Chapter 95

Yet despite how much potential you saw in your idea, as long as the good Lord Palno still sat in Watermoon and thus out of your reach, there was little you could do to get a proper look at the man. And since you worked for House Lannister even just the attempt to infiltrate House Palno's seat of power would have been absolute madness, so as things stood you still needed a whole lot more than your good intentions to get this little plan of yours underway.

But since you had managed to get a decent grasp on the unwritten rules that governed Nora, it didn't take you long to come up with a way to bypass the little problem of Watermoon being guarded as intently as it was. The populace wanted to get rid of the Palnos, so there was little hope for a compromise, but since the priests of Nora seemed well dispositioned towards you selling the mob a diplomatic approach might just be possible. And since the prospect of the Faith taking a side in this matter had the potential to change everything, you were sure they could at least get you to the gates of Watermoon.

So with your heart once more urging you to take action and your mind made up, you started to ask the priests around the sept for help in your little endeavour with the expected amount of success. Mayhaps they would have been more open to take the risk if you had told them who you worked for, but after you considered that your master's letter had played its own little part in all this madness, you swiftly thought better of it. In the end, you still found one that was willing to take the risk as one of the ancient former knights that joined the priesthood going by the name of Barden turned up on his own accord and squeezed you for the details.

He was apparently less than pleased with the state of Nora, the town he was born in, so pressed for other opportunities, you despite your better judgement answered him all of his questions. As the old knight with his trusted station in the priesthood, and his soft heart for the people of Nora was just far too convenient to risk being rejected once more. It stung a bit how little you could actually do once you could no longer employ your blades and tactics as usual, but since any and all lessons in your profession are invaluable, you still found that the blow to your pride was a small price to pay.

So after you had successfully recruited the good old Barden, or perhaps he was the one that had been doing the recruiting, you decided that you would be satisfied as long as your scheme still had a chance to succeed as you failed to come up with any alternatives. There was of course the problem that you had to disclose that you worked for the Lannisters to convince him that marching up to the gates of Watermoon wasn't just a hopeless undertaking. But since that was apparently all he needed to know, you swiftly judged that this was also acceptable, since it wouldn't have remained a secret for all that much longer anyway.

As you thought about it all, you couldn't help but once more think that life really had it out for you, or perhaps your secured future simply encouraged your heart to push for risks that would have been unthinkable before. Though despite how much you internally complained about the fact that you were going to try to talk your way through a massive mob of dubious integrity and dozens of raider gangs, you still found that anything less than a proper attempt wouldn't have satisfied your conscience.

For despite the deeds that came with your profession and your previous screwups, you nevertheless planned to live a decent life, not that you had much success with that in recent times. You couldn't truly erase the bad or outright evil things you had done before as everything that has already happened is beyond your grasp to fix, but since good deeds were never able to erase the bad ones, that wasn't the point. In the end, what mattered was that if you walked away from Nora while you had the ability to end their vain struggles, you doubted things would ever improve, the most important step towards redemption was after all always the next one.

If you said this time that the risks were too great, then it stood to reason that the same would happen the next time you inevitably tried to help some other bunch of unfortunate souls. The estimated gains and risks involved in everything had always occupied your mind, but that was simply because you never really felt like you were indebted to the world as you were now. You didn't know how much it would take to make up what you owed to the world for that many dead children, but since your time in this life was limited and assassins often found their end unexpectedly, you couldn't really afford to push things off into the future like the Arryns had the habit of doing.

Hence, despite the odds, you found yourself walking down the devastated streets of Nora towards the outline of Watermoon far off in the distance while you and your temporary companion observed the various groups that had claimed the ruins that surrounded you. No one had made a move on you so far, and it seemed unlikely that they would do so while you had a local, well known priest by your side, but as far as you were concerned good habits shouldn't be shunned. Especially since a noble of the Westerlands called up to represent the Lannisters had no business killing off the smallfolk of another Great House, so your options were a bit limited.

And as you thought about the one that indirectly forced you to work with strategies and tactics you had never used once more, you couldn't help but wonder if your master was in truth perhaps some kind of sadist. As the lack of nobles to take the position remained as unbelievable as it had been when you first heard it from him, the amount of work needed to occupy all nobles of the Westerlands at once would just be far too great. Perhaps the actual truth was that they already knew of your lord's sadistic nature and his tendency to make tasks more difficult than they needed to be and just claimed they were busy, yeah, that sounded more believable.