Chapter 12: Tourney pt. 1

A month later, and Baelish was still in the wind. Robert had put a princely bounty on his head, a full thousand dragons and a lordship, with five hundred more if Littlefinger was brought in alive. But despite being hunted by every sell-sword on two continents, and despite Varys’ best efforts, the man couldn’t be found.

We’d had more luck with his financial empire at least. The king had sent out a proclamation that those who were Baelish’s partners could come forward, explain their dealings with the man, and receive a full pardon. He’d even give them two tenths of whatever part of their business Baelish owned, with a tenth going to their local lord, another tenth to their lord paramount, and the remaining six tenths to the Crown. Suffice to say, there was broad general support for the measure.

By my best estimates we’d gotten over three quarters of his holdings processed, and most of the remainder were semi-illegal businesses that would go fully illegal or vanish into the wind without Baelish’s patronage. His overseas holdings were harder to seize, but diplomatic envoys had been sent to petition the local leaders.

All in all, during his tenure Baelish had managed to take the treasury’s reserve, some two million dragons, and turn it into six million of debt and about eight and a half of property in the Crown’s name. Another three and a half million dragons worth of coin and property were funneled into his own pockets. After paying out the rewards for coming forward, Robert’s holdings increased by approximately one and a half million dragons, just under half of what Baelish had taken.

The only problem that remained was that the ten million dragons worth of businesses and holdings weren’t paying enough profit to cover the interest on the six million dragons of debt. Not when Tywin Lannister, his son dead and daughter disgraced, was no longer interested in “temporarily forgiving the interest for the sake of good familial relations” as he had before.

One bit of good news was that Lord Manderly had arrived. He was quickly instated as the Master of Coin, and had prepared to hold an auction for treasury bills and bonds during the Hand’s Tourney. Apart from entertaining tourists and competitors, the tournament represented one of the greatest concentrations of nobility since Robert had come to power and taken their oaths of fealty, and would be full of diplomatic, dynastic and economic wheeling and dealing.

I was hoping that we’d raise at least enough to pay off the Iron Bank; not only were their interest rates relatively high, but they and their Faceless Men represented the greatest threat to the Seven Kingdoms should Robert default on his loan. Unlike Tywin, the Bank owed no fealty to Robert and would be much harder to bring to heel in the event of any hostilities. The shorter term bills could be repaid with some of this year’s tax income.

Assuming Ned managed to keep Robert from any truly profligate spending, the Crown would be more financially secure in a year or two than it had ever been. If I was still around then, I might even see about starting a truly professional, standardized army with the spare money. Robert would love having one of those to play with, and a Royal Army would help the Kingdoms’ stability greatly.

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Three days until the Tournament begun, and I was already ready for it to be over. The first wave of competitors and spectators were showing up in ever increasing numbers. The commoners and merchants weren’t so bad; they were used to being pushed around and following instructions, and knew better than to make trouble.

The lords and ladies that came to watch though were just needy. This wasn’t right, that wasn’t right, so-and-so’s pavilion was better positioned, I can’t possibly be next to him – don’t you know that his great granduncle stole away my great aunt’s cousin… It just went on, and on, and on. An unending litany of bullshit. The problem was that they were all so used to being the absolute masters of their little slices of the world. Oh, they behaved fine when feasting in the Red Keep as the king’s guests, but the second they were out in the city and dealing with people who weren’t the king or their lord paramount they became an absolute nightmare. And the saw no issue in escalating to higher authority.

Basically, they were the medieval equivalent of those jackass customers for whom nothing was right and they needed to see the manager right now, dammit! Considering I was the Hand’s assistant, all too often that meant they “needed” to see me. It started about a week before the Tournament as those who had the furthest to travel or least to do arrived, and it just got worse from there.

My patience lasted two days, and then they started learning just why I had such a bad reputation. People that complained about their tent’s positions were suddenly relocated next to the latrines, or the bottom of hills where the water would collect when it rained, or horror-of-horrors right next to the rich commoners!

One person, a fat fuck from the Reach, didn’t quite get the message.

Fed up, I finally decided to be really clear. “Of course, my lord,” I said, my voice saccharine. “In fact, I’ll put my best assistant, Togo, onto getting your situation resolved right away.”

Then I called Togo over. Fatty paled when he saw my “assistant.”

“Togo, this man has some complaints,” I said. “Why don’t you help him resolve them?” Then I walked around the corner and burst into a silent fit of laughter as every time the lump of lard began to speak, Togo just growled so loudly the words couldn’t be heard. Every time he tried to leave the tent, Togo snarled. Soon enough, fatty got the message.

It was effective, but the problem remained that the new visitors hadn’t heard the rumors, or didn’t believe them, and people were showing up in greater and greater numbers. So two days after drafting Togo as the final arbiter of complaints, I gathered the servants and other workers together.

“Alright, I’m getting far too many complaints,” I said. “I don’t like it. So here’s what we’re going to do. If there’s a legitimate problem, and you can fix it, do so. Show a bit of initiative.

“If it’s not a legitimate issue, I want you to warn them away. First, tell them how I’ve dealt with annoyances that you’ve witnessed over the past few days. If that doesn’t work, tell them some rumor – that the last person to come to me with a complaint I didn’t feel warranted was thrown into the latrine pit, or lost a hand to Togo here. Remind them that I left the Hound crippled using only my hands, that the Kingslayer’s face was eaten by my dog.” By their paling faces, I could tell that those facts had been temporarily forgotten on their parts as well. I was sure that I’d have a rededicated staff after this, driven by fear if nothing else.

“Lastly, if it’s a legitimate issue you can’t fix, think about who could fix it, and so long as it isn’t me, try them first. Likewise, if someone junior to you comes up and wants your help fixing a problem, just ask yourself: is telling them no, and thus their bothering Ser Odysseus, really worth it?

“Because here’s the promise I’ll make you right now: if you’ve made a true effort, and the reason for bothering me when the city’s dealing with a hundred thousand extra people is truly fair, I won’t be upset. At least not at you. But if I’m getting my time wasted because of some idiot reason, everyone involved will be at least as unhappy as I am. Clear?”

And suddenly my workers were very motivated to see to it that I wasn’t bothered by petty bullshit.

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Of course, that just meant that I had more time to focus on the real problems. Namely, the massive fucking horde of hedge-knights and young, carefree heirs, sell-swords, free-riders, and assorted others who had descended on the capital. Unlike the lords, who were typically somewhat older, more decorous, and more insulated by their people when they were off their rockers, the more martially focused and younger crowd were far more exuberant in their celebrations and quicker to get into fights. Knowing that they wouldn’t be in King’s Landing forever, their men-at-arms were quick to rob and rape, especially when they were drunk.

In short, lawlessness had descended on the city. The city watch, called gold cloaks, were ill equipped to prevent it. Only four thousand strong, they were legitimately out-numbered by the visiting knights and their men. Even if the gold cloaks had the numbers though I doubted that they’d have been very effective. Their commander, Janos Slynt, was bent as a fucking spring. The man had half the officers of the watch paying him bribes for their positions, and in the poorer areas of the city where the commoners wouldn’t be able to complain he was running more of a protection racket than a police force. Under Slynt’s leadership, the average gold cloak was no better trained or more lawful than the average thug.

Replacing him was yet another thing that Ned or I needed to get around to, but didn’t have time for. Nor did we have a good candidate to take charge instead, since so many of their officers were corrupt. I sure as hell had no desire to take on those duties. Ser Jacelyn Bywater, a senior gold cloak officer, had a good reputation for honesty, and had fought well at Pyke during the Greyjoy Rebellion. But he was a Crown-lander, and that region had both one of the higher concentrations of Targaryen loyalists and some of the most politically oriented families. Varys, who creeped me out as a person and who I distrusted in general as a spymaster backed him, which meant I was pretty much automatically wary.

The problem with bringing in an outsider was that far too few had experience running a large city watch, and the challenges were different from being a traditional captain of the guard or household knight. Lannisport had an effective city watch, but everyone there was disqualified for being loyal to the Lannisters. Gulltown in the Vale was likewise disqualified for being too riddled with Baelish’s men.

We already had Lord Manderly as Master of Coin for the North, and could hardly put another Stark loyalist in the position so White Harbor was out too. Oldtown might have provided a good recruiting ground, but it was largely influenced by the Citadel and though they had disavowed Pycelle we were still concerned. Highgarden was a possibility that Renly liked, but the king was still salty that they backed the Targaryen’s during Robert’s rebellion.

I actually thought about having Syrio Forel take the job; he had been First Sword of Braavos, and that included overseeing their watch. But it was seen as too critical a job for a foreigner. The newly instated Grand Maester Erreck, Pycelle’s replacement, suggested Ser Bonifer Hasty who led a hundred-strong band of soldiers sworn to the Faith of the Seven known as the Holy Hundred. Neither Stark nor I liked that idea, because it would increase the Faith’s power too much, he might be prejudiced against the Old God followers of the North, and because the man was far too close to breaking the law banning a militant arm of the Faith for someone who’s meant to enforce the law.

Dorne was out as a source for a new Watch Commander for reasons similar to that of the Westerlands; they were still furious over the deaths their family suffered when King’s Landing was sacked. The Riverlands didn’t have any cities, just a number of smaller towns. Ser Brynden Tully, the Blackfish, would have been a great candidate; he was a well-known knight, and had a reputation for tactical flexibility and creativity that spoke to the sort of mind that would do well running the gold cloaks. Unfortunately, he was protecting his niece, Lysa Arryn nee Tully. Considering she had recently lost her husband and feared assassins, it was unlikely he would leave her.

At the end of the day though, Slynt was just too fucking criminal. It was like having Al Capone as chief of police. So he was relieved, tried, and sentenced to the Wall. At least until we found a better option, Ser Jacelyn Bywater was put in charge, and told to clean up the gold cloaks as best he could, getting rid of the hopelessly corrupt and criminal while expanding their ranks from four thousand men to five thousand strong.

But the gold cloaks, not having had time to reform properly yet, were still totally insufficient for the task at hand.

Luckily, the solution lied in the cause of the problem; namely, the massive crowds of visiting warriors. With Robert’s agreement, Ned went about requisitioning support from the lords and knights. Picking primarily from those hailing from the North, the Riverlands, and the Stormlands, but with some from the Reach, Crownlands and Vale, he asked the lords and knights to lend some of their guards, men-at-arms and other armed men that they had brought who weren’t competing in the Tournament.

The men got a bit of money in their pockets, their masters got a bit of a reputation boost with the Hand and King, and Ned got a city that was once again under control.