Chapter 205: I Swear by My Orthodox Targaryen Bloodline

After marrying Lady Lysa Arryn, Petyr Baelish obtained the title of Protector of the Vale; by leveraging his dual status as the stepfather of Lord Robin Arryn and the husband of Lady Lysa, Littlefinger could barely manage to mobilize the armies of House Arryn.

Fortunately, Arthur had ordered all the houses of the Vale to send troops north, either to retake Winterfell or to assist the Night's Watch in defending against the army of Wildlings, so the military strength of each house in the Vale had dropped by several levels.

Regarding the Vale, which had the strongest defenses in the Seven Kingdoms, and Littlefinger, who was hiding inside the Eyrie and refusing to come out, Arthur truly did not have many powerful means to deal with them at the moment.

Therefore, he could only use a method that couldn't be brought to the table, such as "sending an assassin."

The reason for using the brute Bloodthirsty Aegon was that if any mishaps occurred later, the Frey family could be used to take the blame.

The meeting with this eldest son of Innes was arranged in the weapon display room of the North Drum Tower in the Red Keep.

The North Drum Tower was one of the seven iron-capped drum towers of the Red Keep; from the lookout slits of the tower, one could still see the Rhaenys's Hill and the ruins of the Dragonpit to the northwest.

After the Marquess of Frey finished communicating with his son, all irrelevant personnel exited the small room, leaving the King and the Bloodthirsty Aegon, who had secretly entered King's Landing.

"I know you don't think much of your father, and you don't want to inherit his title and lands."

Arthur first made some small talk, then changed the subject, "But if you want to get what you deserve as the eldest son, I can order your father to make a... that complies with the laws of the kingdom."

"Let's just keep the status quo, Your Majesty." Bloodthirsty Aegon snorted coldly, rejecting the King's good intentions.

He also knew that, burdened with the crime of kinslaying, he would never be able to obtain the lands of The Crossing and The Twins from his father's hands.

And his father also preferred his younger brother, known as "Bug," Rhaegar Frey.

Arthur smiled slightly, "Innes told you the location for this time, right?"

The night was deep; it was better to keep it short and go back to cuddle with the women.

Bloodthirsty Aegon nodded, indicating he understood.

"Heart's Home, the seat of House Corbray. As far as I know, the old widower Leonor Corbray has had a change of heart, and Lord Petyr Baelish acted as a matchmaker, introducing the daughter of a wealthy merchant from Gulltown to the old Count Corbray."

Arthur gave a rough introduction to the background, then explained the task in detail: "On the day old Corbray marries the merchant's daughter, Baelish and several great lords who support him will all appear at Heart's Home, and your cousin Black Walder will also be there. What you need to do is kill Black Walder and Petyr Baelish."

Heart's Home is near the bay south of the Fingers, not far from the Eyrie.

Bloodthirsty Aegon nodded, "I understand. This time, either I die, or Black Walder dies."

Black Walder's death was most beneficial to his family's interests, which is why Bloodthirsty Aegon responded this way.

But Arthur did not think so; killing Littlefinger was the primary goal of this trip, and Black Walder was just a bonus, so the King emphasized again:

"Petyr Baelish is the most important target. Even if he flees to the Eyrie, you must kill him for me and cut off his head."

It wouldn't do to just make people work without giving them any benefits; Arthur used a "carrot" hanging over his head to tempt Bloodthirsty Aegon into working diligently:

"As long as you complete the task, I will order all your crimes to be pardoned, allowing you to walk in the world as an innocent man."

For a person like Bloodthirsty Aegon, he did not care for worldly things, so the King made such a promise.

"I will complete the task, not only for you, but also for my father."

Aegon, born to do dirty work, responded this way.

The King was very satisfied with this, patted him on the shoulder, and left the place.

Arthur I, accompanied by a large group of guards including Anguy Bracken, Podrick, and Will, did not want to return to Maegor's Holdfast in such a swaggering manner. To avoid detection, he led his men in a wide circle around the walls of the Red Keep, circled to the South Drum Tower where he could see Blackwater Bay, and then took the opportunity to visit the Tower of the Hand to see Queen Margaery.

As the royal residence, the number of floors in Maegor's Holdfast did not follow the Red Keep's feature of being related to the number seven. The reason was simple: after King Maegor, who built this building, ascended the throne, he fought the "Poor Fellows" and other Faith Militant groups for six years, so how could he possibly follow the rules of the Seven.

In fact, Maegor's Holdfast was built with exactly nine floors. Except for the first and second floors, which were the connected "Queen's Ballroom," the other seven floors all had master bedrooms for the royal family to live in.

Since he was already there, Arthur decided to persuade Margaery to move into the master bedroom on the fifth floor of Maegor's Holdfast.

After climbing the stairs of the Tower of the Hand, the guards on duty had already reported the King's arrival to the nobles inside.

Hobber Redwyne was the first to greet him in the "small hall" of the Tower of the Hand.

"Your Majesty, it's so late, why did you come in person?"

Although his father, Count Paxter Redwyne, had already taken office as the new Hand of the King, for some reason, having listened to rumors from someone, Paxter had not moved into the Tower of the Hand.

"I suddenly wanted to see my wife and the child in her womb. Where is your father?"

Count Redwyne should be living in a small courtyard near the Godswood of the Red Keep, but Arthur asked knowing the answer.

Hobber scratched his head and smiled awkwardly, "He listened to a servant who was wagging his tongue, saying that there is a Hand's curse in the Tower of the Hand, so he is still living in the courtyard of the Master of Ships."

Starting from Jon Arryn, to Duke Eddard Stark, then to Duke Tywin Lannister, as well as Cersei's short-lived Hand Harys Swyft, and then Mace Tyrell, five consecutive Hands of the King died unnaturally in just over two years.

This made Count Paxter suspicious, and after hearing the words of a certain servant, he refused to move into the Tower of the Hand.

"He can live wherever he wants, but the Tower of the Hand cannot be wasted. After Queen Margaery moves into Maegor's Holdfast, all the Reachmen nobles and noblewomen who are not members of the Small Council must move in here for me."

Arthur ordered.

There were simply too many Reachmen in the Red Keep, and centralizing their residences was for the convenience of management.

Hobber agreed; where the Reachmen lived was not his concern, but the other layer of meaning in the King's words was the point.

"Is Queen Margaery moving into Maegor's Holdfast?"

The two talked as they walked and had already arrived at the door of Margaery's room.

Members of the Queen's entourage had already opened the door for the King.

After seeing his wife wearing a loose robe, Arthur I answered Hobber's question.

"That's right, my wife, Margaery, must move into the master bedroom on the fifth floor of Maegor's Holdfast. That is the residence of House Targaryen; whether it is safety or the spaciousness of the rooms, it is better than the Tower of the Hand."

Margaery was not yet at the stage where her pregnancy was showing; apart from her loose clothing, one could basically not tell that she was already pregnant.

"Your Majesty, your late-night visit makes me exceptionally..." The Queen of House Tyrell looked a bit happy, and it was unknown whether it was faked or sincere.

Arthur held her arm and helped her to the bedside to sit down, "Your current state is very good; don't be like Sansa, eating lemon cakes all day long. Walk appropriately and eat more meat and vegetables."

Queen Margaery nodded heavily, seeming to appreciate her husband's concern very much.

In the time it took to say these few words, five members of the entourage had already poured into the room. This group of women crowded near the King and Queen; although they didn't interrupt, just standing there gave Arthur a headache.

"You ladies of the Reach, can't you go and rest?"

"Your Majesty, being able to accompany the Queen is enough to keep us full of energy."

The person who said this was a middle-aged woman; Arthur guessed that this person was Janna Tyrell, one of Margaery's two aunts.

"If you have plenty of energy, you must do something." The King looked around at these noble ladies and suddenly had an excellent idea.

These noble ladies have been educated by septas and maesters since childhood; beyond their own learning, they often possess a certain degree of administrative ability.

"My dear Margaery, do you remember when I mentioned the matter of vocational education to you?"

Arthur asked.

Margaery nodded lightly; she certainly remembered the words spoken to her by Arthur, who was still a minor noble then, outside Highgarden.

It was just that she did not understand why Arthur, who had already become her husband, would bring this up at this time tonight.

"Now is the perfect time to launch vocational education. In the next year or two, House Targaryen is about to break the shackles of all the slaves in the Free Cities, and these slaves, upon gaining their freedom, often do not know what they should do, nor do they care about the meaning of life."

Arthur looked at the bewildered Reach ladies and explained in depth:

"The task I give you is to open schools in the septs and small chapels throughout King's Landing, to cultivate a group of eloquent teachers who also possess some means of making a living, so that in the future, they may help the millions of slaves find a new direction in life."

The three cities of Slaver's Bay—Meereen, Astapor, and Yunkai—have already revealed the problems of the new Free Folk, and Arthur, having been warned, will never make the same mistake.

Daenerys Targaryen, who is equally keen on breaking the shackles of slaves, must also be very concerned about this issue; Arthur decided that after returning tonight, he would continue to discuss this issue in depth with the Dragon Queen.

Janna Tyrell, Lady Alysanne Bulwer, and others stared at each other, not knowing what this was all about.

Fortunately, Queen Margaery reacted quickly, and she said in a voice as pleasant as a warbling bird: "There is no problem at all. You all must obey the King's command. Starting tomorrow, you will go to prominent places throughout the city to announce the King's laws and policies, and begin to cultivate teachers who meet His Majesty's requirements."

Although she also felt her husband's proposal was absurd—after all, in the history of House Targaryen, they had only occupied the Stepstones and had not managed them well, and conquering the Free Cities was almost impossible—supporting the King was what a Queen should do. Moreover, this matter sounded highly beneficial to the reputation of House Tyrell, so doing it would not be in vain.

Under the reminder of Queen Margaery, the group of Reach ladies and noblewomen began to agree to the King's request one after another.

This matter was of the same nature as the time they had previously sent clothes and rations to homeless children in the septs; House Tyrell was very willing to use this method to enhance their influence in King's Landing.

After finding some things for the Reachmen to do, Arthur's mood improved significantly. He finally urged Queen Margaery to rest well and to move into Maegor's Holdfast on an auspicious day.

In the night that followed, the King returned to his bedchamber and had a deep and detailed discussion with Daenerys about the issue of vocational training after slave emancipation for half the night.

……

The preparations for the war in the south were going much more smoothly than Arthur had imagined.

Under the call of the Knight of Flowers Loras, another army of nearly ten thousand, composed mainly of levies, gathered in places like Dumbleton, Bitterbridge, and Longtable in the eastern Reach, and a second Dornish army was also assembling near the Bone Way, ready to march north to the Stormlands at any moment.

There was also an army of nearly ten thousand near King's Landing, but apart from sending Randyll and the Tarly army away, there were not many that could be mobilized, and they still had to guard against other forces stealing their home, so Arthur decided to take only a small portion of the army and the custom-made crossbows south.

According to Prince Oberyn, the Golden Company has two dozen war elephants, which is twenty-four adult elephants.

Therefore, the difficulty of this battle is dealing with these behemoths that stand ten to fifteen feet, or three to four point five meters, tall at the shoulder.

If they were adult Dragons, Dragonfire could scare away any warhorse or war elephant, but whether it is Alduin or the three belonging to Drogon, they are currently only in their juvenile stage and cannot withstand the attacks of large crossbows, nor can they withstand the sharp bolts of dragon-hunting crossbows.

During the Dance of the Dragons, there were plenty of non-adult dragons killed by mobs.

In the last month of Conquest Era 130, led by a mad prophet of the Seven known as "The Shepherd," tens of thousands of King's Landing mobs stormed the Dragonpit and killed the three non-adult dragons: Tyraxes, Shrykos, and Morghul.

One adult dragon, Dreamfyre, died from crashing into the dome of the Dragonpit, and the Queen's dragon, Syrax, was also killed by the mob.

Therefore, Dragons can only be used for deterrence and cannot fight on the front lines; dealing with war elephants must be done through ground combat.

Arthur's plan was to use flaming archery to restrict the charge of the war elephants and then find a way to surround and attack them, but the Golden Company are not all reckless, and they will also have corresponding countermeasures.

So how to fight will have to be discussed under the walls of Storm's End.

On the days the King was preparing for the southern expedition, a large merchant fleet arrived at Dragonstone. For the sake of safety, the Redwyne Fleet stationed at Dragonstone did not allow all the merchant ships to enter Blackwater Bay, only allowing their representatives to go to King's Landing Port to have an audience with the King.

"Respected Your Majesty Arthur Targaryen I, as old friends of the Dragon family, we Myr men have brought a belated wedding gift."

In the Throne Room, the envoy from Myr, Uras Adrian, presented the gift to the Targaryen royal family with an exaggerated tone:

One hundred thousand old Gold Dragon coins.

Arthur, wearing the set of golden Plate Armor gifted by Margaery, waved his hand to have them accept the gold coins, which were packed into five large chests, and then asked:

"Speak, what do you hope we will do?"

There had long been rumors that after the Golden Company broke its employment agreement with Myr, the city-state would seek aid from the Western Continent. Arthur had originally thought this would happen around the time of his wedding with Margaery, but he had not expected the Myr men to come so late.

As soon as Uras Adrian saw the master of the Iron Throne accept the gift calmly, he knew the matter was settled, so he first recalled the friendly relations between the two sides:

"Your Majesty, you know that during the Century of Blood, Volantis occupied our Myr for two whole generations. Fortunately, your ancestor, the Conqueror Aegon, assisted us while riding a Dragon, and we were able to regain control of our homeland... Now Volantis is restless again, and the Dothraki have appeared in the east of Myr, so we request the aid of House Targaryen."

This Myr envoy ignored the grievances between the two sides during the Three Daughters period and only recounted the deeds of their friendly relationship.

Arthur, of course, would not mention that he had been eyeing the fat piece of meat that was Myr for a very long time.

"I swear in the name of my orthodox Targaryen bloodline that I shall send men to protect Myr."

PS: Seeking recommendation tickets and monthly tickets.