Bab 92: Difficult Decisions
15th day of 5th Moon, 259AC
Dorne
Early in the morning when the sun was just peeking over the horizon, Doran found himself mounted on his trusty steed in the main courtyard of Yronwood Castle.
Looking around him he saw the hunting party.
His faithful knight, Ser Lothar, was by his side, 20 other Martell Knights with their squires were also there. About 5 Martell servants and the Yronwood group. Edgar and Ormond Yronwood led the way, followed by 20 guards and a couple of servants.
The hunt was going to last a little less than a week, they were going to go to a forest a day and a half away from the castle, in that forest many deer and wild boar had been sighted.
Doran accepted Ormond's idea mainly for one reason, he intends to put his plan into action during this trip.
What plan?
Doran intends to use the mental arts to extract from Yon Yronwood all the information he needs, he will see his memories in search of evidence of his plans and if he really did not leave any evidence, Doran plans to create it.
The prince will transform into a bird and during the first night of the journey, he will fly to the castle to carry out his plan. The reason why he wants to do this while everyone believes him away from the castle is because this plan will possibly kill Yon. Doran discovered that Yon Yronwood has a brain tumor. The irony of the situation is just too funny and the prince could hardly help but burst out laughing the moment he identified the old man's condition.
Yon Yronwood planned to feign illness in order to have a valid reason to invite one of the Blackfyre men to his castle to organize the rebellion. And just a few weeks before the arrival of that man, the old man begins to suffer from headaches, visual fatigue, dizziness and disorientation. The symptoms started showing up only a day or two before Doran arrived at Yronwood Castle, so it took him a while to recognize them. When he did it, he was in the middle of a dinner with the whole Yronwood family, and what a dinner that was. Doran hid his laughter with a cough so sudden it made him choke on his own saliva.
Because of the brain tumor there is a great possibility that Yon could not withstand the stress of the mental arts at its full power. It is very likely that Yon has a stroke, so Doran wants to do this while he is away from the castle. To avoid any accusation.
Currently, Doran was sitting on his saddle with a serene gaze as he surveyed his surroundings. Lothar was to his right and Ormond Yronwood to his left, the boy still prattling about this or that. Doran nodded every two minutes and added something from time to time.
"Are you as good with a spear as you are with a sword, Prince Doran?" Lord Edgar asked out loud as he looked at him with concealed annoyance. It seemed that the Yronwood heir did not want to be here either, entertaining an eleven-year-old boy isnt be something very exciting.
"No, but I'm quite adept." The prince replied with a stoic expression.
"I am sure you are being modest, my prince." Ormond intervenes. "I saw him train yesterday with Ser Lothar, he was incredible! His ability is on par with many knights, no! He is even better!-" Ormond starts to babble about Doran's martial skills.
His father hides a scowl and Doran smirks.
`He is a good lad, shame he is-` Doran stops himself with a scowl. `Just because his family is my enemy I shouldn't manipulate him like this, pretend to be his friend... But the Yronwoods have been trying to overthrow my house for a thousand years. They have always wanted control over Dorne, they never accepted my ancestors as their liege. Even if I become friends with Ormond, that doesn't mean his house will become loyal to mine. Even with his father and grandfather out of the picture. I may be able to create a strong friendship and he might be loyal to me, maybe that bond will last several generations, but how many? Other Martells tried this, fostering Yronwood children and creating powerful bonds of friendship. Those ties lasted a couple of generations but in the end greed always won. And there is a war on the horizon. I cannot allow a civil war to break out in Dorne.`
Doran thinks of his grandmother, she must have come to the same conclusion. House Yronwood must be wiped out, all of them. Then he wonders why she didn't organize their assassination.
`The Blackfyre, and many others. Organizing the murder of all the Yronwoods is not that difficult for someone like my grandmother, she can do it without leaving any clues. But if House Martell's biggest rivals were to disappear, even without proof, we would be prime suspects. That would tarnish House Martell's reputation, and in this world one's reputation is as important as one's power or wealth. We need to turn all of Dorne against them, so when we get rid of them no one will object. What was the saying? Cutting the tree is not enough, you also have to pull out the roots.`
***
At night Doran retired to his tent, called Lothar and told him to stand guard.
"Let no one enter my tent."
"Be careful."
Doran nods and takes the form of a peregrine falcon, the fastest mundane bird in the world. The peregrine falcon can fly at an average of 33 miles per hour, so Doran could make the flight to Yronwood Castle in just under three hours.
Landing on the balcony of the old man's room, Doran reverts to his human form in a corner not visible from inside. After using a spell to reduce the noise of his footsteps, Doran enters the chambers of the elderly lord. Yon is lying in bed sleeping.
After using the anti-sound bubble spell in the room, Doran abruptly wakes him up.
He throws the contents of a glass that was on the nightstand in his face.
"What?! Prince Doran?! W-" Yon can't finish his question.
"Petrificus Totalus" The old man is stiff as a statue, he is still conscious but he cannot move a muscle. "You know Yon, I didn't want to resort to this. Poking around in someone's mind always leaves me with a sour taste in my mouth. Tom and Snape's fault, I suppose. I know how unpleasant that feeling is, but you left me no choice."
Doran locks the door to the chambers with a spell and sits on the bed, next to the petrified man. He looks at him with a neutral face, nothing in his face betrays what he feels but his hand trembles slightly. The prince knows that this will kill the old man, given the fragility of the brain the chances of Yon Yronwood surviving the procedure are less than one in twenty.
"Legilimency!"
Hundreds of images begin to play in front of Doran, the prince takes a deep breath and begins to order everything. He slows down the playback and begins to discard useless memories. He skims over everything he thinks might be useful to him and after two hours he finds everything he needs.
The reason there is no physical evidence of the Yronwood plans is because of Edarion Blackfyre. After a Martell spy got proof of some of Yon and Edarion's plans, the two became more paranoid. Luckily for the conspirators, Edarion managed to catch the spy before he could report to Jacaerys Martell (head of the Martell spy network). Since then the two destroyed all the letters they exchanged after reading them.
"Iron Bank," Doran murmurs.
The Iron Bank is the safest bank in the world, its vaults are more protected than most kings. In its many centuries of existence no one was able to cross those walls, no vault was stolen.
Which is why Edarion keeps all the legal documents about the Yronwood-Blackfyre alliance there.
"If I could get hold of those documents... Nothing could save House Yronwood, not even the king. With those papers in hand we can get rid of every last one of them and no one will say anything." Plans begin to form in the teen's mind.
Doran also found out the truth behind those bandits, although he already knew that the traitors were behind them, he didn't know all the details.
The captain of the guard, Ser Ronnel, is the one who recruited both the mercenaries and the bandits. The plan was simple, give them a reason to increase the number of soldiers at their disposal before the war. They were quite cunning, without the spies of the Princess of Dorne they would have managed to increase the number of their army to 8000.
Ser Ronnel is Yon's best friend, his closest confidant. And the only one, apart from Edgar, who is aware of all the treacherous plans.
"Capture him, drug him with some potions and it will be the final nail in their coffin."
Doran turns his gaze to the old man, undoes the binding spell and watches as he begins to gasp and choke.
"Obliviate" Doran erases the memories of the last hours from Lord Yronwood's mind, that spell seems to be the straw that breaks the camel's back and the old man begins to tremble. Yon clutches his head and cries in pain. The pain seems to get worse and soon the old man is curled up in a fetal position.
"He's having a stroke, it's the first time I've seen someone suffer one without doing anything. The instincts of a healer... are quite annoying." Doran feels his fingers itch, the spells needed to deal with the stroke are on the tip of his tongue. But he doesn't say anything, he doesn't do anything. He just watches as the old man groans weakly, as he tries to call for help, and after a few minutes Yon Yronwood goes still.
"I killed him." The prince murmurs softly. Yon isn't dead yet, but he will be soon. There is no healer in this world capable of curing him, the only one who could help him chooses to do nothing.
Doran walks away from the old man and runs to the balcony, undoes all the spells around the room and fly away.
In his hawk form the prince pushes his body to the limit, flying at top speed. After less than an hour he has to land, as he is too tired. He reverts to his human form and sits on the ground, staring off into space as the scene plays before his eyes.
"He was an enemy," he mutters. "I shouldn't feel guilty, if I had saved him, he would be a danger to my family." Doran thinks of his siblings, the faces of each appear behind his eyelids, after that he thinks of his parents, his grandparents, his friends.
Yon Yronwood is the second person he killed in this world. A decade ago he ordered his snake to kill the woman who tried to kill Mors, today he caused the death of another person. Harry Potter was once a soldier, but after the war he spent nearly a decade as a healer. Healing, saving people. He hadn't been in a battle since he was a teenager, killing isn't something he's used to. It is something he did when there was no other option, when the lives of many innocents were at stake.
"This is a cruel world, kill or be killed. Win or lose everything. I can't lose them, I must protect them, if that means killing... Then a killer I shall be."
Memories of Lothar fighting those bandits, and the coolness with which his grandmother admitted slaughtering three generations of a family play in his mind, Doran wonders the same thing again: Will I be the same?
Today the prince knows the answer, he knows the path he will take.
But even knowing that truth he does not dare to admit it out loud, he is not ready.
Not yet.
***
4th Moon 259AC
Naath, Astra
Sirius and his wife are in his solar, Daena is sitting on the sofa with a glass of wine in hand and Sirius is pacing around the room.
"Let's recap. Hogwarts Toy Company and Slytherin Apothecary were founded by Prince Doran Nymeros Martell. The prince is not only the founder but also the inventor of most of the products sold by those companies."
"It makes no sense!" Sirius yells, interrupting his wife. "I've seen the products of those companies! Monopoly, Risk, Chess, Domino! Those are all muggle games! I remember when a muggleborn student brought some of them to Hogwarts, I was amazed. They were so much fun! Much better than most games in the Magic World, every time we played Monopoly we were halfway through starting a war. In sixth year we got some students, Hufflepuff vs. Ravenclaw, to play a game, it was glorious! Lily had to take their wands away so they wouldn't kill each other, and without their wands they resorted to their fist" Sirius' voice softens and he smiles wistfully. "Those were the days..."
Daena clears her throat.
"I admit these coincidences are too big." The queen takes a drink of wine. "Most likely, a person from your old world is behind all this. Since you recognized several potions, that person has to be a mage. The question is who?"
Sirius looks at the map, more precisely looks at Dorne.
"It can't be a Death Eater, this person's knowledge of the Muggle world is too much. No blood purist would know dozens of Muggle games to the point of being able to recreate them. The potions are an important clue. That person has to be a Potion Master ."
"A Potion Master?"
"I recognized most of the potions, and even though I wasn't the best potions student I was still in the top 10 in class. After all, potions was one of the required subjects for someone to become an auror."
"Ah, but what makes you think that person is a Potion Master? It could well be someone very knowledgeable on this subject."
"Some of the potions they sell in Slytherin Apothecary are made with ingredients that don't exist in this world. Only a Potion Master has the knowledge and skill to substitute potion ingredients. It's very difficult, I remember trying it once in my last year, I blowed up the cauldron. I had to spend a week in the infirmary." Sirius winces at the memory.
"If it's such an advanced skill, why try it?"
Sirius mutters a response with rosy cheeks.
"Huh?" Daena looks at him amused, she already senses the answer.
"I said 'cause Snivellus could do it!"
Daena laughs at her husband.
"Typical of you, my dear."
After a few moments Sirius turns his gaze back to the map.
"We can only speculate on the identity of that person, the only way to know for sure who that person is to investigate further."
"Do you want to go to Dorne?" Daena gets up from the sofa and looks at him with an indecipherable look for most. Sirius knows what his wife wants to say but she doesn't say.
"The attacks." He mutters with a frown. Leaving Naath now is very dangerous, for the island and for his family.
"Sirius," Daena hugs him and rests her head on his chest. "We can deal with those bastards on our own, if you want to go to Dorne-"
"Nope." Sirius interrupts her. "Naath is more important, you are more important. I am no longer a child, nor can I afford to let my impulsiveness get the better of me. That person can wait a few years."
`I can't risk losing you` The king thinks as he hugs his wife tightly.
***
NOTE: Not having any clue of who that person is Sirius decides to stay home. Naath is being constanly attacked by pirates, leaving his family... But fear no, Naath royal family and House Martell will meet before the war. That is all I am saying.
Status Power Mingguan
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