Chapter 21: Chapter 21
"The lads found the place completely by accident. They had been wondering around and not doing the actual work they are being paid to do, going to have to punish them for that." The foreman grumbled as he led me through the shadows of the Dragon Pit.
"Not too harshly, I hope." I replied, stemming a yawn that had threatened to escape from my throat. It was early in the morning and I didn't do mornings, but apparently, this was important or something to have a member of royalty check it out.
The foreman bobbed his head up and down as he nodded, "Not too harshly, but I can't be seen to reward laziness, Y'Grace."
"No. I suppose you can't." Unless nepotism was involved. Or gold. There was a load of ways that laziness could be rewarded if one was enterprising enough.
The Dragon Pit once upon a time had a roof. Once upon a time, it had been dome shaped, but somewhere in time, the said roof collapsed, bringing thousands of tonnes of stone and glass crashing down to the ground.
A good thing then that by the time that had happened, the Targaryens didn't have so much as a single dragon left to house in the building. Other wise, this would have been an excellent way to test out how durable the dragons were.
Also, the glass made it a good point to wear sturdy, tough boots unless I wanted to cut the sole of my feet on something sharp and dirty and potentially lose said foot. Nothing is more a motivator than the fear of catching some unknown exotic, medieval, fantastic disease to actually make sure that you are dressed properly for the situation.
The Pit was vast that it felt like I had been led through the building for what seemed like eternity. It made sense. Dragons were big. They never stopped growing according to lore, so making sure that their home was big made so that they can continue growing that the environment didn't affect their size or anything like that.
Of course the Targaryens later learned that this wasn't a thing since the dragons, born and raised in the Pit never did grow to the size of pre-Pit dragons. I was more surprised that they continued with the practice and that no-one actually noticed anything wrong with this.
"Here we are, Y'Grace." The foreman eventually said, stopping shot of a hole that suddenly appeared on the floor.
Taking a look around, I noticed that the walls were scorched black with soot and in some places, had actually melted. Wow, did the wildfire make all of it's way up here? How did I not see that?
There was a couple of guardsmen standing around along with some workers that were busy fastening ropes to a nearby pillar. Ropes that were then thrown down the hole and I realised that for some reason, we would be going down there.
"How did this happening?" I asked, walking as close to the hole as possible. I had a thing against heights and the size of the Pit sort of made me question the size of it's basement or whatever passed for a basement down there.
The foreman began explaining, helping him out was how he pointed towards the large now noticeable section of the Dragon Pit that had been melted down to nothing more than molten rock and cooled by time, "The fucking pigshit, pardon me language Y'Grace, came through o'er there, burned it's way through the walls and into the pit in general. It spread across the floor, melting as it does, weakening it, in more places than others."
I slowly took a moment to step carefully away from the hole. Now that I was actually looking at said floor, I can see that it was a dried, slurry mixture of glass and rock.
"So your men were just wondering about and then just fell through that hole that appeared beneath their feet?"
The foreman bobbed his head, "Aye, Y'Grace." He stamped at the floor and made my heart jump, "Damned lucky the buggering morons are still alive. Came out with a couple of broken bones, but nothing that time and a good rest won't heal."
Warily watching the man's foot, I held back a sigh of relief when he stopped the stamping, "Did they see what was down there then?"
"Aye, Y'Grace. Said they couldn't see all that well because of the dark, but they recognised what they saw."
"And what did they see?"
He looked at me, wonder in his eyes, "Dragons, Y'Grace." He breathed out, "They saw dragons."
xXx
The moment that I stepped out of my personal office, Luceon was right beside me, appearing from nowhere. For those not in the know, Luceon was the one in charge of rebuilding King's Landing in a reasonable manner.
In other words, he was the maester from before. I only got around to knowing his name when I figured I might as well know it because I was going to deal with him for the foreseeable future.
His maester's chain was clinking with each and every step that he took as he spoke, "Your Grace, there is a matter I must speak with you about urgently."
"Does it have to be now? I promised to have lunch with my lady wife and daughter." Got to spend time with the family. Build those bridges and what not.
"It's about the sewers." He said, pulling out a rolled up scroll of paper from his grey robe. On the move, he unrolled it and held it out in front of him, "And about those bath houses you want to implement."
I realised I probably needed to hear this. No point in trying to build a clean city that didn't stink if there was going to be a problem with the sewers and the bath houses.
"What is it?" I asked, having the courtesy to stop and give the youthful man a break.
"It's more so about the bath houses than the sewers." He stared at something on the parchment of paper in front of him, "We can easily divert some water from the Blackwater Rush to wash away the muck from the pipes and into the Bay, but it's the bath houses that are proving to be a problem."
I nodded and wrapped my head around what he was telling me. The sewers were going to accrue quite the yield of shit on a daily basis, and thus, to stop blockages, it was best that they were washed away. Thankfully, we already had a fast flowing river nearby that could be diverted to flow some water that could wash away said shit into the Blackwater Bay.
Apparently, flowing all your shit into the sea was standard practice and I couldn't really think of a suitable alternative that didn't involve that, so I gave the green light. In the future though, if I was going to have any sort of fish, I was going to make sure that it was thoroughly cleaned.
"So the sewers are fine then?" I asked and Luceon gave me a nod, "Then what's the problem with the bath houses?"
The maester licked his lips, "Water needs to be supplied to the bath houses, but it can't be unclean water like that of the Rush."
Well, that was obvious enough. The Blackwater Rush was many things, clean it was not.
Oh.
So there was the problem. The Rush wasn't clean enough to be used as clean water suitable for bathing.
I crossed my arms and hummed in thought, "That is a problem." Luceon nodded his head in agreement with that little statement of mine before I tried to think of something, "Where does our clean water come from then?"
"There's several wells located in the King's Landing locale that the locals use and the more affluent residents of the city pipe it into their homes."
I blinked, huh, I have always wondered where the water that I regularly bathed in came from, having never seen anything close to a well around the castle grounds. Guess I had to give some credit to the locals, they weren't all lacking in some areas.
"So can't we use the water from those wells?"
"Not in the quantity that would be required for the daily running of such large institutions."
Hm, that was a problem. I tried to think of something but got nothing, "Any suggestions?"
Luceon nodded as he pulled another scroll out of the sleeves of his grey coat. I wondered what else exactly he was keeping in there.
This time, it was a map and he pulled it out. It was a map of the crownlands and he tapped on one particular spot on the map.
The Wendwater.
"I think if we built an aqueduct of the like of the sweetwater river of the Braavosi, we would be able to bring in water from the Wendwater directly to King's Landing to meet the demands of the bath houses."
An aqueduct? Sounds like a fun idea, but by the looks of things, this meant building something that was more than likely going to be quite long. Like a couple hundred of miles long.
...Were aqueducts even supposed to be that long?
Still though, "What makes you think this river is going to be any cleaner than the Rush?"
"No, no," Luceon shook his head, "We won't be directing water from the river itself, but from the source. The Wendwater begins at a narrow lake in the southern Kingswood. Unlike most rivers, this one is supplied by an underground source that continues to deposit clean water, drinkable water at that, into the lake that then proceeds to flow into the Bay."
Huh, neat. There was just one problem with this.
"I don't think the Wendwaters would like it if we just infringed on their water rights like that."
Luceon had the decency to act at the very least, sheepish, "No, no they wouldn't."
I sighed and rubbed at the bridge of my nose, "Alright. Plan for the aqueduct. Materials needed, possible cost, all that. I will have a raven dispatched to the Wendwaters, inviting them for talks. Perhaps we can work something out."
The maester nodded his head and rolled up his papers before quickly running of to his offices and making a start on his new task. I might be more wary of the maesters, but I had to agree, damned where they useful sometimes and some of them even more than eager when it came to their duties.
I don't think I'll be making it to that lunch with Branda and the baby.
Pulling aside a clerk, I quickly had him run off to deliver my heartfelt apologies to my wife as I returned to my office to at least try to make a start on a letter that was probably going to be begging the Wendwaters to let me mooch of their valuable water rights.
I wasn't looking forward to any of the dealing and politicking that was going to be involved.
xXx
When I wasn't too busy discovering the mausoleums of long forgotten dragons and thinking of ways to profit of the highly valuable nature of dragon bones in general, or even when I wasn't involved in the rebuilding efforts of King's Landing, Egg took a moment to let me shadow him as he went about running his empire.
Because at the end of the day, that was what the Seven Kingdoms were, an empire. Egg was the emperor and the Great Houses were the kings or in Dorne's case, princess, they took their marching orders from.
Well, in theory anyway. It was a whole lot more complicated than that.
Back in the days, when we had dragons, if a Targaryen asked you to jump, you asked how high, other wise, you had a good chance to catch an affliction better known as 'death by dragon fire' and nobody wanted that.
Frankly, I liked to think that Aegon, despite all the good he did by uniting Westeros underneath one authority, could have done a whole lot more than he had done during his time as king. The Iron Throne, Jaehaerys' codification of the laws of the land and a barely maintained road wasn't much of a legacy considering everything else that they could have honestly done.
In my own humble opinion which was highly supported by outside context knowledge all the way through, I think Aegon half-assed it. Simple as it is.
He could have done far more and half the troubles that plagued Westeros could have solely been avoided if he had only, you know, married one of his sisters instead of both. I would really like to know what he was thinking at the time.
Just so I could wrap my head around that insanity.
But that was neither here nor there.
Following Egg around pretty much told me what I already knew. The Iron Throne was the highest power in the realm, but it was dependent on the support of his lords. Most of the time, if Egg wanted something from someone, he had to give something in return.
Fuck that.
If I was going to be king, when I want something, I better well have it without having to give a concession unless it was damn well worth it.
Still though, I learned quite a few things underneath his tutelage and actually learned some of his policies that the nobles never liked. Arbitrary courts were not a thing from what I could remember in the books, but somehow, Egg had been able to recognise the closest thing to such courts.
If a dispute or something along them lines was raised between guilds or even among merchants, they would take it to the closest thing they had to a arbitral tribunal. And in a remarkable level of civility that I would not have expected from anybody in Westeros, whatever decisions that were met in said tribunal would actually be held to.
Seriously.
Before Egg recognised these informal tribunals as legitimate, people actually followed the decisions that had been made by these tribunals. That was mind blowing.
Well, until some random lordling came along and ruined that. Before Egg decreed them as legitimate, if a dispute was solved between two people, guilds, merchants and anybody else who benefited from such a thing as rule of law made an effort to enforce such decisions.
If one of the disputees didn't follow the decision, more often than not, they would find themselves blacklisted so badly, they would find themselves ruined or have to move to another region just to make a living. And even then, that was dubious at best.
Of course, that was among themselves. Pesky little rules and codes of conduct between the smallfolk and commoners mattered little to the lords that were above such little things.
Considering the general Westerosi nobility disdain for anything involving finance and running any sort of business, I was rather befuddled as to why some lordlings would go out of their way to ruin such civil things. Even if breaking said decisions resulted in an economic blow back on them.
I just didn't get it and stopped bothering to actually get it.
There was just some things that were beyond me.
Egg was smiling, I don't know why, but Egg was smiling. If I didn't know any better, I would say that my grandfather was close to bursting out in laughter, "Aerys!" He got up to his feet rather quickly that I was momentarily worried about those aging bones of his, "Come, come. Read this."
He handed out a letter in my direction and I took it off him the moment I was close enough. Reading it through, I skimmed some parts so I misread some of it. Re-reading it turned out that I hadn't so much as misread as much as I thought.
I cracked a smile, "We won?"
Egg snorted, "Of course we won." He walked around from his side of the table to come to stand in front of me and placed gentle hands on my shoulders, "It's over. That dreadful war is over and the Blackfyres and their allies have been routed from the field of battle and the Stepstones and back to their holes in Essos. Your grandmother and aunt will more than pleased with the news. Duncan and Steffon will be coming home."
This was good news. This was really good news.
For starters, I now didn't have to worry about the Blackfyres winning and thus having free reign to invade Westeros and make a go to remove the my head along with the rest of my families.
But still though, something was still on my mind. I re-read the letter once more and went through what Egg said before it hit me, "Wait, Maelys isn't dead?"
Egg quirked an eyebrow, "No. I believe a young knight by the name of..." He was quiet for a moment as he thought for a few moments, "Ser Barristan Selmy of Harvest Hall slayed him in single combat."
Good on you, Barry. Seems like some things were keeping to canon.
But wait, there was still that other Blackfyre that should have been dead but was actually still alive because of butterflies of course! How I still influenced that was beyond me.
"There's still Daemon Blackfyre though..." I pointed out slowly and winced. Steffon probably wasn't going to like that one bit.
He had wanted to personally kill that particular Blackfyre.
Egg acknowledged my point with a nod as he held back a grimace that turned at the corner of his lips, "Yes. More than likely, him or his descendants will make another attempt at the Iron Throne in the future. I would have liked for this to have been ended in the Stepstones for the last time, but it seems that Blackfyre rebellions are simply something we must live with."
In other words, I was probably going to be the one that would have to deal with Daemon or whoever took up the Blackfyre caused. But really, I couldn't help but wish them all the luck in the world.
Egg had slandered their name so badly in King's Landing and perhaps throughout the entire Seven Kingdoms that they would have a hard time to get any popular support, especially among the populace of King's Landing.
I'm pretty sure Blackfyre was now a by-word for a curse or something among the smallfolk.
As long as it wasn't my name, that was fine with me.
"At least you have to admit that these Blackfyres are persistent." I praised them. Had to give them some recognition for the sheer determination. That enough was worthy of some praise at the very least.
The Lord of the Seven Kingdoms laughed a little, "At the end of it all, their persistency might very well be the end of them. By now, at the very least, they could have tried to eke out a living of their own somewhere in Essos."
I nodded my head in agreement, "To be honest, if they wanted to be kings so much, I never understood why they never took one of the Free Cities for themselves."
Egg raised an eyebrow, "Doing that would have turned all of the Free Cities against them. As storied as the Golden Company is, they are not that good to take on the might of all the Free Cities."
"Okay, maybe not one of the Free Cities, but one of the other places in Essos. Essos just doesn't consist of the Free Cities." I pointed out. There was Slaver's Bay and the bullshit that happened there.
I'm pretty sure there was a bunch of places in Essos that they could have carved out a kingdom for themselves, but hey, honour before reason and all that.
"Mayhaps, but that is neither nor there. All that matters is that this is finally over. That this bloody chapter of our family can finally be closed."
That was true. A bloody chapter indeed. Written in the blood of friends and family.
Just another day in Westeros then.
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