The King of Winters

Chapter 70

Rhaegar

A thousand ships!" The messenger's rat brown hair was tousled and unwashed, and the torchlight showed his fine face flush and ragged and windburnt. "Most of the men are lost and so are the ships. Those who survived were taken prisoners by Ser Baelor."

"My son," asked Mace Tyrell. "Loras. Is he alright?"

"Ser Loras fought valiantly, my Lord," the messenger said, "but he was captured by the overwhelming Hightower knights."

"Your Grace, this must be answered fiercely!" Tyrell's words rang off the rafters and echoed through the cavernous throne room.

Seated on his Iron Throne, Rhaegar could feel a growing tightness in her neck. How many betrayals and backstabbing should I have to face in my life, he wondered. He should never have trusted Lord Leyton. The Others take him and his family. Little did kinship help him here at Oldtown. The Knight of the Flowers captured and Ser Jorah Mormont possibly dead, Leyton Hightower has damned any kinship he had with them in favour of his northern grandson.

"All our ships?" Jon looked at the messenger doubtfully. "That couldn't be. No lord commands such a great fleet to destroy our great Royal Navy. Certainly we outnumbered the Hightower ships ten to one. Our ships wouldn't have found it hard to capture Oldtown should the need arise."

"Mayhaps the northern fleet has made it's way south," said Petyr Baelish, stroking his pointed beard, calculating, the king could see through that. "That, or we've got ourselves a false messenger."

The torches on the back wall threw the long, barbed shadow of the Iron Throne halfway to the doors. The far end of the hall was lost in darkness, and Rhaegar could not but feel that the shadows were closing around him too. My enemies are everywhere, and my friends are useless. He had only to glance at her councillors to know that; only his hand and Aurane Waters seemed awake. The others had been roused from bed by servants and guards alike pounding on their doors, and stood there rumpled and confused. Outside the night was black and still. The castle and the city slept. Not the kingsguard, though. Not the White Bull or Ser Oswell Whent who stood at the foot of his throne, two pale shadow with a longswords on their hips. Bezzaro was away when he had needed him the most. He wondered if the red priest had seen all this in his flames.

"Even with the northern fleet free, it isn't enough," Waters pointed out Baelish. "It lacks the strength to match our Royal fleet. Combined with the might of the Arbor at sea, no one could have opposed us."

"What of the Greyjoys?" asked the Master of Ships. "The Ironborn are a force to be reckoned with at sea. They also have larger ships as well. Lord Balon's Great Kraken and the warships of the Iron Fleet were made for battle, not for raids. They are the equal of our lesser war galleys in speed and strength, and most are better crewed and captained. The ironmen live their whole lives at sea."

"The ironmen have not dared raid the Reach since Dagon Greyjoy sat the Seastone Chair," the king said. "It couldn't be them."

"It sorcery," The messenger whispered. He stood with his hands hidden up his sleeves, shivering. "Lord Leyton did it. The crown of the High Tower burned green and Lord Leyton wielded the waves-"

"This frightened fool has gone mad," said Mace Tyrell. "It cannot be. No one can control the seas. Surely this is some fishwife's tale."

So did the dragons of the old belong in tales until my sister and Bezzaro brought them back. If what the man says about Oldtown is true then it must be dealt with at once. Bezzaro could deal with it in no time despite what the messenger says about Leyton Hightower.