BtM Chapter 35: Gwayne Hightower I

He ignores the scores of scribes walking to and fro, gazing at bulky man guarding the door.

The Guardian opens the gates once he sees him without word, so he simply barges inside.

The first thing his eyes lay on is the crown prince sitting down on the guest chair of his own supposed solar.

“As ordered, I have closed all exits of the city, with former purple cloaks manning the most sensitive exit points.” He says. “I put all the men in reserve in charge of patrolling the streets, looking for any suspicious activities; I even coordinated with the Lord Lannister to inspect the sea for smuggling ships.” A tone exasperation couldn’t help but leak into his voice. “Now, could I finally have the privilege of knowing the reason for such drastic action?”

It was only then that he noticed the other people in the room, Robert Quince, the usually cheerful portly man gave him a chastising gaze. “There was an assassination attempt on both the Prince and Lady Cassandra.”

“And Lord Desmond Manderly.” The aforementioned Lady Cassandra interrupts.

“Yes, and Lord Desmond.” The man wipes sweat of his brow while he came to terms with the news. “Urgency was of utmost importance, which is why informing you was deemed secondary to actual action.”

What went unsaid was their lack of trust, he was firmly in his own father’s camp, and if he knew beforehand he’d have surely found a way to inform him.

“How did this happen?” He exclaims.

It was the other woman in the room that answered; the White Worm draped herself in a characteristic white gown, and sported a serene expression, all things considered.

“Whoever orchestrated this attempt is frightfully knowledgeable of the city’s matters, they had managed to smuggle poisoned plates through the port’s inspection, get into the Red Keep somehow, then made sure they’ll be served to the prince before the regular examination.” She explains.

“The plates were a gift from Lady Massey to me, as congratulations for my betrothal.” Cassandra says. “She was already secretly seized while we try to figure out her collaborators.”

“Lord Massey?” Gwayne accuses.

House Massey of Stonedance has been one of the more vocally resistant to the Prince’s recent reforms, it isn’t an uncommon sight in court to see Lord Gormon Massey complaining about the presence of soldiers in his lands.

The spy mistress shakes her head. “Lord Gormon’s issues with the prince are sorely due to his traditional mindset; those same reasons are the ones that would make using such methods in order to assassinate his grace disgraceful.” She explains. “The man has neither the ability nor the desire to commit such actions, whoever helped his daughter must be someone else.”

Before anyone could elaborate, a handmaiden furtively barges in, and after a quick bow and ‘Your Grace.’ She hands the prince a letter.

“Courtesy of the Lord Hand.” She glances at Gwayne with worry in her eyes, and then promptly leaves.

The prince, still silent, reads the letter, before letting out a sarcastic huff and handing it to his steward.

“U-um.” Robert stutters. “This looks to be a letter to Lady Massey from a…a so called friend.” The man squints his eyes at the parchment his eyes exploring its contents. “The writing is abysmal, and the contents are vague. But this clearly includes mentions of ‘regret in their inability to meet.’ And whoever this friend, they allude to their connection to their scheme by alluding to ‘having a gift that shall alleviate her concerns, and to finally open up the path to her ambitions’, so to say. I assume her ambition is to become queen.”

“It seems the Lord Hand is using this opportunity to connect with the Lord Massey.” Mysaria says. “Anyhow, this proves that Lady Massey was complicit in this assassination attempt, with this, your grace can punish her without doubt.”

“What if we didn’t?” Lady Cassandra speaks up, from the looks of it, she seems to be perturbed by the recent events and betrayals, yet she’s holding up pretty well. “Instead of executing her and punishing her House, we could get a favor from Lord Massey by simply sending her to the Silent Sisters. Whatever her motives were, I doubt murdering Baelon was part of her schemes, and I would rather see the actual perpetrator punished.”

Robert caresses his moustache in thought. “I’d wager Lord Massey would change his position on a standing army in exchange for his daughter’s life.” He looks to the prince. “I believe it is a viable strategy, your grace.”

Everyone stares at Baelon, his face impassive, lacking his usual smile.

And then suddenly, the prince turns his head to the corner in alarm, and with shocking speed, he grabs a small dagger and shucks it at the ground.

Gwayne turns around in alarm, his hand on the pommel of his sword. Which turns out was unneeded, what he found to be the threat was a rat of all things, the dagger plunged deep on its neck and its pupils white from suffocation.

The prince opens and closes his fist repeatedly. “I seem to be somewhat paranoid, considering the situation.” He speaks for once, his words harmless yet his tone brought a shiver to his back. “Lord Commander.” He turns to Gwayne. “The merchant who brought the plates is one Tregar Naerin, he is still in this city, coordinate with the people in this room, find him, and ferret any piece of information out of him you can.”

Before Gwayne could answer, Baelon puts a hand in his shoulder, staring him straight in the eyes with a glare that hid a blazing fury. “This is your chance, do not disappoint.”

When he left, Gwayne’s knees almost buckled.

--*

“What do we know about this man…? Tregar Naerin.” Gwayne asks the mysterious woman as they leave the premises.

“A Lyseni merchant based in Tyrosh with deep connections to Myrish Magisters.” Mysaria promptly answers. “Whoever chose him for this scheme was smart indeed, Tregar has hands in so many pies that knowing who exactly is responsible is all but impossible, yet his allegiance and dependence on the Triarchy and its resources paints them as the culprit.”

‘Of course it couldn’t be that simple.’ Gwayne complains inwardly.

“You do not think the Triarchy responsible?” He asks.

She shakes her head. “Whoever it is, they no doubt have connections within the Triarchy, maybe they even are nominal part in their hierarchy, yet they clearly take no heed to their interests.” She explains. “Right now they are sorely preoccupied in building up their standing army alongside their capital, while their mercantile interests have majorly shifted away from Westeros, what Dorne getting closed off and the Braavosi fleets pushing theirs out of the Narrow Sea. The Triarchy clearly has no bone in this fight.”

Gwayne sighs. “Alright, can you provide a list of this man’s possible whereabouts? And I’d expect constant communication between us in order to be as efficient as possible, it would behooves us to catch this man quickly.”

The White Worm nods. “Of course, I shall have someone bring you a list while you prepare.” She answers. “And speaking of efficiency, I would recommend including Quentyn, the ranger commander, in this endeavor. The man has experience in Essos and is quick of mind, he should prove to be useful.”

“I shall do just that.” He says. “Thank you.”

--*

All things considered, their work proved to be quite easy.

Mysaria was right, the moment he approached this Quentyn man and impressed the importance of his task, the man swiftly went to work, taking command of a group of veteran purple cloaks and leading search parties throughout the city.

Apparently, these men had quite the experience with dealing with sneaky enemies during the invasion, raiders and Dornish scouts would often employ guerrilla tactics, ambushes, and all around cunning in their strategy, so they have developed quite a systematic method of dealing with them.

They would separate an area based on susceptibility and ease of obscuration, which was quite a piece of cake once Mysaria’s agent came with the list.

Different groups, mostly multiples of five’s, would be deployed depending on those factors, and would steadily search each zone.

Gwayne was tasked with organizing the general effort, dictating zones safe once searched fully and designing men to guard ingress points to make sure the target doesn’t make it to areas designed safe.

As more areas gets searched, more people get assigned to others, increasing the speed of the operation.

It was enlightening stuff, really. Gwayne thought that employing the same organization in defensive settings would be even more effective, and sought to do in the future.

So it wasn’t a surprise to him really when one of the prince’s rangers came rushing through the busy streets toward him, screaming ‘We found him!’ Over and over again.

When the man finally stopped before him, he spoke furtively. “We found him, Lord Commander! Yet Ser Quentyn says that there may be problems?”

“Problems? We found the man! What issues could there be?”

--*

“Unsullied?” Gwayne incredulously asks, standing next to a large building on the outskirts of the city surrounded by hundreds of gold cloaks.

“Yes, Lord Commander.” Quentyn explains. “As you can see, we found him holed up in this safehouse disguised as a warehouse under another name. It is no castle or fortress, but it is built with defense in mind, and dealing with Unsullied in closed doors is a nightmare, we might lose many lives here, I’m afraid.”

“In Westeros?” He asks. “How can one own slaves in this city?”

“Technically, they are free, no shackles, no indentured contract, and are allowed to leave whenever they desire.” Quentyn says. “Nominally, they are as free as can be, but Unsullied are brainwashed to such a degree that it doesn’t matter.”

“I see.” Gwayne answers. “I would wager that a direct assault would be unfavorable then.”

At Quentyn’s nod, Gwayne sighs for the umpteenth time this day. ‘And the prince will want this man as soon as possible, so starving them out is not an option.’

“Is there any way we can deal with the Unsullied with minimal casualties?”

Quentyn doesn’t even think. “Yes, but it is tricky…”

“Well?” Gwayne raises an eyebrow.

“The whip of ownership, whoever holds it can order the Unsullied.” Quentyn answers. “But such an object would be as heavily guarded as our target.”

Gwayne sighs yet again. “Just give me a general report, then we’ll come up with something.”

“Yes.” Quentyn grabs a piece of chalk from his pocket and draws a rough map of the safehouse. “We knew of this location because Lady White Worm’s workers would often be sent here to serve clients. We believe that while Tregar would be holed in the center behind many guards, their command center would be centered much closer to the west wing, right next to their armory.” He explains. “When it comes to merchants and unsullied, the whip would be accorded to hired commander who manage them, Unsullied have no mind for strategy, you see.”

“Why would the commander simply not use it to overthrow the merchant?” Gwayne asks.

Quentyn shrugs. “Occupational integrity, mostly. For sellswords reputation is of utmost importance. Good sellswords have their own sense of honor and integrity, and would almost always follow the contract even when their life is in danger.”

That was news to Gwayne, in Westeros Sellswords are mostly known as cravens, but he guessed any good mercenary wouldn’t visit the Seven Kingdoms to try their look if employment was already available in their home.

“Continue then.”

“Right, well… The east wing is fairly vulnerable, yet it is almost completely detached from the rest of the building, and is usually used as a front.”

Gwayne mindlessly nods. The safehouse was surrounded by a stone wall, undefended and sparse, yet enough to make forcing their way through the gate much easier than simply bringing it down, making them easy targets for the archers or crossbowmen undoubtedly arrayed in the building.

Through his vantage point, Gwayne has clear vision of the west side, and he notices a couple of pillars an idea comes to his mind.

He turns to Quentyn, pointing towards them. “If those supports were to be brought down, would that wall collapse?”

Quentyn shrugs, denoting his ignorance on the matter. Yet before he could ask for someone experienced in such matters on of his gold cloaks, a former purple cloak, responds.

“Lord Commader, Ser.” He says. “I have worked with my father as a builder before, and I can assure you that with the way this building is arrayed, it is very likely that that side of the wall would completely collapse without those pillars.”

“How do you prophesize that?”

“Well… With the way the ground is slanted downwards towards us and the general shape of the building I’d wager that you’d something to hold the wall up, and frankly, those pillars are definitely not pleasing to the eye, so they cannot be just for show.”

‘That sounds logical.’ Gwayne thinks.

Irony is a powerful thing. Back when the first Dornish ships came, they included several scorpions confiscated from noble houses who attempted to use them during the wall, Gwayne is expected to come up with a plan to array them on the castle walls, but has found no use for them, until now that is.

--*

With the manpower available and the importance of the task, it took barely two hours to have the scorpion and their bolts ready in position.

The plan was already discussed, they would connect the bolts with a rope, use them to bring down those pillars, charge through the wall, get the whip, then get the fucker who made his day miserable.

“Ready?!” Gwayne asks the operators.

At their nods, he wordlessly orders them to let loose.

These people are clearly experienced, as a cacophony of movement sounds from the other side as bolts of metal penetrate and stick to two stone pillars.

“PULL!” He orders.

Dozens of guards follow his orders, grabbing the ropes by the hand and leveraging their weight to pull.

It takes a lot of effort, and they barely did it before a group of Unsullied could, but the supports came down, and while nervously staring at the wall, that too shortly followed.

And then began their charge.

“It is time for these slavers to know the strength of Westerosi chivalry!” Gwayne held his sword high as he shouted to the heavens, and with a cheerful scream a wave of gold charged through undefended gates and straight into the house through their opening.

Personally, he hadn’t seen much of the fighting, as a commander it was his duty to stay relatively safe in order to keep things in order. But from what he noticed even with their advantages the path to the armory was filled with danger, his men, mostly former purple cloaks, luckily were very well trained and prepared, so casualties were kept rather low.

“Here, my lord.” Quentyn hands him the whip, it was a gaudy thing, with a gold and ivory handle and its body made of bullhide leather.

Gwayne lifts the whip to the sky in a familiar motion. “UNSULLIED! I HOLD THE WHIP, AND I ORDER YOU TO STAND DOWN.”

His orders are answered in less than a blink, fierce fights stop in a split second as the Unsullied step away from their opponents and put their spears down. Gwayne feels a sense of relief when his soldiers follow, if it were the old batch they wouldn’t have had the discipline.

“Let’s finally get this done.”

Followed by Quentyn, Gwayne and co. make their way to the central room where the merchant was hidden, Unsullied arrayed in the walls with nary a sound as they pass through.

“You promised you would keep me safe!” A nasally male voice echoes from their destination, it spoke in High Valyrian, which thankfully Gwayne was.

“No!” He says again. “You have assured me that the plan would go without a hitch! Promised me riches and gifts beyond my deepest dreams and you dare betray me! I should have known not to trust a monstrous man such as you!”

Then his voice turns fearful. “No! I have served faithfully! I fulfilled my role- no, no no NOOOOO!” His words end with agonizing screams.

Gwayne lets out curse as he speeds up and opens the door, what he saw would haunt his dreams for days to come.

At first it was the crows, so many you could consider them a flock, nipping at a chubby face in the middle of the room.

The unfortunate victim screams and screams, batting bottles chairs and his own hands at the birds to no avail, they bit his skin, his ears, but most agonizing was the eyes.

Harwin and Quentyn stare dumfounded at the scene, by the time they come to their senses it was too late, and all but a few crows remained in the room, gorging themselves on the carcass of their human prey, his screams halted by the cessation of his heartbeat.