House Whent, House Darry, House Dayne. This was officially the Losers' Coalition.
Once Arthur had built up his power base a little more, he could invite William Mooton of Maidenpool to join them for drinks.
Though honestly, William Mooton wasn't exactly a great teammate. He was overweight, inherently cowardly, and had essentially been dragged into the war kicking and screaming.
Still, at least they all still held their ancestral lands. They hadn't been reduced to the miserable state of the Golden Company—exiled across the Narrow Sea to fight as sellswords, unable to return home for over a century.
"We lost so completely," Raymun Darry said, his voice thick with pain. "Half our lands, gone. Ninety percent of our treasury, gone. That gold was supposed to pay for badly needed renovations to Darry. Add that to all the knights we lost at the Trident, and the deaths of my three older brothers… we have absolutely zero hard power left."
Castle Darry was ancient, but relatively small, and it desperately needed repairs.
Furthermore, elite, house-sworn knights couldn't simply be replaced overnight. It took years to train them, let alone equip them with warhorses and custom plate armor.
Now, House Darry lacked the funds to even hire freeriders or hedge knights.
To maintain a standing military force, a lord needed two things: land/gold, and personal prestige.
After all, even sellswords preferred to follow a commander with a winning record; high win rates meant a higher guarantee of actually getting paid.
Looking back across the entire history of the Seven Kingdoms, the punishment inflicted on House Darry was extraordinarily severe.
Even House Peake of Starpike, whose rebellion literally resulted in a King being crushed to death by a rock, hadn't been hammered this hard.
House Darry had absolutely no capacity to resist.
Raymun Darry was just a boy. How could he possibly defy the combined might of the Iron Throne? Especially when Robert Baratheon, fresh off his victory at the Trident, seemed like an invincible, wrathful god of war.
And so, everyone obediently emptied their vaults, swallowed their pride, and accepted the brutal terms dictated by the Red Keep.
Couldn't afford the fines right now? No problem. The crown would gladly let you borrow the money, and the compound interest would slowly bleed you to death.
The Royalist lords were squeezing their domains dry just to make the payments. Draining their wealth rendered them weak, pathetic, and compliant—which was exactly what the Iron Throne wanted.
This kind of ruthless financial warfare wasn't Robert's style. Robert despised "counting coppers." This systemic strangulation was entirely the work of the Hand of the King, Jon Arryn.
"It was all orchestrated by Lord Arryn, issued by royal decree," Raymun continued.
Truth be told, when the defeated Royalists looked at the leadership of the rebel alliance—the Wolf, Stag, Fish, Falcon, and Lion—they didn't harbor exceptional hatred for the two young men, Robert and Eddard. Their true, venomous hatred was reserved for the three older men.
Tywin Lannister for the brutal sack of King's Landing. Hoster Tully for his opportunistic betrayal. And Jon Arryn for wielding the butcher's cleaver of financial sanctions.
"The Kingmaker," Ser Lucas remarked with biting sarcasm. "He is the true power in King's Landing now. The King has essentially handed the realm to his surrogate father. It may be the dynasty of the Stag, but it is the Falcon who actually rules."
Even all the way down in Dorne, they had heard of Robert's hands-off approach to ruling.
Looking at the political architecture of the new regime: Ned Stark, suffering from severe southern PTSD, had immediately retreated to the North.
Hoster Tully had underperformed during the war and failed to secure a single position at court. (Ironically, despite being younger than Jon Arryn, Hoster's health was failing far faster than his elderly son-in-law's).
Even Tywin Lannister, who had swooped in at the very end to secure the capital, had been completely frozen out of the Small Council.
With King Robert acting as an absentee landlord, the undisputed master of King's Landing was the aging but vigorous Jon Arryn.
An absolute monopoly on power wielded by an elderly Hand, serving under a King who only cared about partying—it was a bizarre, precarious setup.
"It works out well enough for now. The King dreams, and the Hand builds those dreams. Lord Arryn is drowning in the affairs of the realm; to him, we are just minor annoyances he's likely already forgotten about," Arthur observed.
Jon Arryn appeared completely untouchable right now, but the old man's energy was finite, and he was spending it all trying to patch the massive cracks in the kingdom.
Having extracted their wealth and officially broken them, Jon Arryn had already begun to loosen the leash on the former Royalists.
In Arryn's eyes, outside of the Dornishmen, the Royalists situated near King's Landing lacked any truly dangerous, capable leaders. They were beaten dogs, destined to obey.
After the severe beatings, the losers had submitted.
Allowing these "cowards" to slowly recover on their own was the Iron Throne's version of mercy.
But hatred always outlasts gratitude. Jon Arryn would learn that lesson eventually.
Arthur stood and poured fresh glasses of lemon water for Raymun, Ser Lucas, and the others, breaking the heavy tension.
"For now, we just stay home and farm. We don't even think about getting involved in the mess at King's Landing," Arthur smiled faintly.
"Even titans like Tywin Lannister and Mace Tyrell were shut out. We wouldn't stand a chance anyway," Ser Lucas scoffed coldly.
Among the major players of the Seven Kingdoms, Eddard Stark and Doran Martell were the anomalies—choosing isolation of their own accord.
Hoster Tully had simply failed to earn a seat. But Tywin Lannister and Mace Tyrell had been deliberately and meticulously excluded from power.
Anyone with half a brain could see that the political appointments in King's Landing were a minefield waiting to detonate.
Arthur wasn't worried. The real chaos was yet to come.
"That's the style of the new regime. It has nothing to do with us for now," Arthur smiled.
Politics was, fundamentally, a game of personnel.
For all the praise heaped upon Jon Arryn and Robert Baratheon, one only had to look at the people they promoted to realize the entire structure was a rotting mess.
Power in King's Landing was divided into three distinct spheres: the Small Council, the royal court of the Red Keep, and the City Watch (the Gold Cloaks).
On the Small Council, Jon Arryn held an absurd monopoly, serving simultaneously as Hand of the King and Master of Laws, while largely overseeing the treasury. Varys, Pycelle, and Barristan were all holdovers from the Mad King. Robert's only personal addition was his brother, Stannis. The inner circle was dangerously small and incestuous.
Furthermore, Jon Arryn lacked the energy to actively purge and replace personnel, leading to a terrifying level of stagnation.
The fact that Varys, the Master of Whisperers, could hold his position for twenty years across two completely opposed dynasties was proof that the bureaucratic deep state was entirely untouchable.
Historically, Small Council seats rotated frequently to ensure loyalty and prevent the consolidation of power. This current setup was incredibly abnormal.
And it wasn't just the Small Council. The Kingsguard was thoroughly compromised.
Setting aside the Kingslayer, you had men like Boros Blount, Meryn Trant, and Preston Greenfield—meaning four of the seven White Swords were essentially bought and paid for by House Lannister.
Not to mention the army of red cloaks and Lannister gold Cersei brought with her to the capital, or the fact that she was constantly stuffing the royal household with her own relatives as squires and attendants.
Compared to all that, putting an honorable, slightly naive frog-eater in charge of the Gold Cloaks was actually one of their better decisions.
This abstract, chaotic, and fundamentally broken power structure didn't seem to bother Robert or Jon Arryn in the slightest. You could honestly say they brought their eventual fates entirely upon themselves.
Arthur had studied Jon Arryn's political style. Arryn was a man obsessed with micromanaging trivial details while completely ignoring massive, systemic threats. He was so bogged down by daily administrative red tape that he failed to notice the bombs being planted right under his desk.
Arryn wasn't engaging in a true redistribution of wealth or power; he was simply shuffling the existing pieces around on the board, trying to keep everyone moderately unhappy but compliant.
"We are friends, Raymun. When House Whent recovers its strength, I swear I will extend my hand to aid House Darry," Arthur promised the young lord.
"Thank you, Arthur," Raymun nodded, his gratitude genuine.
Raymun didn't quite understand where Arthur's absolute confidence was coming from. Harrenhal had been stripped of a staggering amount of gold; earning that much back through conventional means would take decades.
But looking at Arthur, Raymun couldn't help but feel a deep sense of trust. Perhaps this was the elusive charisma that defined a true leader.
Arthur's wealth-generation engines were already accelerating, but he needed to ensure stable, controlled growth.
Merely becoming the "Timely Rain" of the Riverlands—a wealthy benefactor handing out loans—was nowhere near enough to satisfy Arthur's true ambitions.
"No matter what happens, House Darry will stand with you," Raymun promised.
House Darry had fallen lower than stray dogs. For Arthur to treat him with such respect and dignity now, combined with their shared identity as defeated Royalists, forged a powerful bond between them.
"And I make the same promise to you," Arthur smiled.
---
The fickle soul of the Riverlands. The Riverlords were historically infamous for constantly shifting their allegiances to match the prevailing winds.
The lords of the Trident weren't exactly known for their simple, unwavering loyalty. Backstabbing was practically their regional pastime.
Whenever a ruling king showed weakness, his Riverlord vassals were always the first to turn their cloaks.
The first Edmure Tully fought alongside the First Men King Tristifer IV, the "Hammer of Justice," winning ninety-nine battles.
But the moment Tristifer died, Ser Edmure immediately bent the knee to the invading Andal conqueror, Armistead Vance.
When the Andal King Humfrey I Teague tried to forcefully suppress the worship of the Old Gods with the backing of the Faith Militant, House Blackwood, House Vance of Atranta, and House Tully immediately launched a massive rebellion.
Roderick Blackwood even invited the Storm King, Arlan III Durrandon, to invade and crush his own liege lord.
Later, when the Ironborn of House Hoare invaded to drive out the Storm Kings, Lothar Bracken, Theo Charlton, and several other Riverlords immediately betrayed the Storm King and joined forces with Harwyn Hardhand to slaughter their former allies.
As for Harren the Black, his tyranny made him universally despised across the entire region. The moment Aegon's dragons appeared, the Riverlords rose up in a unified, massive rebellion against him.
However, after nearly three centuries of relatively stable Targaryen rule, this chaotic, treacherous nature had somewhat settled, and the region's reputation had slightly improved.
But now, reduced to poverty and stripped of power, these miserable, beaten lords had no choice but to huddle together for warmth.