The envoys from Meereen and Yunkai fled Astapor in a panic.
But the threat they left behind hung over the newly liberated city like a storm cloud.
The blockade had begun.
Just as Jorah Mormont had feared, the waters of Slaver's Bay fell into a deathly silence.
In less than half a day, the harbor was empty.
No merchant ships flying the flags of the Free Cities arrived to offload grain, cloth, or iron. The merchants who once made their living trading with Astapor, threatened by the fleets of Meereen and Yunkai, chose to retreat.
In just a few days, the atmosphere in the city shifted from the euphoria of liberation to deep anxiety about the future.
"My Lord, the food will last a month at most."
"Even with Magister Illyrio's secret support, I fear we cannot hold out for long."
In the great hall, Jorah Mormont's voice was heavy.
He spread a parchment filled with numbers before Lynn, his weathered face etched with worry.
"With nearly three hundred thousand mouths to feed, even with rationing, the daily consumption is massive."
"The grain we seized from the Good Masters' storehouses is a drop in the bucket."
"And rumors are already spreading through the city," Missandei added, her delicate face showing a worry beyond her years.
"People are saying the Dragonlord has only pushed us from the frying pan into the fire."
"They say once the food runs out, they will starve to death, or... be fed to the dragon."
"I suspect these rumors are being planted by spies from the other cities."
These vicious whispers bred in the dark corners of the city, gnawing away at the fragile confidence the people had just built.
Daenerys sat to the side, her heart clenched tight.
She looked at Lynn. He sat calmly in the main chair, leisurely whittling a... green stick with a small knife.
The stick looked utterly ordinary, like something a country boy might snap off a tree.
"So, they want to use hunger to force us to our knees," Lynn finally spoke, not even looking up.
"Yes, my Lord," Jorah nodded. "It is the most effective and vicious method."
"In a besieged city, the first thing to collapse is always the people's will."
Lynn tossed the green peel aside, revealing the white, fibrous stalk underneath.
He put the stalk in his mouth and chewed gently.
A burst of refreshing, sweet juice exploded across his taste buds.
"Dany, taste this."
Lynn handed a peeled section to Daenerys.
She took it hesitantly, mimicking Lynn, and took a careful bite.
Her beautiful violet eyes lit up instantly.
"It's so sweet!"
It was a sweetness without any impurities—richer than honey wine, yet more refreshing than summer fruit.
"What is this?" she asked curiously.
"Sugarcane," Lynn stood up.
"I've seen it growing wild all over Essos."
"The Good Masters only knew to feed it to their livestock, or let their slaves chew on it to pass the time."
"But they didn't know that inside this little wild grass lies the power to overturn the world."
Jorah and Daenerys looked at each other, completely missing Lynn's point.
"Come. I'll show you some real magic."
---
Lynn led them to the outskirts of the city, to a plantation that had once belonged to a Good Master.
Here, vast fields of sugarcane swayed in the hot wind like a green ocean.
Immediately after taking the city, Lynn had ordered the Unsullied to secure this area. This was the very reason he dared to burn bridges with Meereen and Yunkai.
Lynn had gathered every mason and carpenter in the city.
When Daenerys and Jorah arrived, the place had already been transformed.
Under the guidance of blueprints Lynn had drawn himself, the craftsmen had rapidly constructed a device that looked incredibly strange to their eyes.
It was a press made of two massive stone rollers, powered by a strong draft horse.
As the horse walked in circles, the rollers turned slowly.
Bundles of sugarcane were fed between the stones. Accompanied by a loud crunching sound, pale green juice flowed endlessly down pre-cut stone grooves into massive clay vats.
The air began to fill with an intoxicating sweet scent.
"This... what is happening here?"
Jorah looked at the juice, full of grass bits and dirt, completely baffled.
Lynn didn't answer.
He directed the workers to carry the vats of juice to a row of giant iron cauldrons.
Fires roared beneath them.
The juice boiled and rolled, sending up white steam.
"Add that in."
Lynn pointed to a pile of white powder made from burnt seashells.
Lime.
As the lime powder was sprinkled into the pot, something magical happened.
The murky juice began to clarify. The grass particles and impurities reacted with the lime, coagulating into a scum that floated to the surface.
Workers used long-handled ladles to skim the scum away.
The liquid in the pot turned from pale green to a thick, amber syrup.
The cloying sweetness almost drowned the entire plantation.
"My Lord, is this... some new kind of honey wine?" Jorah couldn't help but ask.
"No. This will be worth ten thousand times more than wine."
Lynn had the workers pour the boiling syrup into cone-shaped clay molds that had a small hole at the bottom.
As the temperature dropped, the syrup began to cool and crystallize.
Hours later, when the workers cracked open the molds, what appeared before everyone were rough, brownish-yellow solids.
Raw sugar.
Daenerys curiously broke off a small piece and put it in her mouth.
It was sweet, but it had a burnt taste and a gritty texture.
"Is this it?" Jorah was disappointed.
Though sweet, it didn't look much nobler than common honey.
"Ser Jorah, where is your patience? We've only just begun."
Lynn smiled.
He had the workers place the cone-shaped loaves of raw sugar upside down over empty clay jars.
Then, he ordered them to bring wet clay.
"Seal the top of the sugar loaves with this mud."
Everyone watched, dumbfounded.
Adding mud to food?
This was unheard of.
Even Daenerys looked confused.
Lynn offered no explanation, simply telling them to wait.
Under their skeptical gazes, the water in the clay began to seep down slowly, drop by drop.
The water traveled through the gaps in the sugar crystals, dissolving and washing away the molasses that coated them.
Drops of dark brown liquid oozed from the small hole at the bottom of the loaves, dripping into the jars below.
And the originally brown sugar loaf began to change color, visibly lightening from top to bottom.
From brown to pale yellow, and then to a creamy white...
The process was slow but miraculous, like a silent metamorphosis.
Everyone held their breath, staring fixedly at the "fading" sugar as if witnessing a miracle of the Seven.
---
A day later.
When Lynn ordered the workers to remove the dried, cracked clay from the top and take out the transformed sugar loaf...
The entire plantation fell into a dead silence.
Jorah Mormont's eyes were as wide as copper plates; his jaw dropped low enough to fit a fist.
Daenerys covered her mouth with her hands, her violet eyes filled with disbelief.
Before them was a solid block as white as snow, glittering with a crystalline luster in the sunlight.
Lynn took the block of white sugar and squeezed it gently.
It crumbled instantly into countless white crystals, like diamond dust.
He pinched a bit and held it to Daenerys's lips.
Daenerys extended the tip of her tongue and tasted it.
Boom——!
A sweetness so pure it was extreme exploded in her mouth!
No impurities, no burnt bitterness. Only a pure sweetness that made the soul shiver!
"The... the food of the Gods..."
Jorah Mormont muttered to himself.
He had lived half a lifetime, traveled through Westeros and Essos, but never had he seen or tasted something so incredible.
He looked at Lynn in shock. Was the Lord a Maester of the Citadel in a past life?
"This is its true form."
Lynn tossed the white powder in his hand into the air.
The crystalline sugar dust danced in the sunlight like falling snow.
"In Westeros, the High Lords pay a fortune to buy a rare lump sugar from Lys to show off their status. They call it 'White Gold.'"
"A tiny piece costs a gold dragon."
"But their production is pitifully low, and it is far less pure than ours."
Lynn was very satisfied seeing the expressions of utter shock on Jorah and Daenerys's faces.
As a modern man, pulling out something simple like this was a dimensional strike against this era. It felt good.
"Now, tell me."
"What happens when this stuff—whiter than snow, sweeter than honey—appears at a royal banquet in King's Landing?"
Jorah's mind was reeling.
He could see it already!
The nobles of the Seven Kingdoms, waving bags of gold dragons, fighting to get their hands on a small pouch of this white powder called "sugar"!
Spices? Silk? In the face of this ultimate luxury, they would all fade into dullness.
This was the sweetest thing he had ever tasted in his life!
"They will go mad for it!"
Jorah's voice trembled.
"My Lord, you... you have created... a gold mine!"
Lynn's gaze turned West, toward the continent separated by the Narrow Sea.
"Meereen and Yunkai can blockade Slaver's Bay, but can they blockade the world?"
"They won't trade with us, but the Lords of Westeros will come crying and begging, bringing ships full of grain and steel to exchange for the sugar in our hands."
Daenerys looked at Lynn's profile, her violet eyes now holding a love that bordered on worship.
Faced with a blockade that could starve a city, Lynn didn't panic. Instead, he casually produced a weapon powerful enough to break the stalemate.
This was wisdom beyond mortal men.
"Pass my order!"
Lynn's voice rang out through the feverish plantation.
"Recruit workers from the loyal free folk. Expand the planting of sugarcane and the production of white sugar!"
"I want mountains of Astapori sugar!"
"Also," Lynn turned to Jorah Mormont, a sly glint in his eye.
"Send someone to Pentos. Leak this news to Magister Illyrio."
"Tell him I have a business deal that could empty the Iron Bank, and I want to talk."
"Tell him I want to lease every ship he has."
"Will he agree?"
Jorah hesitated.
"Illyrio is a merchant. He won't want to openly offend Meereen and Yunkai. His aid to us has been in the shadows..."
"He will."
Lynn interrupted him, stuffing a small pouch of the sample sugar into Jorah's hand.
"No merchant can refuse a profit of three hundred percent."
"If he does, he isn't a qualified merchant."
"Go, Jorah."
"Get those merchant ships. We can't wait, and the nobles of Westeros... they won't be able to wait either."
---