The Eminence in GOT-Chapter 42: A Time of Rest

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***

284 A.D.

Castle Osgiliath, Valley of the Sunflame, Dorne.

Immediately after arriving in my native land, I had a difficult ordeal ahead of me - a conversation with my family. Thank the Gods it didn't happen at once - while the ship was unloaded, while I sorted out the accumulated urgent matters, listened to a short report from Joen and got to the finally completed castle several hours passed, which gave me and the girl time to come to our senses and more or less morally prepare.

The castle itself was very different from the standard Westeroskie, being a high donjon, with a small courtyard, a crow's nest, a Great Wormhole and low ten-meter walls, girdled by a deep moat, the water in which came directly from the sea. It occupied very little space, relative to its size tending more to height than to width, presenting a majestic spectacle with beautiful towers, passages and halls, rising several stories up. Still, I have to admit - this castle was more my family's residence than a fortress. After all, if a hypothetical enemy would break through the mountains, take Minas-Itil and Minas-Anor and overcome the twelve-meter walls of the city, the castle would hardly be able to stop them. Of course, that didn't mean it was easy to take - I'd hidden a lot of surprises in the walls and towers, like scorpions, catapults, and retractable blades that could surprise the attackers, but it wasn't worth counting the castle itself as the last line of defense.

Finally, after walking through the corridors of my house, which by design allowed us to get from one part of it to another in a couple of minutes, unlike the deliberately intricate passages of the local castles, we found ourselves in the master wing, where they were waiting for us.

«This is your sister. Fiora. Please get along with her. Especially you, Elaine. - I said, holding the hand of the princess hiding behind me. She was nervous when meeting strangers and kept averting her gaze.

The faces of Eilis and the children were not the happiest. And if my wife still more or less controlled herself and understood that I would explain everything to her later, then the faces of Lyon and Elaine were far from happy. My son, who had just turned six and hadn't seen his father in two years, looked at me with a strange mixture of skepticism and joy constantly alternating in his red eyes. On the one hand we hadn't seen each other for a long time and he was happy to see me, but on the other hand I'd gone off for a few years without saying goodbye and returned with a pale-skinned girl who turned out to be my daughter.

"Smart kid" - I thought with a smile, realizing that showing such complex emotions at the age of six was a sign of a well-developed personality.

But with three-year-old Elaina it was much easier - she didn't recognize me. She hadn't even been two years old when I left the valley, and now she, along with two-year-old Alaric, my second son, born while I was at war, looked at me with a look that said, "Who's that uncle?"

«Well, that's it, kids. - Eilis smiled, patting them on the backs and pushing them forward a bit. - Go give your father a hug.

«Daddy! - The little ones shouted happily and rushed to me in a hug, joined by Eilis and Lyon a few seconds later. Even Reynice, who now went by the name Fiora for reasons of conspiracy and common sense, was still standing next to me, though she was held by my hand that kept her from running away because of embarrassment.

Hugging my family tightly and breathing in the scent of my wife's hair so familiar and almost forgotten, I took another closer look at my family.

Eilis was still as beautiful as she had been three years ago. Long platinum hair glistening like lakes in the moonlight, violet eyes, charming pink lips, and the chiseled figure she'd regained from her pregnancy. Yes, childbirth is never good for women, and she was probably hiding a lot of stretch marks under her clothes, but that didn't make her any worse in my eyes. I was still married to the most beautiful woman in Dorne, if not the Seven Kingdoms, and no one would dare dispute that.

The children had gotten the best of me and their mother.

It was already evident that Lyon would grow up to be a very handsome young man, capable of winning women's hearts with his looks alone. His bright blond hair, inherited from his grandmother, his eyes sparkling like the most expensive rubies, and his handsome face made him the favorite of all the maids in the palace, as Joan had whispered to me.

Elaine, on the other hand, was just like her mother, with the same snow-white curls, violet eyes, and correct oval face that made her look like a doll. A little porcelain doll. If you ignored the bloody knuckles on her hands.

In this world, many people have such a trait as supernatural strength. Robert Baratheon, who could swing his half-pound hammer with one hand and never tire. I was one of those, too, twirling my three-kilogram axe as I pleased. Apparently Elaina has inherited this talent and increased it a lot. Even now, she is sparring against her older brother and beating the seven-year-old Dontos Hollard, who was raised at my court. A fighting girl.

And my last child... Honestly, if I wasn't one hundred percent sure that Eilis hadn't cheated on me, thanks to constant guards and a few secret watchers among the servants, I'd think she'd cheated on me with Lannister. Shiny golden hair, big green eyes like young grass, an innocent face as good as Lyon's... Most of the looks my children inherited from their mother and grandmother, whose exact replica was little Alaric.

"Because Aerys and I sure weren't that pretty when we were little" - I thought tiredly, sensing future problems. Back in my past life, my youngest son and daughter had stood out for their good looks and nothing good had come of it. High ego, playing on other people's feelings, selfishness... I barely managed to deal with them without letting them go down a bad path.

And now it could happen again.

"Experience helps me" - I smirked, releasing everything from my embrace and getting down to the most important part of today - integrating Fiora into her new family.

That night, after a stormy reunion in the bedroom, I told Eilis about Reynice's story and asked her to treat her as warmly as possible. I still remembered from watching episodes of the show how Catelyn Stark had treated Jon Snow and didn't want history to repeat itself. So the only three people who knew of Rainis' true identity were me, Eilis, and Thea, who recognized her ward immediately.

"It's also lucky that usually children under the age of three are kept in the castle and not shown to anyone. So even Oberyn doesn't know what his niece looked like," was my last thought before I finally fell asleep.

***

After the war, time always speeds up. The days stretched slowly, turning into weeks, months and years.

After I had replaced Joen, who was weeping with happiness and running my entire feud while the war was going on, I got into my work.

The Valley of the Solar Flame was developing at a breakneck pace, and the war had contributed to it - the flow of refugees from the ravaged Stormlands, Royal Lands, Riverlands, and the north of the Expanse had not dried up even after the peace had come. Shipyards were built, gardens were planted, new workshops were opened, mines were dug, and trade agreements were made. Every day my territory got better, little by little. And I took incredible pleasure in seeing my brainchild grow.

Remembering what many Earth cities in the Middle Ages and King's Harbor had become because of rapid population growth and lack of patterned development, I initially built Osgiliath according to a specific plan, not allowing the newcomers to build their own homes. After all, the refugees were abysmally poor, often with only their own clothes. So they could only afford ramshackle shacks.

And I didn't want to create a slum in my Paradis. So the houses were rented out, with a portion of their tenants' profits and some responsibilities. For example, anyone living in Osgiliath had to look after the fruit trees or wild grape vines planted on his property. This turned an already beautiful city, built of white stone and marble, into a work of art that no other Free City (in my opinion) could match. As a result, I received a steady, albeit small, income that steadily replenished my treasury, the gratitude of the townspeople for a cheap roof over my head, and a guarantee of no slums.

But there was always a spoonful of honey in the honey barrel. And sometimes a whole ladleful.

Along with simple laborers, craftsmen and traders, murderers, thieves, prostitutes and the rest of the scum that did not bode well came to the city. And while I managed to negotiate with the representatives of the oldest profession by creating an official red-light street in Osgiliath, run by the lord himself, or me, the rest had to be dealt with by mercenaries who specialized in guarding cities. Such units had appeared relatively recently, having become in demand after Braavos and Volantis had banned Pentos, Lorath, Volon Teris, Valisar, and Seloris from having their own armies. But this was only a temporary measure - mercenaries are men of gold and will someday begin to feed off the shadow guilds, themselves becoming a breeding ground for unrest.

What was needed was a guard, like the Red Cloaks and the Old Town Garrison. Personally bred, loyal and professional.

Normally, the lords of the Seven Kingdoms do not have a regular army, except for the wealthiest and most warlike, like the Tarlys, Lannisters, Fowlers, and Roys, because of its high cost.

Training, lodging, food, armor, weapons, wages... Individually, all of these expenses looked small, but when combined and multiplied by the number of soldiers, they were prohibitive for most medium and sometimes large lords. The same Hightowers spent two hundred silver stags on the maintenance of one guard in peacetime (!!!). Multiply that by one and a half thousand and you get about 1500 gold per month.

That's a lot of money.

But not for me. Still, being a monopolist in the production of porcelain, alcohol, perfume, and one of the few who produced paper and glass, along with Mir, Tyrosh, and some houses of Dorne, I received superprofits that allowed me to maintain a considerable army.

And I needed it. fɾeeweɓnѳveɭ.com

The memory of how Tarly's soldiers had managed to slaughter almost the entire mercenary army, outnumbered and unexpectedly outflanked, was still strong in my mind. Having an army of my own that can compete with the Great Houses and their bannermen will raise my prestige and power even higher, finally making me someone that even Thrones players won't want to mess with.

The two necessities of having a trained army and guards overlapped, molding into one project. So, in 286 of Aegon's conquest, a training camp was established in one of the small valleys of my domain, with the full approval of Doran, who continued to play his underhanded games, and boys and young men of eight to fifteen, attracted by the glory of war and the promise of a prosperous life, poured in.

It took the best teachers to train the best army. There was no problem with spearmen and martial training - 50 of the best Unsullied were sent from Astapor to be instructors for the future spearmen.

There were no problems with archers and crossbowmen either - Myrian mercenaries and Letnian hunters gladly provided me with their best shooters for a few purses of gold.

But there was a problem with the lathmen and cavalry. Westeros was the place where the cult of the sword flourished, no matter how much the Braavosian Bravi and the Norvo Holy Guard denied it. And finding a good master here was problematic, since most of them were already in the other lords' vigilantes.

The way out was found only a few months after the establishment of the camp. The instructors were warriors who had been maimed in the Rebellion and were quietly living out their days on their last payments. They were mostly warriors from the Stormlands and the Northlands, which, in my opinion, turned out to be the best possible option - the Prostorskii and Dolinskii would have filled the heads of immature minds with unnecessary chivalric postulates, and the rivermen, because of their special position on the map of the Seven Kingdoms, had long ago formed the habit of scrambling in case of a close defeat. Westerners were out of the question. I would have been misunderstood and put to the stake for such a thing. And so I had to shatter my family and communicate only through letters.

The hardest thing was to find teachers for the future guards. After all, even I, a complete proficient in this business, it was clear that the battle in the narrow alleys of the city and the corridors of houses are very different from the battle in the field. We needed people who could instill in the heads of guys the tactics of urban battles, investigative skills, honesty and loyalty to their city.

The solution was found in history and geography books and immediately realized. A year later, a ship arrived in the port of Osgiliath, carrying in its holds fifty warriors and warrior-maidens from Bayazabad, the southernmost of the three fortress cities. Even the Free Cities had heard of them as true masters of defense and urban combat, having kept the Jogos Nhai hordes from invading the central steppes for millennia.

I decided to hire them as teachers for my guards, and I did not fail. At first I had to make the bare-chested women dress normally, but when one of them calmly beat up ten insolent students who decided to show the place to the brazen woman, and gave the first lessons that made even the mercenaries present nod respectfully, all my doubts were dispelled.

After two years, the first "graduates", whose level I was told only in Iti mate, began to practice under the supervision of the warriors. Those on their territory did not like criminals and had long ago learned to eradicate them thanks to very cunning and not ending Itians, constantly trying to create a shadow business in the cities of the Votchina.

Oh-oh-oh... How the shadow guilds that had settled in the city howled when they were hunted down like rats throughout Osgiliath, regardless of their patrons among the wealthy merchants and slave traders of the Free Cities. They tried to resent me, of course, asking to see me and seriously assuring me of the necessity of criminal guilds in the city, but when an angry green-eyed giant takes a double-bladed axe off the wall and looks at you with carnivorous interest, most of the complaints disappear at once.

In the end, the smartest ones came running to me with a plea for pardon and acceptance of their guilds under my hand, with total submission, just so I could get these "brutalized broads and their minions" off the streets.

As long as there will be humanity, there will be crime, no matter how you destroy it. This is the nature of people - to descend into vice themselves, dragging those around them with them. And in this case, one simple rule applies - "you can't win, lead". So in Osgiliath, the guilds of thieves and assassins under my control appeared, mostly working against their counterparts from other guilds and merchants competing with me, for handsome rewards. Win-win.

With child and drug dealers, illegal pimps and the rest of the rabble, the conversation was short - either death by capture or life in the mines, with no chance of ever seeing sunlight again.

So there was plenty to do, and it wasn't going to end.

The formation of a merchant and battle fleet, necessary for any port city, the completion of Minas Anor, which secured my lands from the pass, constant negotiations with Lys, Tyrosh and Mir, who did not like the appearance of another competitor.

And I tried to devote enough time to my family. And if Eilis was a real sweetheart, who helped me a lot by taking over most of the management of the castle, the children were already beginning to show their character, which caused a lot of problems.

Lyon fell in love with the sea. He loved, in his free time from training and studies, to run to the dry docks and spend hours asking the workers about the structure of ships and the peculiarities of their management. The workers, who knew perfectly well that there was only one blond man with red eyes in the city and it was their lord's son, simply melted from such attention and gladly explained and showed him everything. The most amazing thing is that in his presence they even stopped swearing, as one of the guards, secretly looking after the lion cub, told me.

Initially everyone thought he just had a passion for ships, not hindering his hobbies. A passion for big toys is in a man's blood. But one day, when I had to visit Tirosh for a supply of dyes, taking my eldest son with me, it became clear that I was very much mistaken. Such joy and delight I had never seen in those red eyes before.

During the short voyage, he had time to look around the merchant galleon up and down, to talk to every sailor, becoming a favorite of the crew, to fish and admire the sea. Seeing this, I simply could not refuse his request, which followed immediately after his return. At the age of eight he was sent as an assistant clerk in one of my merchant fleets, thanks to the wargs, traveling from the northern backwaters to the distant Qarth. I didn't worry about his education and swordsmanship training - he was constantly accompanied by a departed Citadel candidate and a few guards who taught him swordsmanship. Such training was not new and had been practiced by the House of Vellarion almost a hundred and fifty years ago. It was how the famous Sea Serpent and a dozen of the best admirals in the history of Westeros had been raised.

Elaina had a different problem: by the time she was five, she was pounding ten-year-olds, delighting my weapons master, an old Jordain warrior, with her talent and diligence, and completely ignoring feminine wisdom, much to her mother's disappointment and nervousness. According to her daughter, she didn't need all that girlish stuff, only wasting her time. Arya Stark, who was just born into this world, but with a bogatyr strength and, in her words, "a desire in the future to become as strong a warrior as Daddy and King Robert Baratheon"! I choked for air when I heard that.

After asking Elaina a good deal and suppressing the urge to break the arms of the bard who sang the song about the Battle of Ruby's Brood in the central square of the Last Dragon, I made a deal with my conscience. I gave her the best teachers possible for her to learn the wisdom of women from her mother and not to skip the maester's lessons. But her first teacher was a Dornish woman who, by my order, not only taught her how to work with daggers and develop her fine motor skills, but also explained why a woman should remain a woman, not a pumped-up gorilla with muscles instead of brains. The result, thank the gods, was.

Fiora and Alaric, unlike their elders, grew up to be more or less normal children... As normal as possible in a family where the eldest brother could bring back a giant's skull from a trip to the North, and the eldest sister could call them to practice throwing knives at maester crows. But seeing the former princess, who, after my request and a small presentation to Doran, had been given the surname Temper, becoming a legalized "bastard", and my melancholy green-eyed wonder playing on the small beach in front of the castle, I felt satisfaction and peace that I had done everything right.

Thus passed the peaceful six years until the year 290 came and the Seven Kingdoms were shaken by two events at once.

In the Iron Islands, Baelon Greyjoy rebelled, crowning himself with a crown of fins, declaring war on the Seven Kingdoms, burning Lannisport harbor and the entire Western fleet.

Meanwhile, in Dorne, the Martells, Fowlers, Jordains, and Tempers destroyed the second most powerful race in the southern kingdom, the Ironwoods.

***

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