The Citadel received the Eyrie's raven before it received Strongsong's.
That was not unusual. Ravens did not care which message mattered more. They cared for wind, distance, weather, hunger, and whether some boy in a rookery had fed them properly before release.
The letter was read in a narrow chamber beneath the rookery, then carried to men who had seen too many fevers to be frightened by the first report of another. They became more interested when the second report arrived two days later.
"Read that part again," one archmaester said.
The younger maester holding the parchment cleared his throat. "Fever. Hard breathing. Bloody cough in advanced cases. Blood seen at nose, mouth, eyes, and ears among the worst dead."
A grey-bearded maester near the brazier frowned. "All seven openings of the face, if one counts both eyes, both ears, both nostrils, and mouth."
"That is what the septons will count," another said.
"They already are," the reader replied. "Strongsong reports the smallfolk calling it the Seven Wounds."
The archmaester made a displeased sound. "That will make them kiss relics and crowd septs."
"It may already have."
"Source?"
"Mountain clan raids around Strongsong. Villagers, wounded guards, and storehouses handled by many hands. The Eyrie warns that movement of troops may spread it."
"May?" the grey-bearded maester said. "If coughing men are marching, it is already moving."
No one argued with that.
One of the younger men looked over the lists. "Bitterleaf stores were stolen. Willow bark, clean linen, and sealed jars from lower stores too."
"Raiders wanted medicine?"
"Or anything worth carrying."
The archmaester leaned back. "Do not assume stupidity where hunger explains enough. If the clansmen are sick as well, they may know exactly what they took."
"Do we have record of this fever?"
"Many fevers bleed. Many cough. Fewer do both with such neat terror for septons." He tapped the parchment. "Send instructions to every maester in the Vale. Also to Maidenpool, Darry, and Riverrun. Separation of sick. Boiled water. Burn fouled cloth. No crowding bodies. Watch marching men. Watch refugees. Watch inns."
The younger maester hesitated. "Riverrun? The reports are from the Vale."
"The Vale has roads."
"And merchants."
"And fools," the archmaester said. "Write Riverrun."
Another maester asked, "Should we name it?"
"No. Names travel too easily. Describe it. Do not dignify superstition by repeating Seven Wounds in the first line."
The reader nodded and dipped his quill.
"What treatment?" he asked.
"Bitterleaf for fever where appropriate. Willow for heat and pain. Steam may ease hard breathing. Clean cloth. Water. Rest. Isolation where possible."
"Where possible," the grey-bearded maester repeated. "In a civil war."
The archmaester looked at the letters from the Vale.
"Yes," he said. "That is the problem."
...
In King's Landing, the fever arrived as a political inconvenience before it arrived as a sickness.
The raven from the Eyrie was brought before the regents with other Vale letters: complaints, claims, excuses, troop movements, requests for recognition, accusations of treason, and the usual careful lies of men who wanted royal authority but not royal interference.
Ser Corwyn Corbray read the Eyrie's report without speaking.
Across the table, Lord Thaddeus Rowan looked tired. He had ordered arbitration in King's Landing. The Vale had answered with delay, defiance, and now blood in the roads.
"Joffrey writes that Belmore lands have been raided," Rowan said.
"Belmore writes the same," another councillor answered. "And says he cannot spare men."
"Convenient," someone muttered.
Corwyn lowered the parchment. "Convenient things can still be true."
The room quieted a little. Corwyn's voice was not loud, but men listened when it sharpened.
A royal maester stood nearby with a copy of the symptoms. "The Eyrie has also sent to the Citadel. The account from Strongsong is detailed enough to be taken seriously."
"Mountain sickness," one lord said. "Let the Vale close its own goat tracks."
Corwyn looked at him. "Armies use goat tracks when roads fail."
Rowan nodded once. "And messengers use inns. Merchants use ferries. Refugees use anything open."
The lord did not answer.
Corwyn placed the letter on the table. "The Iron Throne has recognized Ser Joffrey Arryn as Lady Jeyne's heir. If the Vale falls into sickness and clan raids while every claimant pulls at it, our recognition becomes words on parchment."
"It is already words on parchment unless swords follow," another said.
"Then let us not make the parchment diseased before the swords arrive," Rowan replied.
That drew a few grim smiles. Not many.
The king was too young to understand what was being decided in his name. That made the room quieter, not gentler.
Rowan gave orders to the scribes. "Write to the Eyrie. Ser Joffrey is to keep the king's peace, separate the sick where possible, and report deaths by holdfast. He is not to allow panic to empty villages into castles without control."
Corwyn added, "And he is to keep pressure on Belmore without breaking him. If Belmore's lands are truly infected, forcing his men onto the roads may spread this faster."
One councillor frowned. "That sounds like giving Belmore leave to sit out the war."
"It sounds like keeping Belmore's cough out of every host in the Vale," Corwyn said.
Rowan turned to another scribe. "Write to Gulltown. Port inspections for men arriving from Strongsong roads. Quietly if they can manage it."
"They will hate that."
"They hate many things."
"To Runestone?" the scribe asked.
Rowan paused.
Corwyn answered first. "Yes. Send the same warning."
A few men shifted. Runestone supported Arnold and Eldric. Sending warning to rebels tasted bad.
Corwyn saw their faces. "A fever does not become loyal because we deny it a raven."
Rowan looked at him, then nodded. "Send it."
The final letter went south to the Citadel, though the Citadel had already been written. The council wanted its own inquiry recorded, its own seal attached, its own proof that the Iron Throne had not slept while the Vale bled and coughed.
By evening the ravens left King's Landing.
One toward the Eyrie.
One toward Gulltown.
One toward Runestone.
One toward the Citadel.
And one toward Riverrun, because Rowan had looked at the map long enough to see what others in the room preferred not to see: the Vale's war roads did not end at the Vale's borders.
...
Lord Kermit Tully heard the first rumor from a merchant before any raven reached Riverrun.
The man had come through the eastern roads with wool, salt fish, and two coughing guards. By the time he reached an inn near the Red Fork, one guard was fevered and the other insisted he was well while spitting blood into straw behind the stables.
The innkeeper sent word because he liked living and disliked surprises.
By the time the merchant was brought before Lord Kermit, the raven from the Citadel had arrived as well.
Kermit read the Citadel's warning first. Then the account from the inn. Then he looked at the merchant.
"You came from the Vale?"
"From markets near the high road, my lord. Not Strongsong itself."
"That was not my question."
The merchant swallowed. "Yes, my lord."
"One guard dead?"
"Not dead when I left the inn."
Kermit looked at his steward.
The steward said, "Dead now, my lord."
The merchant went pale.
Kermit folded the letter. "And the second guard?"
"Held outside the inn. Fevered."
"Who shared cups with them?"
The merchant blinked. "My lord?"
Kermit's patience thinned. "Who drank with them?"
"I... men on the road. A stable boy maybe. The innkeeper's nephew. I don't know."
"No. You don't."
The merchant tried to recover. "My lord, if the crossings close, trade suffers. Men hear plague and become mad. It may only be a mountain fever."
"It is always only something until it is in your hall," Kermit said.
He turned to his steward. "Send riders. Eastern ferries are to question men coming from the Vale road. Coughing men do not cross with crowds. Wagons from the Vale wait outside market towns until inspected."
The steward nodded. "Yes, my lord."
"Inns are to keep Vale travelers separate where possible. No shared cups. Burn fouled straw. Report fever."
"That will anger merchants."
Kermit looked at the merchant. "Good. They will remember it."
The merchant bowed his head quickly.
Kermit continued, "Write to the Eyrie. Write to Runestone. Write to Gulltown. I do not care which Arryn they prefer. If their quarrel sends fever down my roads, I will close the ferries harder."
The steward hesitated. "All of them, my lord?"
"All of them."
"And King's Landing?"
"Yes. Tell the regents the Riverlands will not be the Vale's sickbed."
The merchant found courage enough to speak. "My lord, closing passage will be seen as taking a side."
Kermit looked at him for a long moment.
"I do not know which Arryn should rule the Vale," he said. "I do know coughing men should not crowd my ferries."
That ended the argument.
...
Within three days, the eastern roads began to change.
Not close. Not fully. No lord could close every path, every goat track, every hidden ford, every desperate man with a cousin across the river. But the official crossings tightened. Ferrymen watched faces before coin. Innkeepers complained while moving beds farther apart. Merchants cursed while waiting outside market gates. A septon near a road chapel stopped offering the same cup to every traveler after a Tully rider threatened to break it.
Some obeyed.
Some lied.
Some coughed into sleeves and said it was only cold.
A group of sellswords turned away from a watched ferry rode north to find a smaller crossing. Two days later one of them was fevered. A wool cart from the Vale bribed its way into a village market and left before dawn. The village reported its first bloody cough five days after.
The fever did not flood the Riverlands.
Not yet.
It seeped.
Back in Riverrun, Kermit Tully stood over a map with small stones marking ferries, inns, and roads from the Vale. He had fought enough war to know men drew lines on maps because it comforted them. Sickness did not care much for lines. Still, lines were what a lord had.
His steward entered quietly. "Another raven from King's Landing, my lord."
Kermit held out his hand.
The message was short. The Iron Throne had received his warning. Movement from the Vale was to be watched. The king's peace was to be preserved. The situation was being studied.
Kermit read it twice.
"Studied," he said.
The steward waited.
Kermit set the parchment down. "Send more riders to the eastern inns."
"Yes, my lord."
"And double the watch at the ferries."
"My lord, the merchants—"
"The merchants can cough on their own side of the river."
The steward bowed and left.
Kermit looked back at the map.
The Vale had its falcons, bronze giants, gulls, and mountain dogs. Let them fight over names and seats if they wished. But no lord's quarrel would be allowed to walk unchallenged across his rivers with blood in its mouth.