The cellar beneath the establishment on the Street of Silk smelled of damp earth, stale wine, and the faint, sweet perfume drifting down through the floorboards from the brothel above.
Petyr Baelish stood alone in the gloom, holding a single oil lantern. He wore a simple, unadorned tunic, his fine silk doublets discarded upstairs. He dropped dropped a sack filled with gold onto a massive, carefully stacked pile.
The sack landed with the unmistakable, heavy clinking of solid gold.
Petyr holding the lantern higher to survey his work. Before him lay a fortune so vast it defied the comprehension of ordinary men.
It was a windowless, stone-lined room, completely hidden behind a false wall in the deepest wine cellar of the brothel. The stonemasons who had constructed this secret vault five years ago were entirely mute, sourced from across the Narrow Sea. Even so, Petyr had not left his security to chance. Once the final stone was set and the heavy, multi-stage Myrish puzzle-lock was installed, Petyr had poisoned their wine. Their bodies were buried beneath the very floor he now stood upon.
No one entered this room but the Master of Coin. He trusted no guards, no whores, and no lieutenants. He would bring the sacks himself everyday slowly emptying the vaults.
Petyr looked at the gold, his jaw clenching tightly as the bitter memory of his recent failure flared in his chest.
Ten thusand golden dragons. He had quietly funneled his own stolen hoard to the Starry Sept, outfitting the Poor Fellows with steel and providing horses for the Reach knights. It was supposed to be the perfect spark. He had envisioned the Faith Militant bogging the North down in a grueling, multi-year conflict, draining Eddard Stark's wealth and reputation, while King Robert was held back by Jon Arryn's cautious counsel.
Instead, the Warden of the North had crushed fifty thousand men in a moon, fed the survivors, and sent them home to sing his praises. Petyr's gold had simply paid for a massive delivery of free scrap iron to the Winterfell forges.
"The wolf has teeth," Petyr murmured to the empty room, his voice a low, venomous whisper. "But teeth cannot bite what they cannot see."
Petyr turned his back on the loss of the ten thousand gold dragons, focusing instead on his true masterpiece. The gold stacked to the ceiling before him.
Two million dragons.
When King Robert Baratheon took the Iron Throne, the royal coffers were overflowing with Targaryen gold. But Robert was a man of insatiable appetites. He demanded grand feasts, endless tourneys, and lavish gifts for his favorites. When Eddard Stark had introduced his grueling physical competitions to the realm, Robert had eagerly transformed them into the Grand Royal Games, a massive spectacle held every two years that drew lords and champions from all seven kingdoms.
The Games were magnificent, bloody, and incredibly expensive to host. They were also the perfect cover.
Petyr had encouraged the King's spending at every turn, manipulating the ledgers with a maestro's precision. He borrowed heavily to cover the Crown's extravagant costs. The realm was currently three million dragons in debt. One million was owed to Tywin Lannister, keeping the Lord of Casterly Rock tied firmly to the Crown's success. Two million was owed to the Iron Bank of Braavos.
But the borrowed coin had never actually paid for the Grand Games or the royal feasts. Petyr paid the King's bills with the Crown's regular tithes and incomes, meticulously altering the books to make it appear as though the royal coffers were insufficient. The massive, heavy shipments of borrowed gold from Casterly Rock and Braavos were quietly siphoned away, sack by sack, directly into this damp, hidden cellar.
He had successfully looted the Iron Throne of two million dragons, placing the crushing weight of the debt upon the King's shoulders while holding the actual wealth in his own hands. When the time came, Petyr would have the resources to buy armies, burn kingdoms, and finally take what he was owed.
Petyr stepped out of the vault, pulling the heavy stone door shut. He shifted the complex series of iron dials on the Myrish puzzle-lock until they clicked firmly into place. He slid the heavy wine rack back over the false wall, obscuring the entrance completely.
Satisfied, the Master of Coin extinguished his lantern and made his way silently up the narrow stone stairs.
If Petyr Baelish had possessed the blood of the First Men, or the discipline of the Grey Path, he might have felt it. He might have sensed the subtle, deliberate distortion in the air, a faint prickling of ancient magic watching him from the dark.
But Petyr was a man of ledgers and whispers, blind to the currents of the world.
A thousand leagues to the north Eddard Stark stood in absolute silence.
Before him rested a twisted, razor-sharp pillar of black obsidian—one of the glass candles recovered from the ruined vaults of Valyria. The candle did not burn with normal fire; it emitted a strange, pale light that cast no shadows.
Ned's grey eyes were locked onto the burning glass. Through the ancient Valyrian magic, space and distance folded into nothing. He stood in Winterfell, but he was looking directly into the damp, stone-lined cellar beneath the Street of Silk. He watched Petyr Baelish haul the sacks of gold. He watched the Master of Coin turn the heavy iron dials of the Myrish puzzle-lock, memorizing the exact sequence of the clicks.
The Lord of Winterfell knew exactly where the Master of Coin slept, where he hid his gold, and precisely how much he had stolen from the King.
---
Next day morning when the sun was rising over Blackwater Ba.
Petyr Baelish was in his modest apartments in the Red Keep. He washed the smell of the damp cellar from his skin from previous night, donned a fresh doublet of fine plum-colored silk, and pinned the mockingbird to his breast.
His plan to use the Faith Militant had failed, but chaos was a ladder with many rungs.
If he could not pit the North against the Faith, he would pit the Crown against the Lions. It was time to reveal the secret that had been sitting quietly in the Red Keep for years. The royal children—Joffrey, Myrcella, and Tommen—bore no resemblance to Robert Baratheon.
Petyr had known for years. He had held the secret back, waiting for the perfect moment. Now, with Jon Arryn no longer distracted by the logistics of the Faith Militant's crusade, the Hand of the King had the time to look closely at the royal nursery.
Petyr did not intend to tell Jon Arryn the truth directly. That was too dangerous. He would leave subtle clues here and there. Jon Arryn was a meticulous, honorable man; once he saw the thread, he would pull it until the entire tapestry unraveled.
And when Jon Arryn told Robert that his wife had cuckolded him, the Demon of the Trident would wake. Robert would execute Cersei, Tywin Lannister would call his banners in a fury of wounded pride, and the realm would bleed.
Petyr gathered his ledgers and stepped out of his apartments, walking briskly down the sunlit corridors of the Red Keep.
As he turned the corner near the small council chambers, he found his path blocked.
Lord Varys stood in the center of the hall, his soft, powdered hands folded neatly in the wide sleeves of his lavender silk robes. He smelled strongly of rosewater.
"Lord Baelish," Varys greeted, his voice a soft, obsequious purr. "You are at your labors early this morning. The Master of Coin truly never rests."
"The Crown's debts do not sleep, Lord Varys," Petyr replied smoothly, offering a polite, empty smile. "I merely strive to keep His Grace's ledgers balanced."
"A heavy burden," Varys sighed, falling into step beside him. "Especially in these trying times. The tragedy in the Neck has left many in the capital quite unsettled. So much gold, so much steel, wasted in the mud. It makes one wonder who would fund such a doomed expedition."
Petyr didn't miss a beat. "Pious fools with more gold than sense, I imagine. The Reach is full of them. It is a pity they did not consult me first; I could have recommended far safer ventures."
"Indeed," Varys murmured, his dark eyes glittering. "The North proved to be a remarkably poor choice. Lord Stark's is simply terrifying."
"Lord Stark is a pragmatic man," Petyr said casually, adjusting his ledgers. "He built a wall of stone and let the zealots break their own heads against it. A lack of imagination on the Faith's part."
They reached the heavy oak doors of the council chambers.
"Well," Varys said, offering a small, deferential bow. "I shall leave you to your numbers, Lord Baelish. May the day bring you prosperous yields."
"And may your little birds sing sweet songs, Lord Varys," Petyr replied, stepping into the chamber.
As the heavy doors closed behind the Master of Coin, the soft, fawning smile on Varys's face vanished instantly.
The Spider turned and walked away, his soft slippers making absolutely no sound on the polished stone floors. He bypassed the main corridors, slipping into a narrow, unlit servant's stairwell that descended deep into the windowless depths of the Red Keep.
Varys's mind was not on the Master of Coin's petty embezzlements or the crushed zealots in the North. His mind was focused across the Narrow Sea, on a grand design that had been decades in the making.
In the quiet dark of his hidden chambers, Varys sat before a small, unlit hearth. He poured himself a cup of water, abandoning the powdered, perfumed eunuch persona completely. Here, in the dark, he was simply a man attempting to orchestrate the fate of millions.
His thoughts drifted to his sister, Serra, and the boy she had borne before the greyscale took her. Aegon.
Aegon was a Blackfyre, the last male descendent of the female line. Varys and his old friend, Illyrio Mopatis, had spent their lives grooming the boy. Aegon was currently in Essos, being trained by masters of arms, educated by maesters, and taught the true burden of rulership. He was kind, strong, and prepared to be the perfect king.
But a perfect king needed a legitimate claim to sit the Iron Throne, and Varys's original plan had been shattered by Eddard Stark years ago.
During the Sack of King's Landing, Varys had hoped the Mountain would butcher Elia Martell and her children. Had the infant Aegon Targaryen died in the Red Keep, Varys could have easily brought his sister's son to Westeros years later, claiming he was the Targaryen prince smuggled away in the night. He could have rallied Dorne and other oppurtunists to the boy's banner.
But Eddard Stark had stormed Maegor's Holdfast. The Mountain was dead. Elia Martell lived.
Worst of all, Rhaenys Targaryen lived. She was currently seventeen, being raised in the impenetrable fortress of Winterfell, fiercely loyal to the Starks. If everything goes as he thinks there would be an eventual marriage between Rhaenys and Cregan Stark—the future Warden of the North—was all but certain.
With a trueborn Targaryen princess alive, well-known, and backed by the most formidable military in Westeros, Varys could never pass his nephew off as Elia's son. Dorne would simply look to Rhaenys for the truth.
Aegon could not rule as a hidden Targaryen. He would have to conquer as a savior.
Varys carefully mapped the pieces on the board.
Illyrio currently hosted the last remnants of Aerys's line: Viserys and the young Daenerys. Viserys was completely mad, possessing his father's cruelty without a fraction of the power. He constantly demanded an army to reclaim his Father's throne.
Varys had instructed Illyrio to give him exactly what he wanted, but in the most destructive way possible.
Illyrio was brokering a marriage pact between the young, innocent Daenerys and Khal Drogo, a notoriously brutal Dothraki warlord with a massive khalasar. Viserys believed the Dothraki would sail to Westeros for him, to seat him on the Iron Throne. Viserys was a fool, but his foolishness was entirely necessary.
Varys actually wanted the horse lords to cross the poison water. He wanted Illyrio to point a horde of screaming Dothraki directly at the shores of Westeros. Once the realm was already bleeding from the inevitable civil war between the lion, and the stag, Drogo's savage horde would land and cause absolute terror.
When Westeros was on the brink of complete collapse, its lords exhausted and its smallfolk crying out for deliverance from the Dothraki invaders, Aegon would arrive.
Backed by the disciplined, Westerosi-styled ranks of the Golden Company, Aegon would defeat the savage vanguard. He would not conquer as an invader; he would arrive as a savior. The lords of Westeros would gladly kneel to the boy who saved them from the horde. If Viserys managed to get himself killed by his own Dothraki allies before the ships sailed—a highly probable outcome given his arrogance—it would merely be a convenient bonus, leaving Aegon as the sole Targaryen savior.
But an invasion force, even one as strong as the Golden Company, could not step in to save a united Westeros. To ensure Aegon's victory, the realm needed to be tearing its own throat out when Drogo's ships first landed.
Varys sipped his water, his eyes cold in the dark.
Petyr Baelish wanted chaos, and Varys was more than willing to let him instigate it. Varys knew about the Royal bastards as well.
Once Jon Arryn brought the truth to King Robert, the realm would detonate. Robert would demand Cersei's head. Tywin Lannister, a man governed entirely by the pride of his House, would never allow his daughter to be executed or his grandson stripped of his crown. Tywin would call the banners of the Westerlands and declare war on the Iron Throne.
It would be a catastrophic, grueling conflict.
Varys analyzed Tywin Lannister's assets. The Lord of Casterly Rock was pragmatic and wealthy. Faced with the combined might of the Stormlands, the Vale, and the North, Tywin would need allies.
He would turn to the Iron Islands. Tywin held Theon Greyjoy as a ward. Varys predicted Tywin would offer the Ironborn gold and the return of their heir, perhaps even funding an assassination of Balon Greyjoy to place Theon on the Seastone Chair as a loyal Lannister puppet. With the Iron Fleet harassing the western coasts, the Crown's forces would be divided.
Furthermore, Tywin had secured a brilliant political anchor years ago when Jaime Lannister abandoned the Kingsguard. Jaime was now married to Lynesse Hightower. Through that marriage, Tywin had tied Casterly Rock to Oldtown, securing the neutrality, if not the outright support, of one of the most powerful military and naval factions in the Reach, splintering Mace Tyrell's authority.
The war would be long. It would drain the royal coffers, burn the fields of the Riverlands, and exhaust the armies of the great houses.
Eddard Stark would inevitably march south to support his friend, bringing his hardened northern legions to clash with the discipline of the Westerlands. They would grind each other into dust.
Varys set his cup down on the small table.
Let them burn their grain and empty their armories in pursuit of a spiked iron chair. Let them unleash the Dothraki horde upon themselves.
When the lords of Westeros were exhausted, their lands bleeding and their people starving, they would look to the sea for salvation.
And from the east, Aegon would come, bearing the dragon banner and the strength of the Golden Company, to bring peace to a broken world.