The Weight of Old Wrongs
Twenty Fourth Day of the Eleventh Month 293 AC
"That's not mobile, is it?" you ask, looking at the results of Lya's work. For flesh-crafting performed in a matter of hours it is quite impressive, though you do not think many would appreciate the form. The body looks human in the most general sense, two arms, two legs, all the proportions are right, but that is where the similarities end. It is entirely hairless, the skin unnaturally pale with an unhealthy greenish tint and the joints hang unnaturally loose over the end of the chair, eyes pinkish-red from lack of pigment stare at you through a haze of enchantment. The cat shall be entirely fine, which is more than you can say of Rickard after he had been tricked into this form.
"It's not supposed to, no," Lya shrugs her eyes hard. "We are executing him anyway and I did not want to give him the smallest chance of escape. The things he did..." She shakes her head, as though to dispel memories, though you know she is far too proud of her perfect recall to ever wish forgetfulness upon herself. "I sympathize more with the Hungry Dead, at least they have the excuse of their appetite to feast upon the living. He
could have stopped at any time, thought about stopping five times in all over the centuries, just lived and died as man or beast to the end of the body's life, but there was always more vengeance to be had, always another reason to delay death and the judgment of the Old Gods. "
"Were any of those plots recent, anything that needs handling?" you ask, wondering for a moment how you are going to present Rickard to Lords Bracken or Blackwood. This would be a rather more abrupt introduction to flesh-crafting than most get. There is always shapeshifting to make the body seem more fully human. It's not like either of them has mage sight.
"Two that need urgent handling," Lya replies somberly. "Lady Glynda Blackwood's face powder is poisonous, properly poisonous I mean, not the sort of nonsense you find so often in Lyseni circles. Rickard was responsible for suggesting the concoction in the guise of one of her now dead friends. He meant for her to suffer a slow wasting death just as he poisoned the Raventree again, preferably by goading a Bracken into it since he did not wish to come so close to a place the Old Gods were so close to. He knew enough of Greenseers to be wary of one watching. The other is a poison too, but more insidious, arsenic..."
"Ah... stop the poison and watch the victim wither and die." Though you are far from the expert Tyene is in such matters you know that much from your days in Braavos. Many there count it as a poison that was 'good enough' so long as no one had cause to look too hard, so it had half-in-jest developed a reputation of being a gauche means of dealing with one's enemies. "Who?"
"Not who, what, Jonos Bracken's favorite horse, the poor thing, apparently he dotes on horses," Lya replies. "He was going to have that timed to a trader or minstrel coming south and blame them for being Blackwood agents looking to strike at the pride and wealth of House Bracken."
"That doesn't sound like much of a dead man's plot," Dany muses. "A dead horse with no obvious suspect is just a dead horse."
"I don't think he is able to plot for his own death, not after surviving for so long. We shall just have to prove him wrong," you muse with grim satisfaction. "Lady Blackwood is unlikely to suffer any harm from a few more hours with poison among her powders, but Jonos Bracken will undoubtedly wonder what has become of his master of the hunt. I think Stone Hedge is still the wiser first choice to visit."
***
The Lord of Stone Hedge greets you with a scowl, but greets you he does at least. The letter had given away but little of the cause you had to speak with him, that you have news of enemies of Blackwood and Bracken alike seeking to spark the age old feud for their own aims, mentioning nothing of magic or wargs. "Most kings wait until they have the throne to start trying to make us sit and heel like dogs, as though we did not know our own history and its ills," Thick white eyebrows meet in a stony expression.
"That you know your history I do not doubt, my lord," you reply, passing over the abrasive tone without comment, though noting that he had called you king and inclined that your ascension is a matter only of time. "But I fear that not even were one to bring together the history of House Bracken and House Blackwood would the full truth be revealed for there has been another darker power moving behind it all."
Light waxes in the widow and wine flows in the cups. It takes long indeed to explain what you have learned in a manner he would accept and longer still to prove it, though the empty face of the master of the hunt and even more so the poison in his stables shakes him. "Father above protect us... " he makes the sign of the Seven-Pointed Star over his heart. "I told Catelyn she was imperiling her soul, I told her and she would not listen! Wargs, woods witches, it's all..."
"It most certainly is not all anything, my lord," your mother cuts him off. "It is through the power of the Old Gods that you see me alive today, and many other deeds great and small to the betterment of people throughout Essos. The Old Gods count deeds such as the taking of a man's mind among the most foul, slavery in which the slave's mind is consumed. You might as well say that the Seven are responsible with every crime ever committed with a steel sword because it was the Andals that brought steel to these shores."
"Father... this has to end, for all our sake," Lady Barbara interjects. She had been a calming presence throughout the discussion, the one to close the staring eyes to the huntsmaster, and time and again the one to call on her father to listen, but this time he is not minded to do so.
"No!" he growls. "You said it yourself, Your Grace, it was the deeds of a Blackwood that started this madness. If it had not been for his betrayal this monster would never have dragged our House into its plot for revenge."
"It was also the better part of two thousand years ago, my lord," you interject bluntly. There is a time and a place for that even in diplomacy, particularly of this sort. "I would be careful in saying that the Blackwoods deserve to be hounded for so long, for it does not place you in company that does you honor."
For a moment there is silence, then the old man sighs almost lower than you can hear: "Damn them, and damn me too for a fool." More loudly. "Just how would you see this ended then?"
So you lay out your accounting yet again, as part of formalization of de jure land claims, the Crown's intentions to uphold decided upon claims sorted through upon official establishment of those fiefdoms incumbent to the lords in question, and under Imperial Mandate should any counter-claimant seek to usurp the rightful heir as declared by these terms, in Royal Writ they shall have committed high crimes in accordance to the degree of such egregious breaches. Thus you will uphold Lady Barbara's succession. She will not suffer as history relates to the wary, like Jeyne Arryn or Rhaenyra Targaryen had. To that, of course, he has not objection.
Secondly you offer a city charter to ease trade and direct craftsmanship in a productive manner, though he grumbles at the special economic council to arbitrate that trade and any disputes between the lords. "Essosi nonsense," Lord Jonos calls it, though he obviously has far less objection to foreigners from the east than with the people just across the Red Fork. "It will turn into a pit of snakes all scheming to stab their neighbors in the back."
"Someone is going to have to make those rules to ensure the rise in trade and industry does no harm the land and other matters of common interest. Better that it be a council and not a stroke of the pen from me, surely?" you point out without any particular emphasis, but the message is clear just the same. He nods only a touch sourly.
"Now, as to the matter of Lady Catelyn and young Lord Hoster. I think it would be wisest to see them wed, but not on lands nearby where it might cause contention. I am willing to..."
"I want the boy to apologize to my face, publicly for... ruining her chances of any other match," the lord interrupts. He had obviously been about to use stronger words, but checked himself. "If he wants to wed my daughter he can damn well face me and not hide behind your natural desire to see peace in the Riverlands, Your Grace."
What do you reply?
[] A public apology would be too much of a blow and likely to ignite the very feud you mean to see an end to, offer to arrange a private one
[] Refuse altogether, it is clear that any responsibility for the secret courtship rests with both parties
[] Write in
OOC: Ignore the armor on Lord Bracken, that was the best face I could find for him but he is otherwise dressed normally for a Westerosi lord expecting an audience.
