“He's your brother, isn't he?” Gertrud questioned, laying on her stomach while the covers to their shared bed was pulled back enticingly. The effortless seduction made it all the more seductive. “We need the troops for the attack on Myr. Securing it makes all the resistance in the area crumble away and scatter with their tails tucked between their legs.”
Brandon hadn't planned the affair. His marriage was one of pure politics and little warmth, but he and Caitlyn had reached a… stable point in their relationship. At least they had been when he left. They didn't love each other, didn't particular like each other, but they could be in the same room, have a polite conversation, and play the roles they were given. Such as the part of mother and father. His child wouldn't be born yet, but within the next few months, Brandon would be a father.
The affair happened all the same. Gertrud was everything that Caitlyn wasn't. Strong, fierce, and she took what she wanted when she wanted and wouldn't let anyone tell her otherwise. And that included him. Him, not his position as heir to the North. Gertrud had laughed in his face when he mentioned a position at court. She liked him, she wanted him, and that…
That felt good in a way that things rarely felt these days.
“He's not wrong, though,” Brandon replied, seated on the bed, his lap covered by silk sheets while his back was pressed to the headboard. “Feeding Tyrosh and Lys has become a near impossible task as it is. With the Dothraki pillaging the Disputed Lands? We won't have a crop left to feed them. Adding Myr would be another burden that we can't afford.”
In his lap was a slip of parchment but the words written on it were damning. Summer had ended and it was now Fall. Next year it will be Winter and all the problems that come with it. Their logistics were enough to make a quartermaster cry as it were. When the grain shipments slowed before drawing to a close, or the schools of fish migrated to wherever they went for winter? There were going to be a lot of hungry mouths in their cities, both freedmen and men from the Seven Kingdoms.
“Myr has a surplus. We can coordinate with your king. Braavos has a surplus that they would be willing to sell to us -- they won't even charge an arm and leg for it,” Gertrud sighed, a cheek pressed into a soft pillow. “We can distribute the population amongst the Steptones, if we're really desperate. Point being is that we have options and we stand to gain more if we let the Dornish and Reachers stick their cocks in an anthill.”
Brandon let out a small breath of laughter at the thought, and Gertrud pressed. “It's a long race, Brandon. You aren't just fighting every slaver of Essos, but you're fellow Kingdoms just as much. The better they do, the worse the North is. You took Tyrosh- with my help, of course. Your brother took Lys. If you can take Myr and prove that the North can hold it when every other pissant lord falters at the gate? That scab ridden fool on the Iron Throne won't have a choice but to leave them in the hands of your family.”
Rickard had his ambitions, but Brandon had his own. He had committed to being the Lord of the North, so he would bite his tongue and bow his head to his father's goals. But Rickard thought too small. He was half a world way in the North. He understood the Stepstones on paper and in distant memory, completely uprooted to the reality of the opportunity before them.
So far, the whole invasion had been a clusterfuck that hadn't yet had a disaster to point to. The string of successes had proven to be an excellent disguise for how they were neck deep in shit.
The North had the Bloodstone, Tyrosh, and potentially Lys. Taking down Myr alone and unaided would present a very strong argument to the Small Council that the North should control the Narrow Sea -- the Stepstones, and the Free Cities. An argument that would go a much further way if the other Kingdoms stumbled and suffered a painful defeat.
Of course, he didn't expect the North to keep all of the Stepstones. But when the dust had settled, there was going to be a conversation about establishing a new Kingdom of the Narrow Sea and that would raise a question of ‘Who will lead it?’
“I'm not the one that needs convincing,” Brandon remarked, setting aside the slip of a message before he tossed off his covers. “It's Ned. He's thinking about the war and not the North. I don't blame him for that. It's only natural since he helped start the damned thing.”
Ned was sharper than Brandon recalled. The war had given him an underlying intensity that hadn't been there before. His younger brother had always been on the quiet side. The kind to listen rather than speak. It told Brandon that Ned bought into the cause -- that they were to put an end to slavery in Essos, regardless of the cost.
He really should know better. A disastrous defeat would be all it took to send most of the Kingdoms scurrying back home with a shrug and whatever spoils they manage to get their hands on. It would make holding the territory that they took a bit difficult, admittedly. However Volantis and Pentos had shown their underbellies -- they wouldn't do more than send Dothraki khalasars and higher mercenaries, and how many times would they do that? Once? Twice?
How long would it be before the titans of the Free Cities saw that the Seven Kingdoms was filled with nothing but hot air and their claims of breaking chains were worth less than the air they used to utter them? Personally, Brandon didn't think it would be very long.
All the lords were digging in and gritting their teeth about a long war when odds were, it was going to be a short one. They would dig in, there would be some noise about retaking Lys and Tyrosh, but eventually things would settle and the current arrangement would become the new normal.
“Your brother does strike me as the type to finish what he starts,” Gertrud remarked from the bed, flipping over with a lazy smirk on her face as she watched him dress. “What are you going to tell him?”
That was the question, wasn't it? “About the war or you?” Brandon deflected, kicking up Gertrud's discarded clothing and tossing it to her.
He didn't know where the affair was going, or if it was going anywhere at all. It just felt… good. It felt good to be wanted. Admired. It wasn't as if he were being cruel to Caitlyn -- she was welcome to her own harem of lovers if she wished, so long as she kept them in the dark and there were no children of the union. Something that he took steps to avoid with Gertrud.
“The war, you twit,” Gertrud said with a mock scowl, but her grin turned into a smile. “You brought forty thousand Northerners here. Ten are on the Bloodstone to write your name in the foundations. That's thirty in Tyrosh. Doesn't do a lot of good when Myr has close to eighty, and that number is growing.”
Brandon was well aware. The masters of Myr were turtling up and training their own militias. Going so far as to offer freedom for slaves should they fight on their former master's behalf. And the sorry bastards were taking them up on it. Brandon wasn't sure if they were stupid or just that desperate.
“We would have had the numbers and opportunity if they had stopped chasing glory,” Brandon sighed. The Dornish and the Reach both rebuffed his lead. Despite the fact that among them, he was the only one with a military victory under his belt. “We still might by savaging what's left of their forces after the Dothraki are done fucking them.”
Taking Myr wouldn't be as easy as taking Tyrosh. By the time they arrived, half of the job had been done. They'd have to fight for it, and just ten thousand more Dornish or Reachmen could be the deciding factor. They'd be more willing to follow his lead to salvage what was left of their pride so they didn't return home empty handed.
“They might have another use,” Gertrud remarked, tossing aside her clothing with an intent to not leave the bed. “if you have the stomach for it.”
To that, Brandon raised an eyebrow, prompting her to elaborate. “Myr could be convinced to leave their tall walls with the right convincing. Such as a chance to wipe out our invasion before it can get its legs underneath us.”
That would make taking the city easier. “It would have to be tempting bait,” he remarked, thinking it over. “What do you have in mind?”
At that, Gertrud just smiled. And if he had been paying more attention, he would have noticed it didn't reach her eyes.
…
‘Foolish.’ That was the best summarization of Ned's thoughts on the whole ordeal. It was shortsightedness masquerading as strategy. And the very worst part of it was that Ned found himself entirely unsurprised by it.
He loved his brother. Deeply and without reservation, despite all of his faults. Yet he was not blind to those faults. It was just that they had never been aimed in his direction before.
“Five thousand men from the Bloodstone and our garrison of freemen. Fifteen thousand in total, Ned. It's not a small army,” Brandon continued, as if reading his thoughts. “The remaining Northmen will remain in Tyrosh, guarding the city and training up another garrison.”
It wasn't a small army, but it wasn't a prepared army. The freedmen had the will to fight, but the masters of the Free Cities had kept their slaves weak to prevent rebellion. Those who didn't, the ones who fought in the slave pits, were poorly disciplined and half wild. They were not prepared to face a horse of Dothraki screamers galloping in their direction, letting loose enough arrows to blot out the sun and hold their nerve with pike in hand.
The added complication was that his authority would be new and untested. With Northeners, he would be a Stark. The second son of their liege lord, to whom they owed their fealty. Even setting aside the issue of speaking different languages, he would not know his men. He wouldn’t know their temperament. He wouldn’t know their courage or valor or their cowardice, no more than they would know his.
That mattered in a battle. Almost more than anything else.
“Brandon-” Ned started, only for his words to fail him. What could he say? What could get the message across that this was madness? That it was petty spite, biting his thumb at the Dornish and Reachmen for… what exactly? Pride? How many men would die for it? Would he really risk everything on… this?
The words died in his throat because, as he stood across from Brandon, Ned realized he had his answer. Brandon dressed himself in vibrant silks, adorning his fingers with jewelry. His gaze rose to the woman standing behind him, one dressed as one of Paul's household guards. Her expression was blank but she offered the barest shake of her head.
“... Thank you, brother," Ned uttered, swallowing what he wanted to say. What he wanted to ask. There was no point in it. If there was one thing he knew about his brother, it was that he was stubborn beyond all reason. Fifteen thousand men to reinforce the Dornish and Reachmen. He hoped for more. A great deal more. But it would have to be enough… because the alternative was that they would be defeated on the field and every promise that they had made would turn to ash.
“I know it's not what you came here for, Ned. But it's what we can spare,” Brandon returned, offering an apologetic smile.
“It will serve,” Ned replied, uncertain if the words were a lie or not. In any case, he would need to plan with the army they had and not the army they wished they had.
The following day was a flurry of activity. Men were loaded up into ships along with supplies taken from Tyrosh's dwindling food supplies. Ned suspected that it was no coincidence that it was the freemen garrison that was being sent with him rather than fifteen thousand Northerners. While he noticed, he kept such comments to himself. They wouldn't serve anyone to be uttered out loud.
When he returned to the camp belonging to the Dornish and Reachmen, he was greeted as a conquering hero. Something that felt entirely undeserved as his men began erecting their own camp, separate from both the Dornish and Reachmen. Prince Oberyn erected a lavish tent outside of all three camps for them to speak on what amounted to neutral ground.
The entire process set Ned’s teeth on edge. All the same, he entered the tent to find Prince Oberyn lounging on a pile of cushions, each arm draped around a woman, with an easy smile on his face. Lord Mace Tyrell sat on the opposite side of the tent, as far away as he could while still sharing the room with him.
“You must be a much better younger brother than I,” Prince Oberyn noted, “My brother would be far more reluctant to grant me an army. Untested as they are.”
Ned found that he was entirely uninterested in bantering with the hedonistic prince. “The Dothraki?” He questioned, glancing between the two of them. He wasn’t sure what had changed between them in the days since his departure, but it would seem that the familiarity between them had run thin.
“Two days' ride for them. The khalasar that engaged our prince should have happened already, but it’ll be at least a day before we will know the outcome.” Prince Oberyn answered, giving a little smirk before he raised a wineglass to Lord Tyrell. “We were just discussing options on what would be the best course of action should our illustrious prince falter.”
He was aware. Both that the larger of the three khalasars had engaged Prince Rhaegar and Robert’s army, and that they wouldn’t know the outcome of that battle until their own had passed.
However, Prince Oberyn continued, “Lord Tyrell was of the mind that we should retreat.”
“Do not put words in my mouth,” Mace scowled at the Dornish Prince. “I said that it may be prudent to withdraw. If the Prince has fallen, then we very well may be facing three khalasars!”
That was… a stretch at best. They would know well in advance if Prince Rhaegar had fallen. It was not as if another khalasar would sneak up on them from behind. It was, however, an indication of intent. Proof that Mace had a foot halfway out of the door already. Ned clenched his teeth at it, annoyed but unsurprised with it.
“If Prince Rhaegar has been defeated, then he has been defeated. There is nothing we can do about it at this point,” Ned began, speaking to the highest lords in the Realm. One of them a prince. “We cannot go to battle with the expectation that we will be defeated. We face two khalasars. Thirty thousand riders. Even without reinforcements, we outnumber them.”
“But do we have enough?” Prince Oberyn questioned, cutting right to the heart of it. “We have the numbers, that is true. But most are levies. Farmers and fishermen and what have you. Expecting them to hold under a charge…?” He clucked his tongue, offering a small shake of his head. “What we have is the bare minimum, Lord Stark.”
“It is enough,” Ned countered. “If we stick to the strategy, then it will be enough.”
“Easy words to say, Lord Stark,” Mace remarked, and Ned glanced between them. In that moment, he was struck with a terrible realization. One that didn't dramatically reveal itself or a sudden connection of two thoughts. Instead, it was slowly encroaching and it was only when he took a step back did it become obvious.
“Then let deeds prove them. My forces will take the risk, and myself with them,” Ned rebuked both of them, knowing that was the issue. It was the same issue with Brandon.
Risks. No one wanted to take the risk. They came across the Narrow Sea, spouting about glorious deeds and the gods, but they were so scared of tripping that they never took the first step. Because they were divided. Because each of the kingdoms looked to the others, at those who should be their allies, and plotted their disgrace.
“Ah-” Mace seemed properly shamed, “That- that will not be necessary, Lord Stark. None here doubt your courage! Or your dedication-”
“Then let that be the end of it,” Ned continued, his gaze sliding to Prince Oberyn. “If the risks deter you, then let it be mine to take.”
Prince Oberyn smiled away, amusement dancing in his eyes. This was what he wanted, for whatever reason. Perhaps it was a simple ploy to shame Mace Tyrell into committing to the fight. Perhaps he wished to humble the North, and Ned had volunteered himself as a sacrificial lamb. It mattered little because it got Ned what he wanted. What they needed.
Prince Oberyn raised his wine glass in a silent salute, accepting the decision and committing himself to the battle. The decision was made and there was no going back from it.
Yet, a day later, when Ned sat at the head of fifteen thousand men with pikes in their hands and he looked across the field to see thirty thousand men, all seated on horseback, screaming war cries from the top of their lungs as they charged across the field…
He wondered if it was bravery that put him there or foolishness.