Chapter 11

  After a quick breakfast of eggs and sausage, I stayed cooped up in my rooms until the time came for the meeting with Tywin. I slipped out of the apartments without speaking to any of my family and followed a servant in red livery through the giant maze that made up Casterly Rock’s innards.

  Considering how low on the totem pole House Tarth sat compared to some great houses out there, we had to take two winch elevators, many flights of stairs, and countless never-ending hallways adorned with more gold than Evenfall Hall had ever seen before we arrived at the lord’s solar at the near top of the mountain castle.

  That’s when the power plays started. It was a well-appointed sitting room that I found myself in, with plenty of watered wine, rich pastries, and comfortable enough seating that I could’ve fallen asleep on one of the cushioned chairs; but waiting this long despite having a scheduled meeting bordered on the absurd.

  Lord of the Rock or not, I imagine I would’ve blown up by now had I not known of Tywin’s ways. Most lords lived and died by their pride, Tywin included. And deep down, it irked me that I had to come here like a beggar for his scraps, and pretty much be treated as such, but these were early days still.

  As long as it served to further my own goals, I would play along and wait as long as I had to. I had been no one important in my previous life. Just a normal, unremarkable man. A speck of dust flying blindly on the winds of fate. Here, I vowed to be the whirlwind itself.

  It took another hour until I was finally ushered through a sturdy wooden door flanked by two knights in full kit.

  As soon as I stepped inside, Tywin’s eyes rose from the pile of parchment in front of him. He considered me for only a second before he went back to what he was doing.

  “You’re not Selwyn Tarth,” he said.

  I almost froze. Hadn’t my father told Steffon I would be the one coming? Or had Lord Baratheon dropped the ball and failed to mention the meeting was for myself, not Lord Tarth?

  Catching myself, I moved further into the room and sketched an appropriate bow. “Aye, my lord. My name is Galladon Tarth, Lord Selwyn’s son and heir. I’m here on my own behalf, not that of my father’s or my house.”

  He didn’t even blink my way. With precise movements, he pulled out the next piece of parchment, quickly scanned it over, and signed it.

  “Get out,” he said, voice flat. Then it was onto the next document.

  I knew he would be an exhausting prick, but Tywin Lannister did have a way of exceeding expectations.

  So I just shrugged, rooted myself where I stood, and said nothing. The only sound in his solar was the scratching of his quill and my own measured breathing. I took the quiet reprieve to look about the place.

  Like most rooms in the castle, the lord’s solar was carved straight into the rock, one of a series of old mineshafts repurposed as living quarters for the ruling family of Casterly Rock. To one side of his desk, a great green-stained window looked out into the sunset sea, while to the other, a giant banner of the roaring lion of Lannister rested above a smoldering hearth. Bookshelves filled out the rest of the room lined with leather-bound books shined to perfection.

  That painted an almost cozy picture that I had a hard time associating with Tywin Lannister. Of course, that image was contrasted by a single giant vein of unmined gold cutting through the rock like a lightning strike caught in amber serving as the backdrop for his massive dark wooden desk. Talk about aura farming.

  It was another minute before he deigned to address me.

  “You have not left.” The quill didn’t stop moving even as he spared me a single derisive glance. “Do you think the Hand of the King has time to meet with every boy barely old enough to earn his stirrups that wishes a minute of his time?”

  “I was in fact hoping for quite more than a minute of your time, my lord.” My smile remained pleasant even as I spoke. “And I’m here to meet with the Lord of House Lannister, not the representative of the crown.”

  At my tone, Tywin finally stopped writing and turned to me. “You’re insistent, boy, I will give you that.” His piercing green eyes were hard and flat as he tried to stare me down. “Whether you are here to meet me as a Lord or as the Hand is irrelevant. Only a fool would think a man can disentangle his own interests from his official position. That I’m the Lord of Lannister is the only reason I’m the Hand of the King, and I’m only the Hand because I wish to improve my house’s standing.” He gave a small, almost imperceptible pause. “Whose interests, of course, align with those of the crown.”

  I made as if to speak, but the second most powerful man in Westeros was not done talking.

  “And whether you intended to come here as your own person or as a representative of your house is also, naturally, irrelevant,” Tywin said. “Everything you do reflects on your house, as your house’s standing reflects on you. And you, still a boy, coming here on your own to meet with the Hand of the King speaks of your house and your father’s leadership.” His lips curled up into a sneer. “Or lack thereof. Don’t ever delude yourself into thinking otherwise, or House Tarth will never survive your lordship. Take that as my first and only advice to you, Galladon Tarth. You may go now.”

  The frown on my face had worsened the more he spoke, and by the time he dismissed me, I had to bite the inside of my cheek to keep myself making a mistake large enough to see my entire family and probably the island itself vanquished.

  Truly, we nobles were vain, prideful creatures. Fifteen years in Tarth had changed me more than I changed the world around me, that I knew for sure. I felt the urge to make a witty quip about his own father’s lacking leadership, but I reigned myself in and took a long, deep breath. I didn’t want to end up thrown from the top of the castle for bringing up the Toothless Lion.

  In a way, I was glad that Tywin gave me a swift reminder that I was still only nothing more than the heir to a backwater island that couldn’t even be counted as a powerhouse within the Stormlands, already one of the smallest, least populous regions of Westeros.

  Unclenching my fists, I swallowed down the rising anger and tried to channel it into something more productive. I still needed to treat with the man if I wanted my ships.

  “I thank you for the advice, my lord,” I started, dipping my head slightly. And whether it was to show deference or to take a moment to hide my scowl made no difference. “But you should know that my father’s leadership is the reason our house has never been in a better position.

  “It’s why our farms produce half again as much as they did five years ago, to the point where, for the first time in hundreds of years, Tarth no longer relies on mainland yields to feed itself. And grain is not all. Marble. Wool. Black ink. Our merchants have thrice the presence in King’s Landing as they did once, and Dawnrest sees more Essosi traders in a couple of moons than it used to see for an entire year. All because of Lord Selwyn Tarth’s vision.”

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  Of course, my ideas were the real reason behind Tarth’s rise in fortune. Simple things, really, as I was no genius in the matters of agriculture and trade. But growing up in a small, rural town in my past life, I knew how inefficient Westerosi methods of farming were.

  I had started that project more than five years ago when I was only a boy, so it was no wonder my father and the maester had been reluctant in trying my idea to switch to a simple Norfolk method of crop rotation. But they came around after the first farm directly under our control saw rising yields a few years in a row, and we had slowly expanded across the island.

  If anything, I expected our production to increase even more as there were plenty of farms still using the previous methods of leaving fields fallow. Farmers could be stubborn folk after all, but seeing their neighbors’ fields thrive around them was changing their minds slowly but surely.

  And since we were using turnips and clover as some of the crops in the rotation, we had more fodder for livestock, which meant more manure and better quality soil. The system fed on itself.

  Our sworn vassals, knightly houses like Kellington, Gower, and Tudbury, had also been a mixed bag in accepting the new methods, but they had mostly caved when Lord Selwyn applied enough pressure. House Tarth ruled our home island with a tight iron fist even before I was born, and I had no intention of weakening that stranglehold.

  The farming success had seen most of my other ventures met with, if not approval, then cautious optimism. From building up my own force of twenty-five lads, to having a more acting hand in the administration of Dawnrest, the port town an hour’s ride from our Castle.

  Again, I was no economist and had no experience in the actual running of a town. My contribution had been mostly keeping an eye on the officials running the town and just quietly removing the corrupt ones. Harbor masters, custom officials, toll collectors. I didn’t need a Petyr Baelish in my own backyard.

  And secondly, just trying not to be a dick to foreign merchants who were routinely charged double or triple for everything, and thus avoided Dawnrest as a port to trade and rest. Competitive docking fees, cheap drink, plentiful lodging for all traders, better-run brothels. The stuff that makes a growing port town thrive.

  But of course, I could not take credit for these innovations. Not in front of others. Tywin was right, at the end of the day. Father’s trust in me, which allowed for Tarth’s change in fortune, was a sign of his good leadership. I knew that for a fact.

  Yet at the same time, Lord Selwyn’s allowance for his inexperienced son to take charge of his affairs reflected badly on the good name of House Tarth. To others, it was a sign that he was soft and weak, that he was a lord who couldn’t control his own family and lands. That would worsen our house’s standing more than my own achievements would improve it.

  After all, matters like farming, trading, and industry were nothing but copper counting in the minds of most Westerosi lords. The smart ones knew better, of course, but culture was culture, and tradition was tradition. You did not want to be labelled as a merchant-minded miser.

  Tywin had listened impassively as I listed our houses’ achievements. He let me stew in that silence for another beat before he finally spoke.

  “It seems Steffon’s confidence was not entirely misplaced,” he said, then gave me the slightest of nods. “Good. Do not take insults on your house laying down, even from your betters. Your family name is all you have. That will be my second advice to you.”

  It took me a second to catch up to his sudden shift in tone. “You knew I was the one coming and not my father,” I blurted out.

  “Yes.”

  “You were testing me,” I said, and then I realized my mention of Tarth’s slight success had not seemed a surprise for him either. Not even a twitch in his expression.

  It made sense too. Varys himself was not in Aerys’ small council quite yet, but considering that Tywin had been the Hand for more than a decade already, he must have built a considerable network of eyes and ears to keep him informed.

  Granted, if anyone had mastered the art of the poker face, it was Tywin Lannister, so he could just as well be pretending to come off as better informed than he really was.

  “I would not want to waste my time with a spineless fool,” Tywin said. “Spineless you are not, even if the latter part remains to be seen.”

  Then he rose, the pile of documents in front of him finally forgotten. Walking up to a small counter where some cups and a golden pitcher sat, he poured himself some watered wine and returned back to behind his desk. He did not sit back down.

  “Now tell me,” Tywin began, “what was so important you needed to meet with me personally?”

  I had to give it to him. A half-compliment followed by the snub of not offering me a cup of my own. Very classy, Tywin.

  I also imagine the only reason he even humored this meeting in the first place was due to Lord Baratheon’s insistence. The two of them and the king had been friends since they served as pages in King’s Landing together, and their own relationship hadn’t been strained to breaking point like Tywin’s had with Aerys.

  Father had likely used a favor with Lord Baratheon, and the man had used one himself with Tywin. An exchange where Steffon came out at a loss, at least at face value. A favor with the Hand of the King was not worth one from the Lord of Tarth.

  Either father had offered something else in exchange, or I had underestimated Selwyn Tarth’s relationship with his liege lord.

  “My reason is simple, my lord,” I said. “Ships. Everyone knows the Lannister fleet is building itself up. I saw it for myself in Lannisport. But there’s only so many experienced sailors to go around, even in such a large city, and I expect you’ll be taking them away from your older vessels to man the new ones. I hoped, then, to take some of these older ships from your hands. For a fair price, of course.”

  His face darkened. “Perhaps you are a fool, or you intended to make me into one all along.” He drank from his cup and put it down harshly on the table. “That you’d waste my time and a personal favor from Steffon to talk about buying ships.”

  Disdain dripped in his voice like venom from a snake’s mouth. I did not let that shake me.

  “You are right, of course, Lord Tywin.” I stepped closer. “The simple matter of purchasing ships is not something I needed to have bothered you personally. But I wanted to come to you for the same reason I came to buy ships here instead of in the Arbor or King’s Landing. Or even Braavos.”

  I only stopped when my hips touched the table. Reaching into my pocket, I pulled out a dusty piece of dark blue silk that had been twisted into a sort of ribbon and placed it on the table halfway between the two of us.

  He stared at the piece of cloth for all but five seconds before his gold-flecked green eyes snapped toward me. “You’re this… sapphire knight.” And here, his previously thunderous expression sharpened into something resembling interest.

  I nodded. “Indeed, my lord. I’m the mystery knight the commons have taken to calling the Sapphire Knight. I am also, as you said, a boy still, but a boy who wishes to see the rise of his house within his own lifetime. So I came here to win this tournament. To buy some ships. And to extend a hand of friendship.”

  Leaning a bit over the lip of the table, I fixed my eyes onto his. Finally, finally, I could make my true pitch.

  I knew there was only one thing I could use to sway Tywin into not only selling me ships cheaply, but to arrange for favorable trading agreements for our merchants in Lannisport. Something he just advised me on himself.

  The family name. That simple concept underpinned Tywin Lannister’s whole life. All his actions, his achievements, his cruelties. It all revolved around the name of Lannister. And yesterday, Aerys spat on that name. By proxy, Rhaegar spat on it too.

  “I have two sisters, my lords, and a mother still young. Were I to win the tourney, I’d be well supplied with women to crown as the tournament’s queen of love and beauty. Or, after unhorsing the prince and one of Aerys’ kingsguard, I could crown your daughter, my lord, and then this would not be the tourney where Cersei Lannister was spurned by the king as not good enough for his son.” I shook my head. “No, it would be the tourney where Cersei Lannister was crowned queen of love and beauty by a dashing mystery knight in front of the very king who denied her, restoring her honor before the whole of the realm.”

  Tywin seemed to be engrossed with my words right until the end. Then his eyes tightened again. “My daughter’s honor was never lost, as it was never the king’s to take,” he said, grinding out the words through gritted teeth. “Do not forget that.”

  Should’ve known he’d take issue with that. So, humbly, I inclined my head in allowance. Lion’s pride, do be soothed. And after a moment of quiet, he spoke up again.

  “Very well.” I looked up again, and he motioned across from him. “Take a seat, Galladon of Tarth.”