he thought about it though, his old Nan had been a bit eccentric herself in her old age. Nonetheless, her advice had served him well thus far. It couldn’t hurt to just keep calm and carry on... as they say.

To be honest, he had always been sceptical that magic existed at all. There’d never been even a hint of it in the merchant rumour mill. Any self-respecting trader knew that absolutely everything made it into the merchant rumour mill. Rumours travelled faster than the strongest trade winds. So the complete lack of reliable rumours about magic in Westeros had mostly confirmed for him that it barely existed, at least not since all the dragons died.

He’d heard of the Red Priests in Essos, but that seemed more like religious fervour than magic. He’d also heard of that cult in Qarth, but he’d not heard of any great feats attributed to their alleged magics. So he, like everyone else, had concluded that their magics were merely the work of hallucinogenic herbs. 

Closer to home it was hinted that the Crannogmen held to the old ways, and might have Wargs or Greenseers in their midst. But again, he’d dismissed it as mere myth and folklore.

Now, he was starting to think he’d dismissed those rumours far too readily.

Owen took another look at his daughter and steeled himself. In the end, there wasn’t really a choice. They needed this, it was an opportunity to build themselves a new stable life after losing everything. With that in mind, he’d just have to go with his daughter’s advice  and approach this new development directly with his somewhat eccentric benefactors. They’d given him no indication that he had anything to fear from them. 

Frankly, Sirius had been far too nice to make it in the cutthroat merchant world. These lordlings  would definitely need him if they wanted to survive even a moment in the merchant world, regardless of whatever weird magics they possessed.

Owen just sighed and leaned his back against the cold stone wall trying to put all the strange happenings out of his mind for now.

He’d have his chance to make a judgement on these magicals soon anyway. .

They’d asked to meet him here around midday, and he could see the sun just cresting its peak in the sky through the large windows in the much-larger-than-it-should-have been, front wall of the warehouse. And were those windows covered in glass?! Where on Planetos did they manage to get that much high quality glass in such massive single panes?!

Honestly, after everything he’d seen already, he didn’t think there was anything that could surprise him anymore.

POP

Owen shot back up to a ready stance and his head snapped to the back of the warehouse where a strange short brown creature with big ears and colourful socks had suddenly appeared from seemingly nothing. 

Beside the creature he could see a trussed-up old man in grey robes floating in the air as if carried by some invisible hand. The man was squirming and struggling but making very little noise with the balled up socks in his mouth. 

At first Owen thought the man was chained, but quickly noted that the chain was hanging lose. It was quite obviously a maester’s chain.

The creature froze for a moment, it’s unusually big eyes opening even wider in what seemed like shock as it noticed Owen and Sara, staring at them for the briefest of moments before raising its hand and clicking it’s fingers, which must have been some means of triggering it’s magic because both the creature and the maester vanished as if they’d never been there to begin with.

Owen was almost convinced that his overstressed mind had made the whole thing up. And he would have convinced himself... but that theory was discarded quickly as he noted he could still hear the steady clanking of the chain that had been hanging from the squirming Maester’s neck. 

He tracked the noise as it seemed to travel across the back of the warehouse at a walking pace,  making its way towards the small office space at the back. 

He watched with wide eyes as the office door slowly opened and softly closed, leaving Owen and Sara alone again.

Just before the door had closed Owen was sure he’d heard a quiet mumble from the, now invisible, creature. Something along the lines of, “they didn’t see anything, Dobby is sure of it, he’s too quick for these muggles.”

Owen remained frozen for another few moments before he was roused by a nudge from Sara. 

He had unknowingly pushed her behind him and kept her there despite her trying to push past and get closer. She was honestly too curious for her own good at times. He was reconsidering his belief that she was street smart. He was worried she lacked common sense when it came to possible danger.

“Dad!” Sara exclaimed, though it took a moment to register, “Dad!... That was a child of the forest!” Sara finished, finally breaking free and trotting across the warehouse floor to yank open the offending door, only to be disappointed in finding the backroom empty. 

Hmm, well it seems we both saw it, Owen thought, that mostly ruled out hallucination.

“Umm, maybe it was, maybe it wasn’t” Owen prevaricated, pausing to think before more pointedly finishing “maybe we didn’t see anything” 

He gave Sara a significant look as he said that. Having had a moment to compute the insanity of those mere seconds he was sure of three things, firstly, that was definitely a child of the forest, secondly, that was Maester Cressen, the Maester to the Manderlys no less, and Thirdly, sometimes it was best not to have seen anything.

Sara simply gave him a deadpan look. She seemed to understanding the hint, but clearly did not agree.

She huffed, but eventually shrugged and nodded. “At least we know what sort of magics they hold” she commented.

Owen raised his eyebrow in confusion and Sara continued. “First men magics Dad.” she said as though it was as obvious as the sea was blue, “They’ve got to be northern magicals. Our sort of people.” she said pointing to herself as an example of a fellow Northerner, “That gives us at least some confidence that they’re good people.”

Owen looked over his shoulder at the door through which he’d heard but not seen the child of the forest take the trussed up maester. Probably the second most powerful man in the city hierarchy.

“Well, yes” Sara replied, catching the unsaid critique of the claim to ‘goodness’. “Good is relative in this sense. What I meant is that they’re of the right sort.”

Owen sighed and rubbed the back of his head. He could agree with that sentiment to an extent. In fact, he was now a little more confident that they might have the gumption to play it big in the merchant world. A little kidnapping wasn’t uncommon in this cutthroat industry. Though most tended to start with a smaller fish. 

“Lord Manderly would be most wroth with them if he discovered they were behind the theft of his maester.” Owen frowned.

And wasn’t that a sentence he never thought he’d say...

Sara simply shrugged “My money’s on the ones with the ability to turn invisible and appear at will” she offered primly.

“Well you’ve got me there.” Owen agreed, a small smirk on his lips now he’d gotten over the shock. Nonetheless, he’d have some pointed questions for his new employers. Along with the already long list of questions regarding magic.

He was reminded of an old YiTish proverb, “may you live in interesting times” he mumbled to himself. It wasn’t really a blessing or a curse. It seemed apt.

-------------------------------------

Chapter 30 Teaser:

Owen appeared visibly relieved at this, taking the parchment eagerly. "Magic itself doesn't bother me," he reassured Harry. "But if rumours of magical merchants got out, especially in the South, trading would become near impossible. This contract gives me confidence we can keep our advantage secret."

"Exactly," Harry nodded, pleased with Owen’s pragmatic view of the situation. "It’s vital we keep this to ourselves, at least until we're ready to fully leverage our position."

Owen smiled, a crafty merchant's smirk, revealing his true approval of the hidden advantages magic provided.

“Besides," Harry added lightly, sensing the slight unease that lingered in Owen’s posture, "it’s not as though we’re doing anything too unusual." He chuckled lightly as both Owen and Sara fixed Harry with incredulous looks, before both of them looked off to the back of the warehouse for some reason. Harry decided to ignore that though, he wasn’t sure what prompted that reaction, but he supposed being introduced to magic was enough.