Chapter 79: Baelor 15
Mid 164 AC
The march had been long, arduous, and the sun beat down upon them all with the same intensity it had when he had departed Planky Town by ship, venturing upstream of the Greenblood as far as he and his forces could go. The going had then been slowed even further, as the lack of swift supply routes had meant they could only march as far as their secure positions allowed them to. There had been no attacks by bandits or marauders, but the men had been cautious as ever. Yet despite the hardships of the journey away from the coast, the spirits of the men had been high, higher than they normally would have been, for rather than a nebulous goal always out of reach, they were to witness history being made.
The reunification of Dorne beneath the rule of the Iron Throne, and the quelling of the revolt that had spiraled into civil war.
In the great flat plain that spread beneath the outline of Skyreach, the castle where this entire conflict had begun, army camps and their supply trains were scattered as far as the eye could see. With the cooler autumn upon them, cooler by Dorne's standards at least, the land had seen errant rains fall every so often, bringing greenery to the land that the horses and the livestock that fed the men were immensely grateful for. In the breeze flapped flags from across the southernmost lords, from the Reach, from the Stormlands, from Dorne, and even a few from the Westerlands, late additions to Lord Tyrell's forces but still appreciated.
Speaking of the man…
"My prince," Lord Lyonel Tyrell said, bowing as he entered the shade of the great open tent.
"Lord Tyrell," Baelor replied, tired from the journey and wishing for nothing more than for this to all be over. So rather than give some pompous speech, he returned to his seat and bade the Reachman to take one as well, which the lord did most swiftly. The man looked as worn as Baelor felt, his skin swarthy and roughened by contact with sun, sand and wind alike.
"I take it your journey up the Greenblood was uneventful?"
Baelor nodded, signaling a waiting servant for refreshments. "With the liberation of Planky Town, we had unfettered access to Dorne's interior, or at least as far as our ships would take us. Lords along the southern and western shores opened their gates to us as we sailed further and further inland, their wills to fight broken by the length of this conflict and its brutality. With the Greenblood secured, we can now begin the process of sending whatever aid we can to the lords and ladies nearest its shore, and thus the smallfolk under them."
"Indeed, had the Dornish not turned upon one another so thoroughly, I imagine we would have had a much harder time bringing them to heel," Lord Tyrell said, rubbing his face. "I must personally commend the efforts of Lord Qorgyle, without whose help I would have been sorely inadequate and unable to fulfill my duties as well as I have. It was he who brokered many meetings under flags of truce and ensured that our hosts did not turn upon us in our sleep, as well as consolidate forces that had been scattered whilst chasing raiders or seeking out enemies to fight."
"Indeed, I too had a loyal and indispensable ally in Lord Jordayne, for very much the same reasons. I take it you preferred the company of your army for safety, after the events at Skyreach that is?"
The Reach lord nodded. "Aye, I meant to continue to stay in the castles of my hosts, but not after that night. With how I almost met my end, being surrounded by men from mine own kingdom, and all their arms and armor, that brought me greater peace of mind than any stone walls. Just as well, as it did not put any undue strain upon the supplies of the lords and ladies I was attempting to ensure either remained neutral or supported our efforts, even if I had kept my previous lodging in their keeps as simple as possible."
That was the crux of it, wasn't it? Overstaying a welcome invited resentment and could foul the mood of the most gracious host, and in Dorne that seemed to be a surefire means of receiving poison in your drink or a dagger in your back. Baelor said nothing for a while, content to feel the cooling effect of his shaded tent.
"My prince?" his guest said, breaking the silence.
"Yes, Lord Tyrell?"
"I have heard tales of eastern Dorne's troubles, that in some ways they may have been worse than what the smallfolk in the west suffered. Is this true?"
"I cannot say for certain how one could compare the suffering of one group with another, lest we fall into banal peculiarities on the matter. If one group was suffering from a drought that brought ruin to their crops, and another suffered from storms that also ruined their crops, does the manner of disaster matter so much as the outcome?"
"No, I suppose not. Whether the crops were ruined by bandits, lack of rain, the lack of men to sow the fields or the lack of hands to harvest them before they rotted away, it matters little to the starving smallfolk. I came across terrible things in the west, of villages reduced to cannibalism when isolated by roving marauders, of people taking the chance to die of thirst rather than hope a well will become unfouled quickly enough to be safe to drink. Storehouses fit only for scorpions, livestock without shepherds and undefended from the jackals that roam the desert, orchards becoming choked with weeds as their tenders abandon the land or are killed…"
"I saw much the same, even with all my efforts to ensure the rebuilding after the conquest and then again the aid necessary to alleviate the worst of this civil war," Baelor replied, trying not to think on those terrible days. Disease destroying the strong whilst leaving the young and elderly, youth driven to joining bandits just to feed their families, the elderly with years of health left to them choosing to instead consume poison simply to alleviate the hunger of their grandchildren…
"T'is a good thing we have come here then, to see an end to it," Lyonel Tyrell said. "The lords of western Dorne are as tired of the fighting as I am, for they have suffered by far the worst of it. I have lost track of the minor houses that have been wiped out, or the scions of major lineages that have been reduced to singular members from revolts, assassins, or the ravages of disease."
The east had faced similar destruction amongst the nobility, less than the west it would seem, but no less devastating for those who had lost friends and family to this revolt. "Perhaps these deaths will not have been in vain, my good man. Should any Dornish wish for war again, there will be little needed to remind them of the price of such hasty decisions, and I have little doubt they would easily find those willing to tie themselves to such rash decisions."
"Aye, my prince," Lord Tyrell said, looking unsure of himself. Baelor had felt the same way not so long ago, and yet with every passing day, for every decision he continued to doubt, ten more he committed to having been the right to make at the time. "I only wish such loss had not occurred under my watch, for smallfolk and nobles alike. It is… it is not like the king's war, where we had a set enemy, where we had clear goals to accomplish and a simple path to victory. Towns to occupy, wells to seize, roads to watch and bandits to pursue. This time, we could not be certain if a sighted group was friend or foe, if a group was actually subservient to the lord they said they were, who committed what atrocity, or if soldiers within our ranks were secretly employed by our foes for something nefarious."
Baelor accepted the returning servant's offer, fresh well water with wedges of lemon and orange floating lazily within. All of this, of course, was highly secured and tested well before being prepared under watchful eyes. "Your losses are your own to grieve and come to terms with, as am I with mine own. We did what we could for the smallfolk and nobles alike, and we must accept that lest we fall into despair."
Lyonel Tyrell accepted a decanter of the same, his face showing a touch of surprise as the delicate flavor soothed his parched tongue. "I must take solace in that through my efforts, at least, I was able to better shelter the families of those who made the difficult decision to entrust them under my care. Assassins care not for whom they must kill if their employer wishes it so. Too many times there were catspaws and poisoners found attempting to end the lives of heirs, spares and the spouses of the lords and ladies under my banner, and more than what was acceptable succeeded in the end."
"I consider myself fortunate then, Lord Tyrell, that such underhanded acts were rare under my own governorship, as I was fortunate enough that the mere mention of my moniker often quelled brewing riots and brought fear into the hearts of those seeking to make trouble."
"Ah, yes, so I have heard. The Fyrestorm they call you, yes?"
Baelor nodded. "Indeed, and perhaps I have been too hasty to dislike it, for it has done more for keeping the peace than just words did. Entire towns would surrender upon learning of my approach or hold out just long enough to put together a favorable parlay that would stop any need for siegeworks. I consider myself fortunate then, that the ruling afterwards was often straightforward and done with little delay. The rebuilding and establishing of granaries, importing great amounts of food at as low of cost as possible for the lands that needed them the most, establishing watches and outposts in whatever settlements sat nearest troubled lands, hiring experienced trackers from the locals with the greatest to lose should they attempt to betray us…"
"I see," the Reachman replied. "So then I was not unwise to mirror such accomplishments, only held back by a lack of a legend to my name, and the willingness to go farther than even the most charitable of my vassals thought wise."
"How so?"
"I will not lie in that I sought to emulate what you had done, my prince, with the granaries, local loyal trackers, securing wells and the like, but the cheap importing of food? Ensuring the troops did not overreach or sack when taking a settlement? These were far harder to do under my command, especially when said troops were Dornish and their lords were chomping at the bit to exact vengeance upon a settlement or house that had wronged them. There had been many scores to settle before my time as governor, and under the guise of aiding me, I am afraid more than I would like to know were likely settled."
"So… many of the Dornish nobles allied or submitted to you out of opportunity to exact revenge, repay a slight or to gain an advantage over a rival, and not any actual sense of loyalty, duty, or fear."
"Aye, so it would seem." Lord Tyrell took another long sip of his flavored water, the balm evident from the sigh afterwards. "Some, like Lord Qorgyle, proved their worth time and time again, and the fact they are one of only a handful that have done so troubles me greatly. After this peace is declared, Dorne will be in ruins for years to come, east or west. I cannot simply stay here to govern these lands once more, if our good king even decided that I was worthy to do so again. I wish to go home to Highgarden and see to my house and my vassals. No doubt they have been plotting and playing against me all this time, their disdain for my family as clear as it was during the Dance."
"Come now, my lord, surely there will be something to be said for a man who managed to reunite a torn and tattered foreign land without the might of the Reach always at his beck and call?"
"Aye, for some houses, but for others, the Tyrells will always be upjumped stewards, perhaps for the next thousand years at least. Your house, at the very least, has a legacy just as old, but one filled with dragons, with actual power and majesty behind it, and a lineage many are willing to give a great deal to tie themselves to."
"Don't I know it," Baelor mumbled, rubbing his forehead. "Yet our dragons are gone, Lord Tyrell, even if half of the kingdoms don't yet realize it. It will fall to House Targaryen to no longer wield the club as we have, bashing any who rise against us with fire from the sky, but instead we must play the great game as all other kingly houses have, with the honeyed words of chivalric ideals and the blood of marriage ties. Yet therein lies a hope for us all, in that perhaps we shall learn to move away from such heavy-handed tactics, for as the two of us have seen in Dorne, it brings nothing but ruin and death. One can burn a town to the ground as many times as they wish, but that will never truly gain the loyalty and hearts of the people, only cow them for the time being and spur the fire in their hearts against you. Now, wherever I venture in the east of this dry land, I find children sharing my name, Targaryen banners flying besides those of houses who have submitted, and the laughter and relief of a people who have witnessed a prince move fleets and armies to come to their aid."
"Heavy is our king's brow, with the responsibility the Iron Throne casts upon him, as it does any who would tie themselves to it," Lyonel said. "While his time in the Vale has met with success, according to the last message I received, I can only hope his spirit has been raised enough that his words of a royal marriage are not rescinded for the debacle that Dorne turned into so soon after his conquest of this princedom."
"My brother is not one to readily go back on such an agreement, even one made without official recognition," Baelor said. "It is not in his nature to do so, and even with his time in the Vale, I doubt such oath keeping has left him. While none of us expected civil war to erupt after only two years under the Iron Throne, Dorne has proven throughout the centuries notoriously unruly when conquered. That it exploded as it did is most unusual, and I doubt history will reflect kindly upon this time."
"I can only hope so, my prince, as an opportunity for my sister to marry into House Targaryen… it would be of the biggest boons to my house since our raising from stewards during the Conquest itself."
"Correct me if I am wrong, my good lord, but I thought you were any only child?"
"Aye, I was during my younger years, but my father was not the Tyrell, my mother was. He, one of our most loyal bannermen, had taken the name in the agreement from my grandfather to ensure the Tyrell legacy, and as such when he passed, my mother naturally became one of my regents, being the last Lady Tyrell of my grandfather's line. At the end of the Dance, as part of an agreement, another one of our bannermen remarried my mother to ensure her cousins would not make a play for Highgarden, and he sired my sister before his own passing from a fever in the year of our king's birth. My half-sister is still a Tyrell, and though Victaria is only a few years older than our king, she is more than qualified to become his queen, as is any rose of Highgarden. I just worry as her only brother about her future, given…"
"What happened the last time a Targaryen married a lady of the Reach," Baelor finished. He had not given it much thought, as the girl was obviously younger than the Dance, but most lords and ladies alive had survived that terrible civil war. Dorne too would now be shaped by the generation that survived their own civil war, and as such the malleability that allowed for rules to be bent or even remade had been brought low for both. Baelor neither supported nor was against Victaria Tyrell becoming his goodsister, as he had not met her and did not have a measure of her or her family. Lord Tyrell seemed well enough, but he had been on a campaign for years in Dorne, where learning to mask your intentions was as important as knowing where a clean well was. How well would he fare back in the Reach, with years away and years of experience alike under his belt, and amongst lords and ladies whose honeyed words could be as sharp as Dornish stingers?
"I believe, my lord," he continued, setting his drink aside, confident his guards were watching it with as much scrutiny as they were watching him. "that the solution to your potential problems is not much of a solution in and of itself, but more of a mindset. Take, for example, your treatment of the Dornish leading up to the massacre at Skyreach, and the immediate aftermath. Even if it did not bring them over to your side as it did mine, for reasons you have already stated, you secured a foothold in western Dorne you would have otherwise lacked with both nobles and smallfolk alike."
"Yes, and I can only imagine how the lords would have been had I taken residence in their keeps whenever my forces stopped along the way," Lyonel replied. "I imagine it would not have been long before I suffered some unfortunate incident, which would have likely driven the nominally loyalist Dornish into the arms of the rebellious lords and ladies. Instead of a civil war amidst a revolt, you would have been left with a revolt in the middle of a civil war, of east fighting west and the lines much more clearly drawn."
"Aye, and the fact that it was not so overwhelming as that is a small mercy in and of itself," Baelor said. "Yet it is good you were careful when treating with the nobles, as your protection and sheltering of the smallfolk to the best of your ability was an even larger boon to your cause. To be shown that you were here to restore order and peace and not drain them of coin and livelihoods likely did more to endear you to the nobility and commonfolk than it did to drive them to plotting and banditry to stay alive."
"Be that is it may, my prince, I am ready for this peace to become a reality. I am tired, and wish to return home to my family, as no doubt you too wish to as well."
"Aye, and with the lords that have aided us thus far, ensuring a lasting peace in Dorne as it rebuilds and tends to its wounds will be far easier than it would have been after the first war. With so many houses having suffered from their fellows, the likelihood of them banding together again to rise in revolt has been dashed for hopefully long enough for them to become loyal vassals. Only time will tell, in the end, but I do have my hopes, now that we stand so close to our mutual goals."
"Will not Lord Baratheon continue the governorship, and then yourself upon reaching your majority?"
"Initially, yes, that was the plan, but after all that we have seen, after all that I have seen… I too am ready to return home. Lord Baratheon is as well, and I will have to inform my brother that he will need to determine who else may be the bet suited for ensuring this kingdom's recovery. Dorne will be in no position to even dwell upon the thought of rebellion once this peace is secured, for it has been too damaged, too broken by its own lords and whatever other forces have been brought to this land."
"So, you found evidence as well?" the Reachman asked. "Signs of players not of Dornish or even Westerosi origin?"
"Aye, from what evidence we have managed to gather, Arthur Martell was planning this revolt from the very day he surrendered to us at Sunspear, though the primary forces behind it likely did not emerge until a year or two after that. Caches of weapons in towns and villages along roads and routes that would not be suspected, plans for eliminating couriers or planting falsified documents upon them to incite trouble between lords, the means of siphoning supplies and funneling them to small bands of men meant to harass and sap the strength of larger forces, all the while playing the part of a loyal vassal… it was all there, and yet there was more to it than that." Nevermind how suspicious it all was, how readily Lord Yronwood had found that cache of documents, though judging from his surprise, it could have been a simple accident he quickly took advantage of. The man was quick with both mind and decisions, as Baelor had noticed, and the prince would not put it past the man to cause something only so that he could battle it and gain favor from defeating the very issue he caused.
"A man under Lord Qorgyle's command came to me, by the Seven, it must be months ago by now. With him came evidence by testimony and parchment alike that Lord Martell was not the only one planning to wage war with cowardly ambushes and feigned loyalty. Lords in support of Lord Martell but against the revolt or vice versa, and similarly lords who sought to wage war upon rivals under the guise of supporting either us or the revolt. It is such a mess, one that will never truly become known to us, especially with our most recent findings. You mentioned plots at play from outside of Westeros?"
"Yes," Baelor said. "Even the notes we have thus found of the late lord indicate it was something he had noticed as well. If they were attempting to aid us, then they made no efforts to make contact or link up with our forces. Yet they did not seem to be of aid to any primary faction of this civil war, noted as having presence in more than one opposing lord's camp."
"To say nothing of those operating under false claims," Lord Tyrell replied. "I am sickened by it, but the slaughter of entire villages for the simple reason that it was what these scoundrels were instructed to do was enough to turn more than a few Dornish lords and ladies to our side. Such slaughter is not the way of these lands, of Westeros in general, save for the most brutal and unforgiving of conflicts. Even then, my prince, there are rules by which we hold ourselves when engaging in war. Emptying villages of their smallfolk and killing them in a pit is beyond the pale for even the likes of the Ironborn and wild men in the Vale and far North."
"The transformation of such rules into outright laws is another great undertaking I will be aiming to accomplish once I have returned to Kings Landing," the prince said. "My brother has expressed concern in the past for the wide-ranging laws of the lands, disparate even within the same kingdoms, and it is my hope that a full body of law may be compiled and organized to aid in administering justice and protecting the rights of all men and women in the kingdoms. My ancestor Jaehaerys, at the bequest of his wife, saw to the abolishing of First Night, and while rumors persist on occasion of lords still partaking in that disgusting excuse of a 'right', it is not the only example of such antiquated laws we would be better off without." He turned to Lord Tyrell, a thought coming to him. "Lord Tyrell, do you by chance have any knowledge of the laws of the Reach that are specifically meant for the protection of the smallfolk?"
"Not particularly, no, my prince," the man replied. "Are there?"
"After what we have seen in Dorne, if there are not, then there should be," Baelor replied. "I bore down on the army of the Stormlands when Dorne was conquered, to see them behave themselves. Looting was done methodically, without wanton destruction or loss of life, and Seven help any man who attempted or committed rape under my leadership, for it did not matter if he was lord, heir, spare, or some simple levy. I saw to justice, and with my just hand our army managed to see as little damage done in a war as there had been when Jaehaerys won a war without losing a single man."
"Yet he had dragons when he and his sons burned the Dornish invasion fleet."
"Yes, he did, and we do not, hence the need for laws that will not only be in place for the protection of the smallfolk, but also laws that will be enforced after our time has come and gone. What good is a law that a son or grandson might repeal at the request of a close friend, who stands to directly benefit from such a law being rescinded? No matter what our place in society, from the humblest farmer to the mightiest king, we are all subservient to the Seven, and it is by their will that we hold ourselves to laws that bring us above the fetid mess that other lands find themselves in. A land that does not punish rape or the murder of entire villages is no land I would wish to live in."
"I agree, yet the rights of lords must be considered as well. Mine own kingdom's unity would not fare well if the lords were not taken into account on such matters."
"I know, and therein lies the issue. How might we create laws that govern men equally, whilst also considering the greater rights and responsibilities of lords and the smallfolk under their rule? A question that has no doubt vexed the greatest sages and scholars of centuries past."
A horn sounded from the keep of Skyreach, a long and low blast that signaled the lull had ended. From the sea of tents, their banners signifying them as lords and ladies of Dorne, of the lords that had served under the Reach and those that had served under a Targaryen prince, groups moved out towards the storied castle. Calling for his own lords to be assembled, and his own guards close by his side, Baelor bid Lord Tyrell farewell. They would speak again of matters pertaining to the future, but later, as the day was finally upon them.
Peace would finally come to Dorne.
There was little glorious about the signing of such a treatise. One would think there would be a joyous mood for the victors, and a reluctant acceptance from the vanquished, but the truth of the matter was, Skyreach held no such emotions within its halls. The joy had long since been robbed from these halls when the first crossbow bolts had struck down Lord Martell, and as time had gone by, less and less joy had filled the hearts of the Dornish lords. Normally, such a gathering of lords and ladies who had been at one another's throats for the better part of two years would have invited disaster, but the gathered were silent.
Baelor was grateful that fire in the hearts of the Dornish had sputtered and been reduced to mere embers. Even if the great hall had divided itself amongst the factions that had arisen during the civil war, they were a loose thing, easily mingled and difficult to exactly tell apart. Banners were held steady, but there was a morose feeling among the gathered, one of shared loss that even enemies could, in some way, find the means to bond over.
Drafted upon a massive sheet of imported paper, hailing from distant Yi-Ti, the words were writ large and clear for all to see, and upon the bottom of the sheet, the treaty stood upon a dais in the great hall. With Baelor and Lord Tyrell equally presiding over the ceremony, it was a slow but steady progress to receive every signature needed. Every lord or lady, ruling or sent in the stead of their sovereign, came before the dais and offered the seal of their house, but it would not be signed with wax or ink.
Instead, an older tradition was to be at play here, one not seen in Dorne since the final surrender of Yorick Yronwood the Fifth and the end of Nymeria's War. Words were wind, after all, and the Dornish had shown that words held little sway when tempers ran hot when under threat or with desire for vengeance. So, instead of merely pledging allegiance to the Iron Throne and an end to the conflict, or simply using their house seals to be signed in ink, a small pin was presented to each representative. With a firm prick to their thumb, they would thoroughly wet the stamp before pressing it into the parchment, signifying that upon their blood their house had agreed to this document.
Whether the tradition was one of the First Men or the Andals, none of the maesters knew, but in Dorne it was held in high regard. Trusting the proffered pin to not be poisoned mirrored guest right, even in times of conflict, and to sign with blood was a pact older than any could remember. It reflected how houses often settled disputes with marriage, and as the number of bloodied signatures began to form at the treaty's bottom, to Baelor, the act again brought to his mind another tradition.
The words of his own house.
House Targaryen had long ruled with fire, spewed from the mounts that had soared in the skies and ruled all beneath their wings. Aegon had united the kingdoms north of Dorne with dragonfire and cunning, and yet that same dragonfire had brought ruin to his own house generations later. No more could their house simply call upon a dragonrider to wipe out an army, or cow a rebellious people in submission through the threat of immolation. Now, they too would have to hold true to the second portion of their house's words.
With Fire and Blood.
Alliances through marriage would be used to secure not only their place as rulers of an entire continent, but the cultivation of familial ties with powerful lords and ladies would ensure their will, should the Seven bless it, be used for the benefit of the continent in its entirety. Baelor had seen in the first war the troubles the Dornish faced, and in his time searching for the ancient Wyl treasure, he had seen the lengths some would go to in order to hold onto their power over a people they had all but enslaved. Now, after the devastation of Dorne during this revolt, he had seen what happened to those deemed as acceptable losses by men and women who cared not for how their power and riches came, only that it did unimpeded.
The smallfolk of Dorne had suffered greatly in the rush of their lords to bring ruin to rivals and settle old feuds. A civil war of such violence and chaos had no arisen in centuries, and the merest glance at the devastation being reported brought an ache to Baelor's heart. Even with the east being noticeably less affected, thanks in part to Baelor's insistence on unification and relief, Dorne as a whole had suffered famine, battle and disease in numbers he had not thought possible in so short a span of time. At worst, the predictions were that perhaps one in twenty Dornish in all of Dorne had perished in the two years since the start of this civil war, with more surely to follow as the issues with food continued. Thousands had fled the kingdom as the ravages of the conflict continued to spiral, likely contributing to this predicted loss, and with how long it would take for the kingdom to regain its stability even in peace, there was no telling just how many of these thousands of Dornish would simply not return.
Yet he had also seen the troubles that arose when the people cared not for the rules of their nobles, no matter how just or sensible, and turned upon them for one reason or another. Revolts by smallfolk over the taxation needed to secure the borders of their lords, the cessation of trade and the lack of manpower necessary to support the orchards, irrigated fields and fishing that sustained so many of their families. He could understand why they would do so, and yet the shortsightedness that panic, ambition and fear brought out in the masses terrified him as much as it saddened him.
The most infamous had been the Daynes of High Hermitage, for in one fell swoop, they had been reduced to a single child, fostering away with kin in Starfall, the rest having been slaughtered by a mob led by those who had called themselves the Seven Sands. Bastards of no known houses who had portrayed themselves as religious leaders, their rhetoric spurred smallfolk that eventually overwhelmed the castle's reduced defenders and saw the family within savaged and murdered without restraint. It was only when loyalists had fled to Starfall that the situation was made known, and the resurgent main branch of the Daynes that returned in force ensured that the mob and their leaders were put to the sword. Yet the orphaned Dayne lordling was not an exception, but just one example among many. Mobs of Dornish ripping apart nobles trying to distribute what food they could, bastards coming out of the woodwork to make plays for the seats of houses great and small, zealots rallying entire villages to depart for safety only to end up dying in the desert after losing their way, leaving the lands desolated and unable to support the people left behind…
House after house had suffered, and even if their actions felt justified, these smallfolk had no knowledge of just how horribly they had upset the balance in Dorne. As Baelor understood it, the security of a lord's domain was intrinsically linked to their own reputation and power, and if a lord could not rule his smallfolk, he could not protect them either. With the knowledge of a lord's inability to do so, rivals and bandits alike would flood into his lands, doing damn near as they pleased with little fear of quick reprisals. Such actions only further worsened a house's grip upon their lands, and from what he had learned from Lord Tyrell, dozens of landed knights and similarly minor houses had found themselves extinguished or expelled from their ancestral seats, many fleeing only to save the lives of their families. Such refugees and their remaining retainers were scattered throughout western Dorne, some seeking vassalship under other lords in the hope of some scrap of normalcy, and others were seeking to flee to eastern Dorne, where such destruction and chaos had been mercifully lesser by comparison and where other Dornish might prove to be hospitable to such refugees. Yet others still were set to leave Dorne altogether, taking with them what little wealth and loyal retainers they could in order to seek better fortunes elsewhere in Westeros.
After what they had suffered at the hands of the very people they had tried to keep safe as per their noble duties, Baelor could not fault them for such a decision. It mirrored to Baelor the scale of destruction the war in the Reach so many centuries ago had wrought, where in the end the Manderlys were driven from the Reach entirely and eventually found themselves in the North. Only this time, it was not just one major house and perhaps a handful of ennobled knights and their kin, but swaths of lords and ladies from across the west. There was no telling how long such chaos would reign in the peace that followed, of exiles attempting to recruit support from Westerosi lords and sellswords alike to reclaim their ancestral lands. Nor did he know the outcome of the squabbles that would undoubtedly erupt from neighbors eager to claim the lands now left vacant, yet those same houses would be wary of the smallfolk that had killed or driven their former lords from their seats.
He had seen the future once, and it had nearly driven him mad. The thought of his distant relatives scattered and alone in the world after being brought to ruin by conspiracy, madness and a failure to adhere to that which had made them loved and respected… it filled his heart with sadness, anger, and a resounding determination to see that it would not come to pass so easily. It was part of the reason he had so thoroughly hidden the chest he had found in the old ruins of Darkwell, one now ensconced within the great vault in which he kept so many of the other treasures found beneath the Undersand. He had many plans about how to rebuild the strength of his house, ones that did not call for assassins or wars or the spilling of blood, but in the event that things began to turn against his house, events that not even the greatest of speeches, pledges, laws or even concessions could manage… there would at least be something else to aid him or his descendants should it ever come to that.
Yet he tried not to dwell on such thoughts of a bleak and dismal future, for as the final signatory placed their bloodied house sigil upon the great paper, he and Lord Tyrell did the same. Their bloodied thumbs coated the stamps signifying their overseeing of this document, and with the final stamps, the Treaty of Skyreach was made official. Even as news continued to spread throughout Dorne of the end of the conflict and the signing of such a historical document, Baelor could not help but feel there was more yet to come.
Not from Dorne, but from what it had wrought. Exiled Dornish houses could turn to banditry should none accept them, rebellious smallfolk might need marshalled forces to see them quelled and proper rule restored, pirates off of the coast would need dealing with, and to say nothing of the conspiracies that were mingling in the evidence he and Lord Tyrell had gathered on either side of the kingdom.
Amidst a small commotion, a messenger appeared before them, one of the maester's aides if Baelor recalled, and with him he carried a large bird.
A raven.
A white raven.
"Winter is upon us, it would seem," Lord Tyrell said as the delegates began to depart the castle, their immediate tasks done, but so much work lay ahead of them all.
"I can only pray it will be a mild one, as it was last time," Baelor said, doubting his words even as they left his lips. Knowing how often tragedies coincided with one another, this winter could be a harsh one for the kingdoms, and with Dorne just now beginning to even plan on how to rebuild, there was no telling how much more chaos and death the lands would suffer. He had done what he could and would continue to do so, but in the end, even as a prince, he was only one man.
"Will you depart for Kings Landing then, my prince?"
"Aye, but first I have several stops along the way, my lord. First to Planky Town, to see the troops from Lord Velaryon returned to his command. Then to Sunspear, to pay my respects to my foster father, and to ensure the seat of the Martells will not fall to ruin with the current heirs safely in the Stormlands."
"After that?"
"I… am not entirely sure," Baelor replied. "I intend to visit Stormhall upon my return, perhaps for a moon, so that I may rest before rejoining my house. Lord Wytch has just had a son with his lady wife, and I wish to see him again after finally being rid of this war."
"Ah, I see. Lord Wytch has been a thorn in the side of a few of my vassals, so I have heard, but so long as they do not turn such attention upon me, it is none of my concern how he has angered them so, and if he is indeed your friend, I should think he would have little to worry about as well," Lord Tyrell said with a shrug. "I too must return home, I have been gone from my children for far too long, and I miss my wife terribly. It will be nice, being able to walk around without the dust and sand working its way into my clothes whenever the wind picks up. Until the king's victory celebrations then, my prince?"
"Until then, Lord Tyrell," Baelor replied. His brother's last message had spoken of the need for a tourney to celebrate the end of the Vale's troubles with the mountains clans, and now Daeron would likely tack on Baelor's own signing of the Treaty of Skyreach to such celebrations.
That he did not wish to partake in celebrating the end of such a long and dangerous time in Dorne was something Baelor would, as he did with most things, keep to himself. He would join his family once again in Kings Landing and see to the end of these conflicts alongside his brother in a more celebratory fashion. Now? Now he could return to life away from war, away from the deaths of smallfolk, and perhaps for a time, enjoy a peace he had so thoroughly earned.
"I wonder," he mused, his bodyguards sticking close to him as he made for the castle stables, "what name Casper and Mylenda have chosen for their son?"
End of Arc 4