King's Landing. The Red Keep. 295 AC.
Lord Axel Arryn / Hand of the King.
"There is nothing like a good old fight to work up an appetite. And a roasted boar to satisfy it," Robert shared this piece of wisdom.
"After a fight I work up a different kind of appetite. Need to find a pretty girl and take her down." When the king understood what he ant, they laughed together at the simple joke.
"You're not wrong," Rob agreed. "Littlefinger keeps the finest girls for every taste. Shall we go and inspect his establishnt?"
"Later." The idea appealed to him, but there was business first. "Tell , why do you spend so much money on pointless tourneys?"
"Bah! Don't you start lecturing . I am the king, and I want the finest tourneys there are! That's enough, we're going to the brothel right now!" Predictably he rose and tried to leave, but the reason behind it was plain enough.
"Tourneys and girls and hunts won't fill the emptiness in your heart." Robert stopped as though he had walked into a wall. "You don't care about anything. You live from one day to the next because the world has lost all its color for you."
"Hell, when did you get so clever?" He asked the rhetorical question and ca back to his seat. "Yes, I don't care about the kingdom, or my children, or the future!"
"Why?"
"You're asking that? I never wanted to be king. The Seven Kingdoms never interested . All I ever wanted was to be with Lyanna." Robert rarely opened himself like this. "My eldest son is a sniveling little sadist in the making. My younger one is a mother's boy afraid of his own shadow. Myrcella is the only one who brings any joy, and she thinks of as a stranger." He was pouring out everything that had been festering inside him.
"For years I told myself I could move forward, that I could fill the hole she left behind, but the throne, the wife, the children, the friends, all Seven Kingdoms, none of it could fill that emptiness. And do you want to know the most terrible part? I can't even rember Lyanna's face anymore." Rob gave a sad, quiet laugh. "Go on then, say your piece, and we'll both go about our business."
"You seem to have forgotten that I am not my father, so I simply ask you to rein in your spending and not get in my way while I manage the Seven Problems." Robert's expression fell. "But this evening we et again in fresh battle. I wager I can bed more girls than you. The score stands at one to nothing, in my favor, by the way."
"HA-HA-HA, Axel, you can't hope to match . I was bedding girls when you were still crawling under the table." The king brightened.
"I might believe you, but... when did you last actually see your own mber?"
"HAHAHAHA!!! Not even this gut of mine can hide it!"
...
Two weeks had passed, and he was ready to wash his hands of everything and ride ho to the Eyrie. Every worm who considered himself even remotely important wanted a look at the new King's Hand. Naturally, each of them ca to offer advice, to assure him of their friendship and loyalty, to try to swindle money out of him, or to press a daughter, a sister, or a mother into his bed. He was grateful it remained at the level of words, otherwise the world would have been short one mber.
The matter he found most troubleso was the need to consolidate the Baratheon faction. When he had first arrived, he had been welcod warmly enough, but the mont he began using his position as Hand and as the king's friend to seize the levers of the party, the grumbling had started. There were more deserving candidates, they said. The n of the Vale had accepted him without question, and the Riverlanders' opinions were of no consequence to anyone, but the Stormlanders wanted their own man in charge. Stannis, Renly, and Eldon Estermont had been the leading candidates for the faction's leadership.
Renly had been the easiest. He explained to him what leading the faction actually entailed, and Renly decided that Axel had considerably more experience and ability for it. They reached an easy understanding: Renly stayed out of things that did not concern him, and Axel left him to his amusents. Estermont required a combination of intimidation and bribery before he finally withdrew from contention. When Stannis arrived, the others declined to support him. Over two long, exhausting weeks of negotiations, Axel had taken hold of the faction's reins. There were defectors, but none of them carried any weight in the greater ga, since the truly significant players were bound to their own lieges to the last.
The contests with Robert had beco sothing of a refuge. They had been competing in everything, and the score currently stood at six to two in his favor. Robert had simply drunk more, and his predictions of what the courtiers would say had proven more accurate. They had agreed that after the tourney of the Hand they would ride out on a hunt together and settle who was the better man. The competitions had not only benefited him. The king could now be seen on the training yard, working his way back to so semblance of his forr shape.
Varys and Baelish were the two murkiest mbers of the Small Council. He had known this about the Spider going in, but Littlefinger had co as sothing of a surprise. He had taken him for a useful tool that had found itself conveniently to hand, nothing more, but no. It turned out this so called modest Master of Coin was sitting atop a rapidly growing trading empire that was quietly swallowing the market whole. He had built his own business on brothels and knew exactly what kind of money moved through them. The puzzling part was that Baelish was not spending it.
The conversation with him had left a strange aftertaste, the feeling of soone brazen enough to try and feed him sothing foul while smiling pleasantly. He did not believe in the man's nobility or his eagerness to serve. The eyes gave him away. He ordered him simply to prepare a brief summary: where the money went, how much, and when, and to draft a plan for the gradual repaynt of the crown's debts.
He instructed Varys to begin spreading the news that the Hand would soon be bringing the capital into order. In the plan taking shape in his mind, popular goodwill would need to be on his side. He also ordered a list compiled of criminals of every stripe, with particular attention to the most flagrant offenses: slavery, addictives, child fighting rings. A separate list was to cover corrupt officials and the incompetent. The Spider promised it would all be ready before long. That Varys would slip in a few nas of people who personally inconvenienced him did not trouble Axel. What mattered was that hundreds of criminals would be brought to account.
Once he and Stannis had stopped snarling at each other over the faction's leadership, it beca possible to conduct actual business with the man. For so ti Stannis had been in need of funds for the Royal Fleet. Axel promised to look into it, since the matter aligned with his own interests. He still had contacts among the wealthy n of Myr, and the fleet would play a central role in what was coming.
The upcoming tourney itself was already grating on him. Before, he had dealt only with the worms of the capital. Now the spineless had gathered from every corner of the country. The Dornishn and the Reach n were the most brazen. The forr had sohow decided that court positions would be handed to them as a matter of course. The latter had the audacity to drive up the price of food.
King's Landing had a population of over half a million, and every day they consud a staggering quantity of provisions. The rchants from the Reach exploited this, inflating prices at the expense of the citizens' welfare and feeding the growth of cri. He cared nothing for the smallfolk from on high, but criminals ate into revenues, and the prosperity of the population determined how much money flowed into the treasury.
In the end, all of his larger plans would begin after the tourney, once the guests had gone back to their castles.
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