A Sword Without a Hilt: A Song of Ice and Fire/D&D 3.5 Crossover

Twenty Ninth Day of the Eleventh Month 293 AC

Dragon's Roost, Sorcerer's Deep

"You are getting into what kind of business?" Lady Alinor Torchwood asked archly, seeing the yellow ribbon that marked a notice of resignation in Harjan's left hand. She had been here more times than she could count.

"The wine business," the young man replied, brushing his shoulder length hair out of his eyes, a holdover from his time as a bravo. Unlike most Braavosi scions of a good family settling down, he had never quite let go of all the wildness of his earlier years, but he never let it get in the way of his job, so Alinor had no complaints.


"Crown Royal Vintages," he continued, almost shyly placing the bottle of wine in his left hand on her desk. "King's company, of course. It's going to sell Dawn Mead and alchemically distilled strong wine, maybe some of that purple sorcerer's wine too. I thought maybe we could share a glass?"

"Certainly," Alinor replied with a smile that was perhaps a little brighter than she was feeling at the moment. It was not that she resented the people going into trade with the Crown. It would be rather hypothetical of her given that she was doing the Red Scales' books just half a year ago, but they did make it hard to keep a certain sort of clerk working for the realm.

The trouble was not a lack of jobs that paid as well or better, not for the truly skilled and reliable, the Lady of Clerks thought as she took out the Myrish glass wine set, but there was a difference between a well paying job in Sorcerer's Deep or even just on the island, and one being the Buildings Inspector of Gogossos or the Superintendent of the Painted Mountains. Painted-lizards roaring in the night made for poor neighbors and Westerosi trained lords made for awkward conversations, at least until they got used to one, from what Alinor had heard.

Truth be told, if she had nightmares about anything these days, it was not invasions of devils from Hell or undersea monstrosities that cracked open peoples' skulls to find their supper, neither of which she could personally do anything about, but where she was going to find enough clerks fluent in the Common Tongue to cover all the Sunset Kingdoms once that realm fell. The closest source was probably the maesters, but interviewing a few runaway novices and the odd maester come to sate their academic curiosity had revealed the image of an organization very set in its ways and far too concerned with keeping knowledge for only those deemed 'worthy', for her peace of mind.

The thought did bring out one small chuckle, though that may have been the wine. When Harjan looked at her in askance, she explained, "I was speaking with a maester of the Citadel a few days ago about the new road-building, and he was very worried about such powerful magics in the hands of 'little more than common laborers', so I told him what I used to do back in Braavos before I became the King's personal steward, and not the polite way I trot out when I don't want to shock people."



"How did he take it?" the younger clerk snorted, dangerously close to inhaling his own wine.

"He got up and walked away with such a look of confusion on his face I was almost inclined to send someone after him so he wouldn't fall into the harbor by accident," Alinor replied, though after a moment she added. "He did apologize later, though, and he had the look of someone who had done some serious thinking."

"To the new realm, and new ways of thinking then," Harjan raised his glass in a toast.

OOC: Not the longest interlude, but hopefully giving an interesting view into the world of the Empire's administration