Scene 1: The Green Ghost
POV: Orys (Stormlander Man-at-Arms)
Location: Outside the Lion Gate, King's Landing.
The stew was piss-water with onions, but Jory scraped the bottom of his wooden bowl like he was digging a grave.
Around them, the fires of the main host stretched for miles. It should've been a party. They won. But it felt sour. The men of the Trident—the poor bastards who'd marched through the mud for weeks—stared up at the high walls of King's Landing with eyes full of envy.
"Soft war," Jory grumbled, spitting a piece of gristle into the fire.
Jory was a Riverlander. Arrived yesterday with the main column. He'd expected to kick down doors and find a bag of silver. Instead, he found closed gates and Gold Cloaks watching them like hawks.
"We march till our boots rot," Jory said, pointing his spoon at the walls. "We bleed at the Ford. And for what? The Big Man races ahead, takes the city in a wink, and locks the door? My pockets are empty, Orys. A man has a right to the spoils."
Orys didn't look up. He was sitting on a log, greasing his boots with a lump of fat. He looked like death warmed over.
"You wanted to be there, Jory?" Orys asked, his voice cracking. "You wanted to be first?"
"Aye! I wanted the gold! I wanted to break the gate!"
"If you broke that gate," Orys said, spitting on the leather, "you wouldn't be counting coins. You'd be mist."
He looked up. Orys's eyes were sunk deep in his head, dark as bruises.
"It wasn't a fight, you lackwit. It was a race against the Stranger."
Jory frowned. "The hells does that mean?"
Orys pointed his grease-rag at the Red Keep.
"The King took twelve men. Just twelve. Hunters and that spooky shadow-man of his. They stripped off their plate and crawled into the shit-pipes. Three miles of muck."
"Pipes? For what?"
"For jars," Orys said. "Clay pots. Thousands of 'em. Under the Sept. Under the flea-pits. Under the whores' beds. Filled with green fire."
Jory froze, his spoon halfway to his mouth. "Wildfire?"
"Aye. The Mad King didn't trap the gates. He trapped the people."
Orys leaned forward, the firelight catching the hollows of his face.
"Think on it, Jory. Say we did it your way. Say we stormed the walls today. As soon as the first ram hit the wood... snap."
Orys snapped his fingers. The sound cracked like a dry bone.
"He lights the fuse. The whole city goes up. And us on the walls? We burn with it. We'd be nothing but grease spots on the stone."
Jory swallowed hard. "Then... then we should have sieged. Starved 'em out."
"And watch?" Orys shook his head slowly. "If we sat out here and waited... the Mad King lights it anyway. Just to spite us. And then what? We stand here, fifty thousand strong, watching half a million souls turn to ash? Watching the skin melt off the potters and the smiths?"
Orys shivered, though the fire was hot.
"That's the choice, see? We attack, we die. We wait, they die. There was no way out."
He rubbed the boot hard, trying to get the green stain out.
"But His Grace... he saw it. Don't ask me how, but he saw it. He knew the only way to beat the fire was to sneak in the back door and cut the throat before the Dragon could breathe."
The noise of the camp seemed to die down for Jory. He looked at the massive walls. He imagined them exploding outward in a wave of green ruin.
"They ain't highborn in there, Jory," Orys whispered. "They're poor folk. Like your sister back at Seagard. If His Grace hadn't crawled through that shit... we'd have heard 'em. We'd have heard 'em all scream at once."
Jory looked down at his empty bowl. He didn't say anything about pockets anymore. He felt a cold sweat on his neck.
He realized that if the King hadn't broken those horses, Jory would be standing right here breathing in the smoke of dead children.
Orys stood up, wincing as his stiff legs cracked.
"So shut your trap about the loot," Orys muttered, sheathing his knife. "The King didn't ride to save the Chair. He rode to save us from seeing that."
Orys limped off toward the tents.
Jory sat alone. He looked up at the Dragon Gate. The banner of the Stag was flapping in the wind.
Yesterday, he thought it looked like a conqueror's flag. Tonight, it looked like a shield.
Jory nodded to himself, quiet-like, and threw another log on the fire.
Chapter 35: The Pillars of the Sky
Scene 2: The Locked Door
POV: Robert Baratheon / Jon Arryn
Location: The King's Solar, The Red Keep.
Robert poured a cup of water, his hands trembling slightly—not from fear, but from the crash after three days of adrenaline. He looked at the old man standing by the door.
"We did it, Jon," Robert said, a grin breaking through his exhaustion. "The city stands. The fire didn't light. Tywin is pacified. I even got him to take his golden son home."
Jon Arryn didn't smile. He didn't reach for a cup. instead, he turned and slid the heavy iron bolt of the oak door shut. Thud.
The silence in the room suddenly felt very heavy.
Jon walked to the window, looking out at the smoke clearing over Flea Bottom. He looked old. Older than he had in the Vale.
"Do you know what I saw when I rode through the Lion Gate, Robert?" Jon asked quietly. "I didn't see a conqueror. I saw a gambler who bet the entire realm on a sewer rat's chance."
Robert's smile faded. He set the pitcher down hard. "It wasn't a gamble. It was a reckoning. I knew the layout. I knew the timing."
"The reckoning?" Jon turned, his voice rising. "Is that what we call it? If one crossbowman in that tunnel had heard you... if one patch of bad air had choked you... the war ends. Not with a victory, but with a panic. The King dead in a pipe, and the realm left to rot."
"I couldn't sit back, Jon! I knew what Aerys would do!"
"Then you send a killer!" Jon slammed his hand on the table, the sound cracking like a whip. "You send a cutthroat. You send a shadow. You do not send the Crown into a pipe full of filth!"
Robert bristled, his temper flaring. "I led from the front! That is what men follow!"
"No," Jon cut him off, cold and sharp. "That is what boys follow. You listen to me. Hedge knights die in sewers to save damsels. That makes for a good song. But Kings stay on the horse to save the Realm. That makes for a dynasty."
"If I stayed on the horse," Robert snarled, leaning over the desk, "we wouldn't be having this conversation. We would be ash. Aerys had the jars rigged, Jon. If we attacked the gates, he lights them. If we waited for a siege, he lights them. There was no way out but the back door."
Jon stared at him, breathing heavily. He pulled a chair out and sat down, rubbing his temples.
"Perhaps," Jon admitted softly. "But I watched you growing up, Robert. In the Vale. When a girl broke your heart, you rode a horse until it lathered or you drank until you couldn't stand. You couldn't sit still with the hurt. You had to outrun it."
Robert looked away, pouring himself more water. "I'm not a boy anymore, Jon. I just took the capital without a siege."
"No," Jon said. "You just found a bigger horse."
He pointed a finger at Robert's chest. "I gave you space when Lyanna was taken. I thought, 'Let him work it out in steel.' But you aren't working it out. You're feeding it. You didn't go into those sewers just because it was necessary. You went in because it was the deadliest way. You wanted to be close to the fire. Because if you're fighting for your life, you don't have to think about the ghosts."
"It's too quiet, Jon," Robert whispered, the fight draining out of him. "When I stop moving... I hear them. I hear Ned's father screaming."
"Then listen to them!" Jon said. "That is what ruling is. Listening to ghosts and making sure we don't make more of them. You want to save the realm? Stop trying to die for it."
Robert sat in silence for a long moment. Then he snorted, wiping his mouth.
"Fine. I'll sit in the chair. I'll listen to the ghosts. But don't ask me to listen to these fools."
Jon looked up sharply. "Fools?"
"Mace Tyrell," Robert sneered. "Hoster Tully. Tywin. Look at them, Jon. Mace couldn't siege a pantry. Hoster only moved when he saw a marriage contract. And Tywin? I played him like a harp. Told him he was a hero, gave him his son back, and he walked away thinking he won."
"You think you played Tywin Lannister?" Jon asked, his voice low.
"I got what I wanted," Robert shrugged. "I'm the only one taking this seriously. I'll deal with them when I'm ready. Until then, let them wait in the mud."
Jon Arryn stood up slowly. This terrified him more than the sewers.
"And there it is," Jon said. "That sneer."
"What sneer? They are useless! I won the war. They didn't. Being right earns me the privilege to speak the truth."
"Being right gets you a victory, Robert," Jon hissed, leaning across the desk. "Being respectful gets you a reign. You think because you fixed a drain and marched fast, you are suddenly wiser than the Old Lion? Wiser than the Queen of Thorns?"
"They are slow!"
"They are the pillars that hold up your chair!" Jon's voice dropped to a dangerous whisper. "You treat them like wooden markers on a map table. You push them here, you move them there, you think they stay where you put them. But these men are not wood, Robert. They breathe. They bleed. And they have memories longer than your life."
Jon walked to the window, gesturing to the massive dragon skulls lining the walls of the throne room below.
"The Targaryens could afford to be hated, Robert. Aegon could insult a Lord Paramount because if that Lord rebelled, Aegon could melt his castle. Maegor could rule by fear because he rode the Black Dread."
Jon turned back, his expression grim.
"They had Dragons to enforce obedience. You have... manners."
Robert looked at his hands—big, calloused hands that had killed a Prince. "I have an army."
"You have an army borrowed from them!" Jon said relentlessly. "Half your spears are Stark men. Half your gold is Arryn gold. The food comes from the Riverlands. The moment you insult Hoster Tully, you lose the food. The moment you insult Tywin, the gold stops. And if you think Tywin Lannister doesn't know you 'played' him, you are a greater fool than Mace."
"I beat them," Robert insisted, though his voice lacked heat. "My speed. My steel. We shattered Rhaegar."
"You speak of the Trident as if it were a masterstroke," Jon said, shaking his head.
"We killed the Prince. We broke the host."
"We won," Jon corrected, placing a heavy hand on the map table, right over The Reach, "because the enemy was rotting from the inside."
Jon tapped the token of the golden rose.
"Do you know where the war was actually won, boy? It wasn't on the Trident. It was at Storm's End."
Robert frowned. "Stannis held them off. It was heroic, but—"
"It was a farce!" Jon slammed his hand on the table, rattling the cups. "Mace Tyrell had eighty thousand men. Eighty. Thousand. He parked them outside a castle held by five hundred starving men."
Jon moved the markers on the map. He added a massive pile of Tyrell tokens next to the Targaryen dragon on the Trident.
"If Mace Tyrell had been a general instead of a glory-hound, he would have left a token force to starve Stannis and marched seventy thousand swords to the Trident. We would have been outnumbered three to one. I would be dead. Ned would be dead. And your head would be on a spike."
Robert stared at the overwhelming force on the map. He hadn't thought of it that way.
"But they didn't march..." Robert said slowly.
"They didn't march because Aerys was a fool who couldn't rule his own house," Jon said, his eyes hard. "And Tywin Lannister? He sat at Casterly Rock with thirty thousand veterans. Why? Because Aerys insulted him. Because Aerys treated his most capable servant like a dog."
Jon swept the Lannister tokens off the board.
"We did not win because we were gods of war. We won because the King was a catastrophic steward. Aerys alienated the West, misused the Reach, and blackmailed Dorne. We survived on the scraps of his folly."
Jon Arryn leaned in close, the weight of the realm in his tired eyes.
"You want to treat the Lords with disdain? You want to ignore their petty grievances and refuse to play their games? Go ahead. But remember: Aerys Targaryen had dragons on his banners and centuries of legitimacy. If arrogance could kill him, do not think your 'speed' will save you if you make the same mistakes."
Jon straightened his cloak, his lecture finished.
"So you will go out there. You will smile at Mace Tyrell. You will flatter Hoster Tully. Not because you like them. But because you don't have a dragon."
Robert stared at the map table. He looked at the wooden markers—the Lions, the Wolves, the Roses. He realized for the first time that they were heavier than they looked.
"I hate it," Robert said quietly.
"Good," Jon replied, unlocking the door. "That means you're finally doing the job."
Chapter 35: The Pillars of the Sky
Scene 3: The Quill
POV: Robert Baratheon
Location: The King's Solar, The Red Keep.
Robert stared at the blank parchment, the quill feeling like a foreign object in his heavy hand. The inkwell sat like a black eye on the desk.
"I won't beg, Jon," Robert growled, staring at the map where the Reach's forces were piled high. "I am the King. If I beg them to stop, they'll smell blood."
"A King does not beg," Jon Arryn corrected, standing by the window. "A King commands. But a wise King commands men to do what they already wish to do."
Jon turned, his face stern.
"Mace Tyrell is terrified, Robert. He is sitting on a siege that has failed, waiting for you to march south and take his head. If you threaten him, panic will make him fight. If you beg him, arrogance will make him fight."
Jon tapped the desk. "Give him the third path. Command him to lay down his arms... but frame it as a victory."
Robert grunted. He dipped the quill.
Internal Thought: You sat on your arse for a year, Mace. Now get up and kneel before I lose my patience.
What he wrote:
To Mace Tyrell, Lord of Highgarden and Warden of the South.
The Mad King is dead. The war is done.
You have held the siege of Storm's End with the constancy befitting the ancient House of Tyrell. You kept your faith to the Throne until the Dragon fell. The Realm honors a man who keeps his vows.
But the dynasty has changed, my lord. The Realm now requires peace, not hunger.
I command you to dip your banners and sheathe your sword. You have proven your loyalty; now prove your wisdom.
Open the road. I am coming to Storm's End. Bring your host to me and swear fealty to me. Do so, and you shall find your titles confirmed and your House honored as a pillar of the new peace.
I await you as a brother, not a conqueror.
Done in the Light of the Seven,
Robert Baratheon, The First of His Name.
Robert read it back. It was firm. It was regal. And it was utter horeseshit.
"Constancy," Robert scoffed. "He watched a wall for a year."
"And in doing so, he kept eighty thousand men out of the Trident," Jon noted dryly. "Let him keep his pride, Robert. You keep the Kingdom."
Robert pushed the letter aside. "And the old woman? Olenna?"
"Different tactics," Jon advised. "She does not care for honor. She cares for survival. And profit."
"She holds the harvest," Robert said, remembering the empty granaries in the city. "If she closes the Roseroad, we starve."
"Then remind her that a starving city buys no grain," Jon said. "Do not ask her for food. Offer her the privilege of feeding the capital."
Robert dipped the quill again. He stripped away the flowery language. He wrote as a King settling a ledger.
Internal Thought: Your son plays at war, but we both know who runs the Reach. Send the wagons, and I won't replace you.
What he wrote:
To Lady Olenna of House Tyrell.
Winter comes for us all, my lady. The wars of men have scorched the Riverlands, but the bounty of the Reach remains.
The Capital is secure, but its people are hungry. They look South for salvation.
It is my will that the markets of King's Landing be opened to the Highgarden wains immediately. The Crown requires bread, and House Tyrell has always grown strong by providing it.
Ensure your son chooses the path of the harvest, not the sword. A united realm prospers; a divided one bleeds.
Send the wagons. The King's Peace is good for trade.
Robert set the quill down. He looked at the two scrolls. One offered dignity to a fool; the other offered profit to a matron.
"It still feels..." Robert flexed his hand, missing the weight of his hammer. "...Quiet."
"That is the point," Jon said. "Dragons roar, War gives songs Robert. Paper whispers. But paper lasts longer."
Robert poured hot yellow wax onto the parchment. He pressed the stag sigil into the soft pool. Squish.
"Boy!" Robert shouted.
A page ran in, looking terrified.
"Rookery," Robert commanded, his voice booming. "Fastest birds you have. To the Siege Camps at Storm's End. And Highgarden."
The boy scrambled out with the letters.
Robert leaned back in his chair, exhaling a long breath. He looked at the map table. He had just disarmed the largest army in Westeros with a pot of ink.
"Jon," Robert said, staring at the ceiling.
"Your Grace?"
"Stannis," Robert said quietly. "You think he's desperate? You think he's eating his boots?"
Jon hesitated. "It has been a year, Robert. Even the best stores fail. He must be suffering."
Robert's lips quirked into a dark, knowing smirk. He remembered the first thing he had done after coming to this world and even later—the water filters, the filled granaries, the strict rationing protocols he had reminded Stannis and the castellan to follow.
"Mace thinks he's starving him out," Robert said. "But Stannis? Stannis isn't starving, Jon. Before even my first battle at Gulltown, I had made sure to have Storm's End stores filled to the brim. He's just bored."
Jon Arryn blinked, then let out a rare, short chuckle. "Then let us hope Mace Tyrell never learns the difference."
Jon turned to leave.
"Jon," Robert called out.
The old man paused at the heavy oak door.
"Thank you," Robert grunted, gesturing vaguely at the letters. "For the... counsel."
Jon Arryn didn't bow. He just nodded, his shoulders relaxing for the first time in days. "Guard the realm, Your Grace."
The door clicked shut.
Robert looked at his ink-stained thumb.
'The world of politics,huh. Seems worse than the gutters I needed to crawl during the battle'. He thought.