ASOIAF/Game Of Thrones: Ruler of Batannia

Hold to the Starks alone? It was the tradition and the glory of his house, centuries deep. But Winterfell was all but paralyzed; Bran lay sunk in visions; Jon, newly risen from his wounds, stood far away at Castle Black under the Watch’s oath; Arya was missing, or officially recuperating, which in these years meant the same thing to a careful man. The North was leaderless, the famine spreading, the cracks widening. Loyalty to a liege too weak to protect his own was, in times like these, a means of dying with honor, and House Stark, just now, had nothing else to pay with.

Turn to the Vale, then, and Petyr Baelish? Rich temptation, richer danger. The Vale had grain and Petyr had polish, and if he truly fed the North and steadied it, House Manderly might rise with him. But the name Littlefinger had not been given for nothing, and bargaining with him was bargaining with a tiger from inside its mouth. That gentle hint about certain measures to help the North read, to Wyman’s eye, like the preamble to an armed intervention; and once Vale spears crossed the Neck in the name of peacekeeping, House Stark would become history, and House Manderly would become a used piece, or a silenced one. And if Petyr was so very interested in the sea approaches, perhaps he was also planning to arrive by them, in which case the first door he knocked on would be White Harbor’s.

Or cooperate with the west, and Arthur Greyoak? The unfamiliar option, and not a baseless one. The man had fought beside the Watch and the Starks against the dead; he sheltered Jon and Arya after; his integration of the Trident, iron-handed as it was, looked like consolidation rather than appetite; he had recognized Daenerys, and managed the Reach, Dorne, and King’s Landing with a balancer’s cold pragmatism. His request for watching eyes suggested he held intelligence of some plot against the North and meant to break it, and Harrenhal could be read as the hard answer to the Vale’s reach, or as the stepping stone for an intervention of his own. The risk was distance: the west was far, its direct help would be limited, and its duke stood under pressure from every side. The promise was in the words he chose. Arthur spoke of allies, not vassals, and his old bond with the Starks suggested that whatever he built in the North would be built around preserving them, not over their graves.

Lord Wyman paced slowly to the fire and held both letters toward it, and did not burn them, only let the flame-light play along their edges while his face changed by small degrees. He thought of the thinning masts at his docks, the sinking level of his granaries, the yellow faces in his streets. He thought of his house’s ancient oath, of Robb dead in the south, of the Red Wedding, of Jon’s lone, stubborn figure on the Wall. And he thought of the report his eyes at Moat Cailin had sent days ago: Lord Alfie Karstark, that proud and practical man, grown suddenly and strangely active and loyal, sending troops to assist against the banditry near Queenscrown; and among those troops, new faces, well-armed, well-drilled, silent, disciplined, moving with a ferocity and a precision that belonged to no Karhold tradition, and reminded his informant of nothing so much as the tales of the Bannermen Guard; and the garrison at Moat Cailin looking tactfully away, and even helping.

Alfie Karstark. Arthur Greyoak. The thought crossed his mind like lightning over water. If the Karstarks had quietly turned, or come to an understanding, then the western duke was not without foundations in the North already; and if Moat Cailin, the realm’s own throat, sat in Karstark hands with Arthur’s behind them, then any Vale attempt to come north by land, or to land by sea and push south, would find the door already barred. And if the wildling strangeness beyond the Wall was truly a manufactured thing, then the fire would take the Wall first, Winterfell second, and after that, would it not reach for White Harbor, with a Vale peacekeeping fleet arriving to protect it, or to reclaim it?

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The scales in him tipped, slowly, the way heavy scales tip. Petyr’s promises were sweet and lethal; Arthur’s proposal was practical and unproven; and the direwolf banner still hung where it had always hung in his chest, but reality would no longer accept loyalty as legal tender by itself. After a long while he sighed, almost inaudibly, drew the letters back from the flames, smoothed their creases with care, and went to his desk. He took up his pen, and wrote two replies.

To Lord Petyr Baelish of the Eyrie: sincere thanks for his deep concern and generous proposal; White Harbor and the North did indeed face a severe challenge of shortage, and the friendship-priced grain was of the greatest interest. But, given northern traditions and the honor of House Stark, so large an import wanted careful handling, lest it trigger misunderstanding or disorder in the markets; would Lord Petyr kindly provide detailed quantities, prices, routes, and methods of handover, that Lord Wyman might evaluate them thoroughly and consult with Winterfell and the other great houses. As for the rumored northern threat, White Harbor’s own information remained vague and contradictory; verification was being intensified; the Vale would of course be informed at the first definitive news. Respect and cooperation on every line, and on every line delay, deferral, and requests for detail: no refusal, no promise, the ball returned with topspin, and time purchased without a breach.

To Lord Arthur Greyoak at Casterly Rock: high praise for the friendship and responsibility shown in the North’s crisis, and for his continued support of House Stark; understanding for the military adjustments, as necessary measures for regional stability, with every confidence that the west’s actions would honor borders and respect neighbors. And then the substance: White Harbor would use its maritime and intelligence advantages to strengthen the watch on the Vale’s coasts, the eastern Bite and the Bay of Seals in particular, and would keep careful eyes on any abnormal movement north of Moat Cailin and around the Gift, reporting any suspicious matter to Casterly Rock promptly, through reliable channels. In return, he suggested delicately, White Harbor would welcome the west’s assessments of the southern situation, the Reach and Dorne, the progress of the dragon and the lion, and of any threat gathering against the North, the better to judge and respond. And he closed by reaffirming House Manderly’s traditional loyalty to House Stark, and his hope for constructive, mutually profitable cooperation with the west, on the premise of preserving the North’s stability and the interests of House Stark. A clear letter, and a leaning one: surveillance agreed, cooperation offered, intelligence exchange proposed, the scales of White Harbor quietly settled toward the side that seemed readiest to fight the coming threat and to keep, in some form, the Starks alive at the center of the North; and the direwolf held high throughout, as banner, as legal ground, and as the room he kept for maneuver.

He sealed the two letters with different seals, summoned his most trusted men, and sent them out by different roads. Then Lord Wyman Manderly went back to his window and looked down at the ships riding their moorings under a dozen flags in the cold wind, and there was no more struggle in his eyes, only the depth and decision of an old politician who has finished weighing. He had chosen: the best balance a man could strike, in times like these, between old loyalty, present interest, and gathering threat. It might pay nothing soon, and it might cost everything; but he was no longer a harbormaster waiting passively for the storm.

White Harbor, the key to the North, had begun to turn in its lock. Which door it finally opened, and which powers it let in or shut out, would hang on the thunder yet to break in the North, on the fire between the Reach and Dorne, on the death-struggle of the dragon and the lion, and on every player’s next move. But from this day, the fat whale of White Harbor, famous for his appetite and famous, among the few who knew him, for his cunning, had shifted his weight, and stepped off the edge of the board, and become one of the pieces that would decide the game.