Part MMMCCCXCII: Speaking Softly
Speaking Softly
Twenty First Day of the Twelfth Month 293 AC
After parting cordially from the Prince of Dorne and making your way out the Sandship the five of you part ways to each address a potential hurdle. Between Waymar and Tyene you are confident Lord Fowler will accept a limit to blood sacrifice. After all, it had been Waymar those three years past who had convinced you to pass mortal judgement on mortal crimes, a decision you had later nuanced further for not even all those who serve the enemies of life are beyond reneging them. And if justice alone will not persuade the Lord of Skyreach you trust that Tyene will make a sufficiently sharp point of the practicalities of living in harmony throughout the realm. That still leaves the matter of the future legality of one of your lords practicing greater magic without any affiliation to the Scholarum, but that is tomorrow's concern. You have not precisely been hiding that particular rite so you can expect others have also learned how to properly invoke the blessings of the Old Gods in that manner. It would have to be regulated by law.
At the back of your mind you can feel the merest trace of Bloodraven's presence, thoughtful and a touch amused at the thought of bringing back the ancient bloody rites of the First Men through legislation after they had been abandoned through war and the threat of war. "There are already laws about the proper circumstances to enact sacrificial magic, uncle. I am merely considering how they might need to be amended."
"If they catch an offering worth sacrificing they get to decide what blessing the tree gives, you offer that in most cases regardless," comes the reply. "No reason to surrender the knife in their keeping."
Probably for the best, you realize. There would be the risk of the prisoners escaping before someone authorized to make the offering would arrive, but that logic applies to any citizen of the Empire and you have no intention of deputizing the power to use greater sacrificial rituals to anyone who knows how to do so.
"So how closely do you want me to look at these troublesome lords?" Dany's question recalls you from your thoughts as Bloodraven's presence fades like the whisper of black feathers through the night air.
"Look through their dreams if you have to, I need to know what manner of lords and ladies these are before speaking to them. Their mindset is one that almost sent us stumbling before."
"I think it is because we are all so young," your sister says, almost as though pondering some abstract question. "We all know a great deal and we've certainly experienced things others never will, but having never truly lived beneath the weight and shelter of tradition... it's hard to appreciate why others might be so fond of them." Dany certainly does not look young when saying these words, but you reach out and ruffle her hair fondly just the same.
The dark look she gives you would have sent armed knight scrambling back, then she laughs with a rueful shake of her head.
***
When you and Ser Richard climb into the stands set for the afternoon's joust you do not find Lady Nymella Toland alone on her seat. Even over the sound warhorses neighing a challenge, of lances shattering and the crowd roaring in approval of what is shaping up to be Cletus Yronwood's latest victory you can hear the lady's voice well before you see her, and she is not pleased. "...unless all the dust in those books of yours has rotted your brain!"
"Mother, I can't marry Dickton Manwoody. He is his father's spare heir and I am yours, if anything should happen to his elder brother or to Vaela one House would fall under the effective control of the other or else there would have to be a mediated succession the likes of which would make the trouble in Vaith thirty years ago look easy as a river flowing to the sea."
You would be a great deal more sympathetic to the young woman's obvious distress if you did not know this is the young woman who had arranged to have her sister enchanted layer upon slow layer until she left home 'of her own will' seeking adventure.
"Vaela will return home with some sense knocked into her, or else her bones will and I'll have her raised from the dead so she can take her rightful place as the heir of Ghost Hill." The dark haired lady somehow looms over her daughter even while both are seated, though that has more to do with how the latter hunches her shoulders as though against a blow then with their respective statures. "And you will wed young Dickton. If you are so worried about heirs then I suggest you do your duty and produce them."
"Like you produced all two of us," the girl says, though too low to be heard by most and indeed her mother does not, imperiously turning back to the joust. One can well imagine how resentment grew in that House and why the lady might have proved intransigent to Prince Doran's arguments regarding the arcane passage. Be that as it may you have dealt with worse...
Indeed you manage to persuade the lady to speak with you after the joust is done without having to mention Doran's name and thus raising her hackles. Reasoning that she would more likely be persuaded by a king than and underling you reveal yourself as soon as you are away from the crowds and under wards in House Toland's traditional chambers within one of the newer Rhoynish towers of the palace. Teora follows around, mostly ignored by her mother.
Lady Nymella listens to your arguments about the dangers of passing trade along the threads of magic without crossing the span between and to your promises of prosperity not just to the Martells, but to all of Dorne, the bloody history between your House and all of theirs laid aside.
"Your words sound sweet, Your Grace, but they do not answer me that which I most wish to know. Why should I profit less from a passage that was built upon Toland land, likely by those of Toland blood long ago? If you or Prince Doran wish to take it then I feel it is right that my House be recompensed for it, not just be party to that which all of Dorne revives."
You bite back a sigh, keeping your expression pleasant as you consider what answer you might give, but before you can even open your mouth to speak you hear Teora's voice whispered upon a petty spell, an enchantment and not a spell from the feel of the magic through the air: "She is not going to understand any economic theory more complicated than 'more gold is better', Your Grace, and she certainly does not give a damn about the smallfolk who would suffer for her profit." You can practically taste the bitterness echoing behind the words.
What do you reply to the two messages?
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OOC: The Toland situation was set up half a year ago out of character so I figured a link was in order. I was tempted to put it in the previous update, but that had a lot of exposition of its own to cover.
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