House of The Dragon:The Rise of the Emperor of the Seven Kingdoms

"And who might these two lovely ladies be?" Alysanne asked, looking at Mara and Clarisse. She could tell Mara was from Dorne by her skin tone, but the other young woman didn’t seem to be Dornish.

At her mother’s words, Gael also took note of the two women and looked at Maekar with a smile. Perhaps because she was pregnant, she felt her emotions were far more volatile, since she felt a flash of jealousy even before Maekar could explain anything.

"Mara, Princess of Dorne, and Lady Clarisse of Starfall, head of House Dayne." Under the gaze of his future wife, Maekar simply smiled calmly and introduced the two women with confidence. He hadn’t done anything wrong; there was no reason for nervousness.

Gael relaxed at Maekar’s introduction, and she looked gently at Mara. She knew Mara was important to the Great Council, where Maekar would be contesting the throne through votes. To win, she knew Maekar needed every vote he could get.

"Welcome, please treat Harrenhal as your own home." Gael said in a warm and gracious tone.

Looking at the reason she hadn’t managed to get Maekar into bed, Mara couldn’t help feeling a touch of envy. Gael didn’t have the seductive body she had, but she possessed a beauty Mara would never have. Despite being slender, that slimness suited her lovely, elegant face perfectly.

"It will be an honor, Princess." Mara said with a graceful, elegant smile; she narrowed her eyes seductively and glanced discreetly at Maekar.

Gael perhaps hadn’t noticed this, but Alysanne caught it immediately and kept a calm expression. As queen, she couldn’t count how many times she’d had to stop other women from climbing into Jaehaerys’s bed during these nearly sixty years of his reign.

Jaehaerys was handsome, tall, strong, and a king. He was practically everything every woman could want. But because of that, Alysanne had lost count of how many scheming, opportunistic women she’d had to deal with.

Maekar was just like Jaehaerys, and Gael would have to learn how to handle that, even learn to defend what was hers, because if there was one thing she had learned in her long life, it was that human nature should never be tested.

Maekar was a good boy who wouldn’t betray her, but, like every man or woman, there would be moments of weakness, and Gael needed to stand by her husband to get through that fragile stage of marriage.

For that reason, Alysanne felt she should give her daughter a few tips on how to handle it.

With all the important people seated on the sofas and chairs in the room, Maekar asked with a smile. "Where do we stand in this war, militarily and politically?"

He wasn’t asking Gael or Alysanne, but Roderick. He knew his uncle had likely helped Gael with everything in Harrenhal.

"We have forty-four thousand soldiers; there will be more once the rest of the Riverlands houses arrive, but those will mostly be the Tullys, the Mallisters, the Freys, and the despicable, disgusting, traitorous, incompetent Brackens." Roderick said in a calm tone, though when he mentioned the Brackens, he couldn’t help letting slip a few insults.

Maekar couldn’t help rolling his eyes at his uncle’s words. House Bracken and House Blackwood hated each other down to the last shred of reason. Despite Queen Alysanne’s attempts to reconcile the two houses, the result hadn’t been what anyone hoped, and it had only made the relationship worse, even though it had been good for a while.

In the end, hatred had triumphed over goodwill once again, and Houses Blackwood and Bracken continued to despise each other with even greater intensity.

Alysanne looked at Roderick helplessly but didn’t try to convince Lord Blackwood otherwise. She wasn’t arrogant enough to think she could fix everything, especially after having already failed so miserably.

"As for politics, we have around one hundred and fifty votes." Roderick said in a somewhat heavy, helpless tone.

The number might sound high, but Roderick assumed there would be thousands of people voting, meaning Maekar had around 15% of the vote.

*(Note: I am assuming there were 1,000 lords, septons, and maesters in this equation. Though it will be more than a thousand once Dorne joins.)*

Despite what Roderick thought, Maekar remained calm, though there was a trace of seriousness in his eyes.

"Once I bring Dorne into the Seven Kingdoms, I’ll gain more votes; there’s no need to worry, Uncle," Maekar spoke at that moment, noticing the concern on his uncle’s face, and continued. "The problem isn’t Rhaenys or her son, it’s Viserys."

"Viserys has the king’s support; that is Viserys’s greatest advantage, since the lords trust Jaehaerys, and that is incredibly favorable. Of the thousands of votes, Viserys alone will likely claim half or more than half."

Maekar said in a calm tone; he rubbed his forehead and continued speaking. "In the end, the lords will prefer Viserys, who doesn’t want to change much, on top of being a generous man eager to please."

"What we need to do is show that I will be a better king than Viserys, show them that they will gain more with me than with Viserys. Only then will the votes shift sides."

In the end, it all came down to interests and nothing more. Everyone wants to win; no one wants to lose. The lords were betting that Viserys would maintain the prosperity Jaehaerys had built, and they were right about that.

Setting aside the Dance of the Dragons and the war against the Triarchy, the realm had remained under the same economic policies as Jaehaerys for more than twenty years, even more than twenty years after the Old King’s death.

So instead of betting on a king or queen whose actions were unknown, everyone chose to play it safe rather than take a risk.

This was the greatest problem facing Maekar.

"Won’t bringing Dorne into the Seven Kingdoms be enough?" Mara, who had stayed silent until then, asked in a confused tone. In her eyes, that was truly a remarkable feat, worthy of any kingdom.

"It won’t be enough; I must also win the support of the North and the Reach, as well as destroy Viserys’s reputation." Maekar replied with a smile. Though Mara had lived among Dorne’s schemes her whole life, she had never once left Sunspear.

"That will be complicated," Alysanne said calmly. "The Starks are more loyal than any other house on this continent. As long as Jaehaerys chooses Viserys, the North will choose Viserys too; the Iron Islands will also back Viserys."

"As for the Reach, Matthos Tyrell is already backing Rhaenys, along with Boremund Baratheon. Not to mention you don’t even have the full support of the Riverlands."

Rhaenys had the support of the Stormlands and the Reach.

Viserys had the support of the Crownlands, the North, the Westerlands, and the Iron Islands.

Maekar didn’t even have the full support of the Riverlands.

Despite Maekar’s extremely slim chances, he himself remained calm, though solemn.

"We’ll have to thin out our enemies," Maekar said at that moment. "Matthos Tyrell has to die to make the lords pull back a little and show them they need to think carefully instead of choosing a side too quickly."

"I take it you’re already working on that, Uncle," Maekar asked, looking at Roderick with a bright look in his eyes. He knew better than anyone how decisive his uncle could be.

"Yes, we were going to kill him tomorrow." Roderick said in a cold tone, his expression indifferent.

"That’s good, but let’s start today." Maekar shook his head and decreed Matthos’s death for that very day.

"To keep my arrival from being used as a weapon against us by our enemies," Maekar said and continued:

"Matthos has to die today. Even if fingers end up pointed at me because of it, it would be too great a coincidence for Matthos to die on the very day I arrived. Any fool with the slightest bit of sense will know they’re pinning the blame on me."

"How do you want him to die?" Roderick asked in a calm tone.

"He should die peacefully." Maekar replied calmly.

"Poison."

--------

Note 1: You guys are rushing things too much. I know about the mistakes, but you’re reading from the reader’s perspective, not from the perspective of the people in that world. What you know hasn’t happened yetm it’ll be a surprise for Jaehaerys and the others.

The North will eventually support Laenor, just like the others will.

Note 2 :This Chapter was reposted due to a bug in my author dashboard on Inkstone, where I post the Chapters on NovelPhoenix.

Read the advanced Chapters on my Patreon!

/GOTSW

Read my other books:

House of The Dragon:The Rise of the Emperor of the Seven Kingdoms

Game Of Thrones: The God-Emperor of Planetos

Percy Jackson: Godwyn the Golden.

Game Of Thrones: The King’s Court Wizard