Chapter 172: The Masks Come Off

The five decrees of the Iron Throne went into the Seven Kingdoms like ice dropped into a boiling pot. Daenerys Targaryen had meant to force a pause and remake the order of things by royal authority; what she did instead was tear off the last of the masks, and every ambition, fear, hatred, and calculation that had been hiding behind them came out into the open in its most naked form.

At the Eyrie, when the decree arrived under the Targaryen seal, worded like the ultimatum it was, and was read aloud by a messenger whose hands would not hold still, Petyr Baelish stood at his study window above the mountains, turning a Qarthine ring set with an unpleasant amethyst. He heard it out with his usual unreadable smile, and something flickered behind it that was mockery and cold and a kind of excitement all at once.

“To come to King’s Landing in person and explain myself. Thirty days. Or it is treason, and the realm is called to condemn me.” He repeated the words softly, savoring them like a well-turned satire. “Our dear dragon queen can hardly wait to set Littlefinger under the Iron Throne and roast him.”

He turned to the pale-faced lords and commanders of the Vale ranged along the wall, most of them men he had raised or owned. “You have heard it, my lords. Her Grace holds that our precautions, taken to assist our friends in the North and to guard against the wildling threat, are contempt of royal authority and a breach of the peace. She wishes me delivered to King’s Landing like a prisoner to beg her mercy, and our men pulled back from everything north of the Bloody Gate.” He let it sit. “And if we obey? Will she believe our explanation? Will obedience make her forget what she has decided we intend? No. She will learn only that we are weak and may be handled. She will thin the Vale further; she will make the Bloody Gate a garrison for Targaryen troops and the Eyrie a northern residence for King’s Landing. And the North, where those western barbarians go on rooting, will close on the Vale’s other side. And then we are prisoners in our own mountains, waiting our turn.”

He crossed to the great map and set his finger hard on the Bloody Gate and the Gift’s edge. “And if we do not obey? Then we tell Her Grace that the Vale’s army acted defensively and of necessity, against a growing threat from wildlings and from unknown forces in the North; that distance and poor roads prevented timely report, for which we apologize profoundly; that withdrawal touches the life of the Vale itself and cannot be complied with; and that Her Grace is burdened with ten thousand matters, so rather than trouble her we shall send an envoy with the particulars.”

“My lord,” an older knight said unhappily, “the decree says that failure to appear is treason.”

“Treason?” Petyr laughed, and the laugh had an edge on it. “And who is the traitor here? Those of us defending the independence and safety of our own country against foreign encroachment? Or that other man, the one dealing with mysterious powers in the east, stockpiling arms in the North, and nursing intentions he will not name?” The smear was deliberate, and it borrowed its shape from the very warning the albatross had carried.

“Draft the answer at once. No, not an answer. A proclamation, to the lords and the people of the Seven Kingdoms.” His voice rose with a provocateur’s warmth. “Tell all Westeros that the Vale has never betrayed the Iron Throne; that we are loyal to House Targaryen, and more loyal still to the land and the people that bred us. Tell them we will expose the conspiracy of the west, in league with certain evil powers of the east, to subvert the North and threaten the Vale and the whole kingdom. We will produce evidence.” Forged, or carefully chosen, or both. “We will call upon every noble and every free man who values his liberty and fears foreign hands to be watchful of the double threat from the southwest and the east. As for Her Grace’s decree, we express our profound respect, and, as to its untruths and its unjust demands, our most solemn protest and our inability to comply. We hold the Bloody Gate. We strengthen our defenses. And we reserve every necessary measure to protect the safety and the interests of the Vale.”

Then he lowered his voice for his most trusted commanders. “The troops north of the Gate go over to full defense: camps hardened, stores deepened, and no large offensive for now. Send more small elite parties, dressed as bandits or as wildlings, deep into the Gift and the eastern North: hit the westerners’ supply lines and reclamation points, kill their key men, and put every atrocity into the mouths of the western invaders and the out-of-control wildlings. I want the water so muddy that the crown’s envoy and Jon Snow exhaust themselves trying to tell a friend from an enemy. And accelerate the contact with the Shadow Moon Court. Whatever special assistance they have promised, I want it sooner.”

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It was open confrontation dressed as injured innocence: the charge of treason sidestepped, himself repainted as victim and defender, the blade turned toward the west and a convenient eastern conspiracy, and the war moved into a shape with no uniforms in it, meant to exhaust, confuse, and buy time until his eastern friends arrived. Under the Iron Throne’s pressure the viper of the Vale had not withdrawn. It had lifted its head and shown longer fangs.

At Highgarden, Olenna finished the decree, snorted, and dropped the parchment onto a tea table strewn with petals. “Cease fire, withdraw, and come to King’s Landing to negotiate. In fifteen days. Our dragon queen thinks well of herself. Will that old fox in Sunspear obey her?”

Randyll Tarly stood grave at her side. “My lady, the wording is uncommonly hard. No longer remain neutral, and military action, are threats aimed at us as much as at Dorne. Sunspear has answered nothing publicly, but our scouts report their movements have not stopped. If anything, they are reinforcing certain forward positions. Prince Doran is watching. Or he has his own arrangement.”

“Arrangement.” Olenna’s mouth thinned. “He has swallowed the Stormlands and his appetite has grown with the eating. The decree has broken his rhythm and he will not thank her for it. But he fears her anger too, and those two dragons of hers.” She tapped the chair’s arm. “Orders to the front: obey the decree, withdraw the twenty miles, and be seen doing it. And in the rear, quietly, muster more and store more. Send an envoy to King’s Landing to say the Reach obeys the royal word and welcomes negotiation, and to protest that Dornish troops have not withdrawn, and to require that Her Grace treat all parties alike and have the Dornish pull back first; otherwise the Reach cannot guarantee that talks will occur in a fair environment.” Her eyes sharpened. “And quietly: open a channel to the west, if they have sent anyone. And watch the Vale. Petyr has been named aloud by a queen with dragons, and that snake will not sit still. Let us see what he plays, and whether the chaos offers us anything. A rose may draw in its thorns. It does not surrender them.”

The Reach chose obedience on the surface and preparation beneath it: no direct collision with the crown, the conflict redirected onto Dorne, and both eyes open for new partners in the confusion. Olenna knew better than to stand in front of an angry dragon; she also had no intention of paying for peace with the Reach’s own substance.

At Sunspear, Prince Doran sat with the decree laid across his lap, his face as untroubled as an old well, while his brother the Red Viper paced with his hand on his blade.

“Brother, what is this? Ordered to fall back like some lackey of the Reach, and to stand before the Small Council like a boy caught stealing? We took the Stormlands with Dornish blood and Dornish steel. She has warmed that chair for a season, and now she gives us orders?”

“Peace, Oberyn.” Doran’s voice kept its slow, level warmth. “The queen has dragons, she has the Unsullied, and she has the prestige of having broken Cersei. The decree is a declaration of authority. We need not fight her with words. Twenty miles is nothing; that ground was never the object. And we may certainly go to King’s Landing and negotiate. How we negotiate, and about what, remains ours.”

He turned to the waiting scribe. “To the crown: Dorne respects Her Grace’s wish to preserve the peace, and consents to withdraw and to treat with the Reach. Let it be stated, however, that Dorne’s actions in the Stormlands rest on historical right and on the necessity of self-defense, not on unprovoked aggression, and that in negotiation we shall maintain our lawful claims in parts of the Stormlands. And let Her Grace’s attention be drawn to this: according to Dornish intelligence, Lord Petyr of the Vale appears to have dealings with powers in the east that mean Westeros no good, and his military adventures may set off a wider chain of consequences endangering the security of the whole kingdom. We hope Her Grace will look into the matter.”

Compliance on the face of it, the floor held, and the trouble redirected: no collision with the throne, the Stormlands claim entered formally into the record, and the crown’s eye turned toward the Vale and the east, which cost Dorne nothing and might cost Petyr a great deal.