Chương 96: The titan
6th Moon, 259AC
Doran's arrival at Sunspear was greeted with much loving affection, his siblings leaping into his arms and not letting go until they fell asleep. Olyvvar and Elia were very excited about the return of their older brother, little Oberyn, on the contrary, did not understand what all the fuss was about.
Trystanne was training a group of soldiers in defensive tactics in the desert so he wasn't there to greet his son.
Rhaella was packing and Doran barely managed to greet her, Prince Duncan greeted him warmly and told him about his daughter, Princess Alysa Targaryen. Alysa is only two years old and is the apple of her father's eye, the prince adores her and talks about her at every opportunity.
Doran listened to Duncan's stories patiently, while his siblings used him as a sofa (Elia sitting on his shoulders and playing with his hair, Olyvvar sitting on his lap fiddling with Doran's medallion).
After the animated conversation Doran took his siblings to their rooms, the little ones demanded a lot of bedtime stories and the older prince complied. Once the babies were comfortably asleep, Doran went to his grandmother's solar. There, he told Dorna everything he found out, he also told her about his plans.
"I see." The princess narrows her eyes and looks pensive.
Doran waits in silence while his grandmother takes in all the information. Minutes go by and no one says anything, Doran starts fiddling with a ring and looking around the room. More time passes and after twenty minutes the princess finally speaks.
"Yon's betrayal is not unexpected," she says solemnly. "I have suspected his loyalties for decades but without proof, without evidence I could not do anything but prepare for the moment in which he puts his plans into motion. Or at least that's what I told myself, waiting until the right moment to act is what I have been doing for a while. In recent years I have been prone to thinking a lot about the issues before me, weighing every word and every action. When I was younger I was more active, I used to create opportunities instead of waiting for them to appear. They say the more sand has escaped from the hourglass of our life, the clearer we should see through it."
Doran looks at her confused, not understanding what she means.
"Do you regret not having done anything against the Yronwoods?"
"I have many regrets, my dear grandson. The Yronwoods... No, they are not one of my regrets."
"Huh?"
"This is a lesson for you." The princess gets up from her chair and goes out to the balcony. She waves to her grandchild to follow her. "Neither can the wave that has passed by be recalled, nor the hour which has passed return again. What is done is done, there is nothing we can do to change it. There will come a day, many summers and winters from now, when you sit in my chair and look at these views alone. Your mother and I will be long gone, when that day comes I want you to look at the future, not the past."
Doran looks at her dumbfounded, none of this makes sense.
"Why do you say that? Is- is something wrong with your health? Wulfric told you something? I'm- I'm a great healer- I can help you!" His voice wavers and he begins to shake.
The princess puts a hand on his head and smiles softly at him.
"Wulfric said nothing to me, sweetling. My health is as good as it can be."
"Then why are you talking about those things? Sounds like a goodbye! Like you're going to die!" Doran raises his voice without realizing it.
"Just the ramblings of an old woman." She brushes it off and goes back into the solar. "Let's go inside, we still have things to discuss."
"You are not accompanying Rhaella to Kings Landing, you are going straight to Braavos." She tells him once she sits down. Doran was going to say something but she raised her hand. "I have already sent letters to all the Lords and Ladies to invite them to your Nameday celebration. In it I inform them that the reason you interrupted your Tour is to go to Braavos on my order, to buy ships."
"Interrupt? You mean I'm going to continue the Tour at some point?"
"Yes, after your nameday you will continue it."
"But-"
"Relations with your vassals are important, even more so in times of war." Dorna's voice hardens, conveying the importance of the matter.
"I understand." Doran suppresses a grimace. He calculates the time it will take to visit all the other Houses of Dorne and realizes that he will not finish until the end of the year. The prince had already made several plans for those months, plans that now he will have to be modified. `There is nothing I can do about it, I don't have a Time Turner and I don't even know how to start building one. Hmph, being a prince is a pain sometimes.`
"Wait, buy ships? Lothar and I came up with that excuse but it's just that, an excuse." Doran doesn't understand why the vassals would accept buying ships as a good reason to stop the Tour.
"Before you set out on the Tour you were aware of the increase in pirate activity in the Narrow Sea." It is not a question, the princess states a fact. Doran nods and she continues: "Recently Intel informed me of some news... Grim to say the least."
"What new?" Doran is on the edge of his chair. Maybe this will give him some clue about the reason for his grandmother's strange behavior.
"Maelys Blackfyre." At Doran's unspoken question she continues. "He's Daemon Blackfyre's cousin, but more than that he's another Blackfyre Pretender."
"Another Blackfyre Pretender? You mean we'll have two wars on our hands?!" The new news is terrifying, not one but two wars...
"No, everything indicates that it will be a war. A big messy war."
"Another Blackfyre Pretender..." Doran's eyes light up. "That means Maelys and Daemon will be enemies, since they both want the Iron Throne!"
"That I hope." Dorna sighs. "They could also pool their resources and attack together-"
"-agreeing on a fight between them after winning the war to decide who gets the throne." Doran continues, "But those kinds of deals are messy, the two sides will conspire against each other and that will sow distrust among the troops. Something we can take advantage of, we just need to spread a few rumors, kill certain people and the Blackfyres will have a civil war among them."
"That sounds great," the princess agrees. "But from what Jacaerys informed me that would not be the case. Everything points to Daemon and Maelys working separately."
"It's like I said before then, isn't that good for us?"
"..." The princess doesn't answer right away. She pulls out a letter and passes it to Doran.
The prince picks it up with a raised eyebrow and begins to read it. With each paragraph his expression darkens more.
"The Band of the Nine." Says the princess. "Each one is crazier than the last, and each wants their own kingdom."
"Samarro Saan, Old Mother, Nine Eyes and Alequo Adarys. Between them they have over 1900 ships." The prince's complexion pales. "1900 ships''
"Every ship full of pirates, thieves, murderers and rapists. The combined fleet alone has more sailors than Dorne soldiers. Maelys Blackfyre, Xhobar Qhoqua, Liomond Lashare, Spotted Tom and Derrick Fossoway; they all have their own sellsword company. Combining their forces the Band of the Nine have over 150,000 men."
The silence is sepulchral.
None of them say anything.
`...`
"..."
"..."
"Fuck."
"Indeed." The princess gets up and takes two glasses, fills them with wine and passes one to Doran. The prince drinks all the wine in one gulp.
`Not strong enough, I could use some whiskey or vodka.`
"Daemon and Maelys' combined forces number over 180,000 men, and both could, and probably will, hire more mercenaries to increase their numbers." Doran grimaces and looks at his empty glass. "I need more wine..."
***
After that somber conversation Doran hurried to begin his trip to Braavos as soon as possible, the next day he went to Progress Town to make some preparations and two days later he embarked for the city of a hundred islands.
Doran sails in Helios, the second Galleon built in his shipyard, and a total of 15 caravels accompany him. The small fleet sails swiftly through the waters, not stopping at any port nor taking breaks.
In the middle of the 6th moon of the year their destination is just around the corner. The thick morning fog covers the sea, reducing the visibility of the fleet.
"There, land ahoy!" Shouts a man from the Crew's nest.
Doran heard the shout and ran to the bow, climbed to the side of the ship and watched as the mists parted before them; the bow cut through the mists like a knife. A sound could be heard through the mist, a sound familiar to any sailor.
"Seagulls!" Fred exclaimed, the boy ran around the ship following a seagull that landed on a mast.
"Lower the sails!" Shouted the captain, Arthur Sand.
Sailors climbed up and down the three tall masts and moved across the rigging to lower the ship's heavy orange sails. The decks creaked and tilted as sails were being lowered.
In a few minutes a line of bluffs rose abruptly out of the mist, their steep sides covered with pine and other trees. The eyes of all the sailors went from the cliffs to the monstrous structure that dwarfs even the mountains around it.
The Titan of Braavos.
His legs rested on different mountains, with a great distance in between. They were solid stone, the same black granite as the seamounts on which he stood, though around his hips he wore a kilt of greenish-bronze armor. Her breastplate was also of bronze, and on his head he wore a crested helmet. His flowing mane was made of green-dyed hemp rope, and huge bonfires burned in the caverns that were his eyes. One hand rested on the cliff to the left, its bronze fingers closed around a stone ledge; the other rose into the air and held the hilt of a broken sword.
"It's not that big!" Fred complained, once he returned to the prince's side. "It's hardly bigger than the statue of Princess Nymeria in Shadow City!"
Doran let out a laugh.
"First of all, the Titan is not a statue; it is a fortress. Within "the statue" hundreds, if not thousands of men can enter and shoot down any man foolish enough to attempt to invade Braavos. And second, even the highest of the mountains appears to be smaller than a child's fist if you are far enough away."
Fred didn't look very convinced but he nodded, it was not his place to contradict his prince`s words.
`His manners have improved a lot in the last few moons,` Lothar realizes.
As they got closer and closer to the Titan it became even more gigantic, not only that but they could also see the small holes in the structure, holes through which the defenders launched projectiles against possible invaders.
"The Titan could jump over the walls of Sunspear with ease!" Fred yells once they are almost under the Titan.
At the same time a thunderous sound was heard. It was a terrible sound, so loud it drowned out the sound of the waves crashing against the cliffs. Hundreds of sea birds took flight in fright.
"The Titan is roaring?! Are the rumors true?! He's going to eat us!!!" Fred screams in despair and looks in all directions.
Doran, Lothar, and a dozen other sailors burst out laughing.
"T-they only announced the arrival of ships to the port." Arthur Sand said between laughs.
Doran wiped a tear from his eyes and said to the boy:
"Don't be afraid, Fred. Statues don't eat people." Another round of laughter echoed through the ship.
"I was not afraid!" Fred replied with red cheeks. "It's just that it sounded too loud." He pouts and walks away from the sailors who are still laughing.
The galleon crossed the sea smoothly, moving swiftly towards the channel. Doran looked back and saw all the caravels following close behind, but apart from his fleet, no other ships were entering Braavos.
Passing to the other side of the Titan they entered a great lagoon, before them loomed another seamount, a ledge of rock jutting out of the waters like a spiked, battlemented fist.
"The Braavos Arsenal" Arthur told the prince. "There they can build a galley in a day, or so they say."
Doran could see dozens of galleys moored at the docks or still sitting on the ramps where they would slide into the sea. The painted prows of others jutted out from countless wooden sheds, along the stony shoreline, like dogs in their kennels, lean, cruel and hungry, waiting for the hunter's horn to call them. He tried to count them, but there were too many of them, and there were other berths, wharves, and boathouses beyond where the shoreline curved.
`This, my shipyard will be as big as this someday. No- even bigger.`
The ship crossed the lagoon and the Arsenal was left behind, before them stretched a wide area of turquoise waters, which shone like diamonds. At its center loomed the city, a vast expanse of domes, towers, and bridges, all in gray, gold and red.
"It's a magnificent sight." Doran said.
"Aye." The captain nodded. "We will moor in the port in half an hour,"
"Hn." Doran continues to look at the city made up of small islands linked by beautiful bridges. `I didn't get to appreciate the view the last time I was here- I mean, I didn't have time for it, I had to rob a bank.`
Doran remembers the events of a few days ago, when he transformed into a peregrine falcon and crossed the sea towards Braavos to carry out the most important robbery of the century.
`Or maybe the millennium, there is no report of any successful robbery.`
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