Aegor never imagined that one day, he would have to worry about controlling the influence of a rumor he had personally spread.
The so-called "last words" he had written back in King's Landing, forged under Ser Hugh's name, were entirely fabricated in form, but eighty to ninety percent true in content. Taking the Hand's wife's maidenhood was not exactly earth-shattering news. Maintaining a long-term affair could at most be considered a moral failing. But ordering a married woman to poison her own husband—such a heinous act was appalling enough to shock even the Free Folk, who lived by the law of the jungle beyond the Wall. Forcibly forbidding people from discussing such a vile incident was like trying to dam a flood instead of diverting it. The results would be uncertain, and worse, it might even appear as if one were defending the villain, becoming the object of scorn alongside him.
Stopping the mouths of the people is harder than stopping a river, but fortunately, the Gift Army was not "people." They were soldiers, a professional force trained long in obedience and discipline. Aegor's demand was not for them to completely forget or forgive the matter, but simply to refrain from loudly discussing it in public or foolishly approaching Littlefinger to mock or provoke him. As long as they adhered to these two points, with Petyr's current standing as the Queen's Hand and his broader perspective, he likely would not concern himself with whether common folk approved of him.
Relying on his prestige and his position as Lord Commander, Aegor's orders were quickly issued and implemented. The second wave stirred up by that same piece of parchment was thus quietly suppressed—at least on the surface.
Next came tracing the source. The first results exceeded Aegor's expectations. Harvey and Meilan led their men to sweep the camp and ended up confiscating over a dozen more copies of "Ser Hugh's Last Words." Considering that some might have been hidden away, the actual number was certainly higher. It was impossible for all these copies to be originals, but when Aegor examined them with his own eyes, he found that the craftsmanship and attention to detail were so precise that even he, the original author, had difficulty telling which were real and which were fake.
The authenticity of the parchment was irrelevant. What Aegor cared about was how they had entered the camp. The holders generally claimed to have "found" them. In this, Varys had chosen wisely, using a non-contact method of distribution to maintain security. But that didn't mean the entire affair was untraceable. As the Queen's Master of Intelligence, Varys was far too prominent to act personally in such matters. To avoid risk, he would inevitably rely on subordinates. And the more people involved, the more clues and traces would inevitably be left behind.
After extensive interviews and investigations, the soldiers' testimonies ultimately pointed to an unexpected but reasonable target.
On the very day a large number of these papers had suddenly appeared in Winterfell, the Lord of Dreadfort had entered the city under some pretense. Several of his followers were later seen wandering near the very spots where the papers had surfaced. One of them had even been recognized by Aegor's subordinates—Corley Snow, whom Roose Bolton had instructed just a month earlier to deliver word to Aegor in Crown Town, trying to sell him information about Northern plans to confront the Night's Watch and recruit him into betraying House Stark.
At the time, to keep the Gift Army's surprise attack on Winterfell secret, Aegor had confined that group and only released them three days after the army had officially begun marching south. Now, this man had reappeared in Winterfell, with the timing aligning so precisely that it was easy to piece together what had happened.
Varys, lacking military power and therefore manpower, wished to disrupt Aegor and Petyr's efforts to win over the Northern lords and prepare for the South Expedition. Unable to use the Unsullied, he turned to his newly recruited ally, Roose Bolton. As a major landowner in the remote North, Dreadfort likely had even fewer usable men than the Gift Army. So the old flayer had once again handed the task to his bastard, the same boy Aegor had encountered before.
It all made sense. But even if the speculation was accurate, Aegor couldn't respond directly. This was merely a public opinion attack, and the content used wasn't even fabricated. Even if they captured the culprit and brought him before the Queen, Daenerys would at most frown and tell Varys and Roose Bolton to consider the greater good and stop undermining her Hand. Such a result was insignificant and clearly not what Aegor wanted. So he simply passed the investigation's findings to Littlefinger and then began looking forward to how the latter would retaliate.
...
Littlefinger moved quickly. Within the Gift Army—well-versed in communication and trained in managing public opinion—a new rumor, less horrific but even more salacious, began to spread like wildfire.
The story went something like this:
"The Queen's Master of Intelligence, Varys, was once a man of deep affection. In his youth, he had a wife. Although they never consummated the marriage, their emotional bond was unusually strong. Sadly, love could not overcome reality—Varys lacked a certain crucial part of his anatomy. Unable to have children, the couple spent a fortune to find the commander of the Golden Company and 'borrow his seed' to conceive a son. Tragically, the mother died in childbirth. The boy, orphaned from birth, was raised jointly by his nominal and biological fathers. When the time was right and he came of age, he was brought to Westeros and presented as Aegon Targaryen, heir to the Iron Throne."
What in the world? Who could even come up with something like this?
Aegor had been stunned for several seconds when he first heard this story. His admiration for Petyr grew yet again. This rumor, while seemingly crude and absurd, was actually constructed with great skill. Not only did it shift public attention by countering poison with poison, but it also smeared all of their opponents in one fell swoop.
Prince Aegon was a fraud. Varys, a eunuch, was the dead woman's husband. The Golden Company commander was fighting and dying for a son who didn't acknowledge him and bore no part of his name.
This twisted tale, blending physical deformity, emotional distortion, and ruthless ambition, and laced with sensational elements of incest, politics, love, and betrayal, not only completely stole the spotlight from the earlier rumors but also heavily emphasized Varys's lack of manhood.
Just as the Free Folk beyond the Wall had never heard of Littlefinger's past scandals, they also didn't know that Varys was a eunuch. But with this rumor now spreading, Aegor could already picture the kinds of conversations that would ripple through the Gift Army and Winter Town over the next few days:
A: "Why couldn't Varys and his wife have kids?"
B: "Because he has no balls."
A: "What? How's that possible?"
B: "Why are you asking? They were cut off, that's why."
The blatant malice and ridicule were just the beginning. More alarmingly, if one accepted the premise of this story, then Aegon's identity, Varys's tireless support of the Queen marrying her supposed nephew, and the Golden Company's fervent backing of the Targaryen prince... all suddenly made a perverse kind of sense. One man and one eunuch were simply trying to secure a bright future for their "shared son."
To be fair, neither Daenerys nor Aegon would have much trouble proving the story false if they tried. But the strength of a rumor lies in the fact that it serves its purpose the moment it spreads. Even if it is later debunked, the damage is already done.
People love a scandal, but rarely care about the truth. It was easy to imagine that, after this story spread from Winterfell, Prince Aegon would never be able to look Varys—his loyal and silent supporter—the same way again.
...
With a more explosive and malicious rumor, Littlefinger managed to seize back the upper hand in this first round of the public opinion war. But the real world isn't a turn-based game where each side waits patiently for the other's move. The Queen's Hand had no intention of sitting idle.
While the city was still abuzz over the question of what Varys might be missing between his legs, Petyr had already begun using the manpower Aegor had lent him to launch his second wave of counterattacks.
This time, the "battlefield" moved outside the city, and the target also shifted. Explosive news erupted in the seemingly calm Winter Town. Several soldiers from Dreadfort had broken into the home of a Stark bannerman and attempted to rape the man's wife. They were stopped and apprehended on the spot by the Gift Army and patrolling Unsullied who arrived in time. The men were bound and brought before the Queen.
That was the story as told to outsiders. But since Aegor had lent men to Petyr, he had access to the full truth from a first-hand perspective.
(To be continued.)