Chapter 69: Silent Oars
Preparations for the Iron Islands campaign moved under three different faces. Publicly, Lannisport repaired merchant traffic and hosted Mallister envoys. Quietly, ships were stocked, crossbows issued, boarding shields built, and soldiers drilled until they stopped falling into the sea every third attempt. Secretly, Grey Shadow’s men moved among sailors, smugglers, fishermen, and captured Ironborn thralls, buying routes with coin, threats, or both.
The first problem was ships. Lannisport had vessels, but not a war fleet ready to challenge the Ironborn. Many had been burned, damaged, seized by fleeing nobles, or taken into royal service before Arthur held the city. What remained was a useful mess: fishing boats, transports, merchant cogs, river craft, damaged galleys, and several captured Lannister ships that had seen better days and apparently resented the present.
Roderik Stormwake spent his first two days insulting almost every vessel in the harbor.
“This one leaks.”
“Fix it.”
“This one turns like a drunk cow.”
“Use it for cargo.”
“This one will kill men if the wind changes.”
“Then do not give it men we like.”
Roderik stared at Arthur after that answer, then decided perhaps the new Lord understood ships in spirit if not in detail.
The second problem was sailors. Soldiers could be summoned by the system and trained to swing blades, hold shields, and die in formations. Sailors required instincts built by salt, rope, weather, and fear of drowning. Arthur could recruit some naval-capable units through the system, but not enough to make up for the lack. So they hired, pressed, bribed, and reorganized. Fishermen became pilots. Smugglers became scouts. Captured Lannister crews were offered wages or chains. A few Ironborn prisoners were given a more delicate choice: guide the fleet and live, or refuse and discover that rocks were not the only things that could sink.
The third problem was secrecy. The Redwyne fleet still watched the coast, and Highgarden watched the Redwynes watching the coast, which made the whole matter feel like a nest of hens pretending to be hawks. Arthur needed ships to move without announcing that Lannisport had found teeth.
House Redwyne helped, if help was the correct word for allowing a profitable crime to happen while looking in the opposite direction. Three grain ships flying Braavosi colors reached Lannisport safely. Then two more. Then an Arbor wine convoy delayed suspiciously near the wrong patrol route while Mallister scouts entered the harbor at night. Paxter Redwyne had not joined Arthur. He had simply begun renting him silence at a very high price.
Flio called it progress.
Arthur called it leverage.
In Casterly Rock, Alianna began learning her role. She received noblewomen, arranged formal dinners, listened to complaints about marriages, dowries, household appointments, and the eternal misery of people who owned more silver than sense. She did not shine at it, not yet. She was too cautious, too aware of the eyes on her. But she improved. Diana helped where duty allowed. Steward Alwin provided lists. Judge Morris explained which customs mattered and which were excuses wrapped in old dust.
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Arthur watched from a distance. He gave her authority and guarded the edges of it. That was all he could offer without lying. To her credit, she did not ask for more.
The attacks by Lannister loyalists continued. One sheriff was found hanged outside Branding Castle with a lion carved into his chest. Two grain stores near Deep Den were burned. A Battanian patrol vanished and was later discovered in a ravine, stripped and mutilated. Grey Shadow answered by making three suspected organizers vanish from their beds. One returned alive, publicly enough to confess names before dying of wounds that had been carefully kept nonfatal until his usefulness ended.
After that, the attacks slowed.
Not stopped. Slowed. Hatred rarely disappeared because one showed it a knife. It merely learned to use darker rooms.
Arthur’s finances remained a separate war. Grain purchases across the Narrow Sea were ruinously expensive. Road repairs cost more than expected. New administrators demanded salaries, as if competence were offended by hunger. The mines produced, but safely reopening old shafts took time. The army still consumed coin at a pace that made even Lannister gold look less immortal.
Every morning began with reports. Every night ended with numbers.
On the fifth day after Roderik’s arrival, a courier came from Seagard. Lord Jason Mallister accepted the final terms. Twenty warships would sail south under Mallister command to meet Arthur’s force at Lannisport, then move north along the coast. Their first target would depend on scout reports: either Harlaw, if Euron’s main force remained far north, or a smaller port on Great Wyk if the islands were better defended than expected.
Arthur called the council that evening.
“Smith holds the western lines and keeps pressure on any Lannister loyalists. Diana holds Casterly Rock. Kator remains mobile between Golden Tooth and Lannisport. Beland joins the naval expedition with two thousand of the infantry. Horgos commands the crossbowmen. Roderik handles ship movement with the Mallister captains.”
Beland looked as if he wanted to object to being put on boats. Wisely, he did not.
Arthur continued. “The force will gather at Lannisport. Five thousand infantry, one thousand crossbowmen, engineers, fire teams, and supply crews. The campaign goal is limited: burn ships, seize stores, destroy ports, capture leaders if possible. We do not get dragged into holding every rock. We strike, take, burn, and leave before the Ironborn return in strength.”
Smith nodded. “And you?”
Arthur looked at the map.
“I will go.”
The room reacted in silence first, then with the expressions of men who had expected nonsense and still found it rude when it arrived.
Diana spoke. “My lord, your presence in the Westerlands is important. The regime is new.”
“It is important, which is why this campaign must not become Mallister glory alone. If we succeed, the North, Riverlands, and Westerlands all see that I answered the Ironborn. If we fail, I need authority enough to prevent three allied forces from blaming one another while sinking.”
“You are also the target of assassins,” Diana said.
“That remains true indoors.”
A very poor argument, perhaps, but accurate. The room did not appreciate it.
Roderik leaned over the map. “If you come, you obey naval counsel at sea. Lords who think rank changes weather tend to drown.”
Arthur looked at him. “Good. Then keep me from drowning.”
“I can try. The sea is rude.”
“So is land.”
The matter settled because Arthur had decided it. Command sometimes looked like stubbornness after being given better clothes.
Before leaving for Lannisport, he visited the small chamber where ravens from Newroot were kept under close guard. The latest report on Ena had arrived two days before. Alive. Unconscious. Stable but weak. No change. The words had become a cruelty by repetition. He folded the report and put it away.
There was no time to go to her. Not yet. The thought tasted like ash.
Instead, he wrote one more letter to Newroot, ordering healers supplied with whatever they required, no matter the cost. Then he returned to the harbor preparations, because power did not pause for private wounds. It merely watched to see whether they became weaknesses.
At midnight three nights later, the first ships slipped from Lannisport under cloud cover. Oars moved without drums. Sails stayed low. Lanterns were hidden. The Redwyne patrol line shifted just enough to create a gap no honest man would have called deliberate.
Arthur stood near the prow of a transport as the dark sea opened ahead.
The Iron Islands waited beyond storm and salt.