Reasons to Serve
Eighteenth Day of the Fifth Month 294 AC
The first of the Ministerial naming, though by many accounts among the most powerful, passes by without much comment. Aran is a man fair of voice and fair or word still, and if the members of the Curia Principium had even had cause to hear of the indiscretions of his youth, then they would have little cause to care. Crown's man for a posting where the crown would wish for its own man, and none but the most greedy or the most foolish would think they could meddle. Of course, the most greedy and the most foolish of the elites of either continent are not in this room in this hour. War had a way of winnowing out both. Then you come to the matter of taxation, which you had with intent placed in the morning on solid reasoning knowing that the interrelations would be long and likely hard fought, given who you had selected for the post.
The herald's voice booms, the invitee already known since yesterday, yet somehow still shocking.
A man, who is not quite a man, enters the chamber. His steps are light and elegant, and in his hand a cane of ebony tipped with silver in the shape of a coiling serpent with rubies for its eyes, and ruby red his own gaze in a face that might almost have been mistaken for some tiefling of the sort which there are becomimy more common in the Deep, save for the knowing way it seems to slide over all the company, weighing their sins and their desires in a balance older than all the realms of men from which they spring. Of ruffled silk white as snow is his shirt, the height of fashion no doubt, and blue as forget-me-nots his mantle, also edged with silver. You had somehow expected black and red, which you suppose shows that you are not yourself spared from preconceptions when it comes to the baatezu, though it is clear the lords and magisters in attendance are worried for more than the newcomer's taste in clothes.
Even some of the governors you had just named, most loyal to the bone, look troubled when you introduce Iziku of the Deep, late of another city far grander and far darker. The former harvester does not seem to notice or does not seem to care for the many pairs of eyes boring a hole in his back, or more likely does not care, for it was after all his stock and trade for long indeed to turn mortal loathing into desire and weariness to fellowship in darkened places. He takes his seat before the assembled notables with a smile so impersonal it might have been carved from stone, and then he does something neither they nor you had anticipated. He winks. "Well, you have to admit it has a certain poetry to it yes?"
A startled laugh goes through the chamber, more on the side of the worldlier of its members, though you are in turn amused to see that not even Eddard Stark is free from an unwilling smile.
"I make no claim to being an angel under the skin, though I am not certain if an angel is what any of you should wish to count your taxes." The smile was dark, but not cold, rather warm and inviting. "Do you know, fair ladies and kind lords, what the difference was between angels and devils was in the Beginning? The latter were too pragmatic for heaven. I assure you, the matter of counting coin is a very pragmatic affair and should it stop being so, then the ones who pay would rue the change."
Iziku continues in this manner, with sly jape and subtle twist of tongue drawing more and more of the Princeps into his confidence. He is leveraging the very thing they all have in common, the power and prestige of the office.
Are they not all mighty, are they not all wise? Should they not then consider the words he has to say instead of judging only by the realm he had abandoned?
Not many in his audience are wholly immune to the calls. Your Companions are, of course, whether it be Gain or Vee. Zherys looks on, admiring, but more in the remote manner of one who is taking mental notes rather than truly engaged. Here and there the pious stopper their ears with faith and harden their hearts, though the upper chamber is not precisely selected with faith in mind. The only priest present speaks as a representative of the Scholarum in Volantis, a peace offer from Zherys in the name of integration and Moqorro is hardly going to rock the boat given the sorts of spirits who serve R'hllor the Red, even in his hosts when Ymeri was cast down.
It is instead another city that sounds the first questioning of the hour, and it is not one you had expected.
Once the speech is done, Lady Uraka Breolis rises to her feet in garb of somber grey. "You have said much, Master Iziku, of why you would be skilled in your post and more of why you choose to be loyal to the throne over your old master, but you have not explained why you wish the position to begin with. For myself, I have found that many answers might be found in the seed of one's ambitions and that I imagine does not change, no matter how long you have lived or where you have dwelt, so then why did you seek this posting?"
"Because I am skilled, as few others are and because this Imperium is a great thing, and I would wish to be part of it even as all of you do. All of us in this hall today serve, yes, but in serving we shall be made
truly undying, beyond crude facsimiles. Do you know how many of my kindred perished in the Blood War, lost beyond recall? No, then you have that in common even with the Lord of the Ninth. No one knows the scope of our losses for some were devoured utterly that not even the memory of them remains, but of our doings here it shall be writ in True Speech and carried across the lands and sealed in vault of stone. I would trust rather to the memories and tales of mortal men than to my own supposed immortality, for I have seen its like fail too oft."
Flattery will get one... You glance at the thoughtful looks of many of those who had before seemed closed, and...
In many places.
The representative of the Iron Bank does not falter nor hesitate. She turns instead to you and asks in a carefully neutral tone, request and not demand. "And you, Your Majesty, why did you choose this one knowing that he would not in all quarters be welcomed with open arms?"
What do you reply?
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OOC: Lady Uraka has spoken with Iziku before now and she finds him an adequate pick so she is trying to head off the uncomfortable questions at the passe as it were by letting Viserys with expound on his reasoning in a way that does not seem defensive. Not yet edited.
