Chapter 61

As your Statues continued marching between your Brother's Companies you couldn't help but think about this little Plan of his, it was quite simple, but as far as you could see it was sadly the third-rate kind of simple. Jaime actually decided to march against the weakest and closest Targets that were the four essentially worthless Villages first, and in doing so he granted both Stadley and Santor Castle, whichever he attacks first, at least seven Days to stock up and further fortify, quite the foolish mistake.

And this mistake meant that you couldn't help him with the Siege by tearing down their Gates for him, for if you did so you would reward what would have otherwise lead to Failure, which you knew you weren't allowed to do. So it would most likely take a bit till the two hundred Men of your Brother secured what could have been a swift Victory, which you knew wouldn't please your Father. But while it wasn't the end of the World if it took a few weeks longer to take the Castle down, it was quite problematic that the second Castle that he simply didn't have the Men to encircle while he sieged down the first one would be even harder to break open, Mistakes of that kind had the Habit of adding up after all.

He strictly speaking didn't know if the Lords that rule these Lands from Stadley and Santor Castle were truly hostile towards House Lannister, but you knew that this Fact wouldn't be enough to fully excuse this Blunder. You decided to not directly intervene to let him grow, though you couldn't help but hint once or twice that you would have preferred something more direct, which he more or less ignored. In the end, you just decided to send a Message to your Father's Cub to ask him if he could send another Company to strengthen Jaime's Forces for the Siege, to which he responded by sending out another one hundred Knights.

Said Knights formed into the Tarlem Company, named after Lord Tarlem who wasn't actually in Rose Hold at the time, which annoyingly meant that Jaime's Reinforcements only arrived some six Days later so directly before your Brother marched on Santor Castle. Yeah, that wasn't nearly fast enough in an Emergency, but it was simply one of the greater problems that came with deploying Fanatics. They detested the Enemies of the Westerlands like House Tyrell so much that it was unbearable for them to just treat them as Allies from one Day to the next, so there were naturally plenty of Volunteers for everything that involved a good Distance to the Men of the Reach.

But you were decently sure that the shedding of Blood will mend that particular problem soon enough, so you silently decided to simply keep your Complaints to yourself, and instead focus on Jaime and Santor Castle. The Villages that you weren't even sure had actual Names were just as you had predicted, no real issue for your Brother's Men, but without your help, the same couldn't be said about the Home of the Santors. You could feel the Strength of the Hold's three Walls through your Statues, and they were admittedly quite impressive for such a minor House, it seems like the Lords of the Reach didn't waste all their Wealth on Wine and Bribes after all.

If Jaime hadn't screwed up with his Priorities, you would have gladly smashed the Walls or the Gates of their Gatehouse, but that was sadly no longer an Option. You could now see through your Statues that he had clearly allowed them too much time to prepare, so he would need to learn this Lesson to make up for his Blunder, before you could help him again. Jaime had thanks to you a total of three hundred Knights, and Santor Castle was a decent bit smaller than Stadley Castle, so you were confident that things could still be salvaged if he learned fast enough, which he regrettably didn't.

Even after two Weeks no Breach was made and embarrassingly even the Gate was still intact if not in good Shape, and he still didn't understand why his Men had such problems, it was hard to watch, but what can you expect from a Child. No, now was not the time to think about how you should judge him, Jaime didn't lose any of his Knights but with how it was going he would most certainly fail to take Stadley Castle once he's done here. There were two kinds of Sieges, and it was made clear that your Father wanted the matter solved in a timely manner, so considering that Jaime still had another Castle to take this passive Siege just wouldn't do, so you swiftly got his Attention by throwing your Cub at him while you impressed a Message onto it.

"Ouch!"

"Azami!"

["Jaime, Father is still waiting, you know that, don't you?"]

"Of course, I know that he's waiting for me to bring the Santors and the Stadleys to him, but I can't do anything about it."

["Have some trust in your Knights, Brother, they don't wear their Armour just to show off, just overrun them, they can't have much more than a fifth of your Troops."]

"You already know that I don't want to lose them, Azami, can't you do something?"

["I already did more than Father would be okay with if he knew how little progress you made, Jaime, you're supposed to learn how to command Troops, yes?"]

"Yeah, I know why he sent me here, thanks."

["Don't be like that, just get it done, Jaime, they have three Walls and you have nearly three hundred Knights, my Statues can protect the Camp, the Wounded and you without a problem, just get it done, you have everything anyone could reasonably ask for, so you only need to give the Order to fully commit to the next Attack."]

"I really don't like this, it feels wrong to use Knights for this, are you sure that everything will go okay, Azami?"

["Of course I'm sure, you know me, Jaime, now make your big Sister proud."]

"You're smaller than me, Azami."

["Those are some mighty big Words for someone that can be thrown around by his oh so little Sister, my beloved Brother."]