Work Text:
Tycho Nestoris enjoyed his regular commute to King’s Landing. It wasn’t nearly as charming a city as Braavos, of course, but the Westerosi capital had a certain primitive appeal. He liked the relics of the First Targaryen Era--the Red Keep and the Dragonpit and Maegor’s Holdfast--and he enjoyed the labyrinthine markets of the Flea Bottom neighborhood.
But today was business. Parts of the half-ruined capital still smoldered and smoked, and though winter was over, no one had informed the clouds above, which still hung low and gray over the city. The Targaryen Restoration had been positively received both at home and abroad, but it was not altogether clear yet that this was a time of celebration. Post-war, the people were still very much shaken by the troubles they seen, disconcerted still by the towers of dead bodies that had stacked like so much lumber on the sides of the road. The War of Ice and Fire was still too close, the smell of burned flesh and burned stone and broken hearts still snaked around corners and slipped under doorways.
Before the wars there had been a welcome illusion, at least, of safety. After the wars, first of the Five Kings and then of Ice and Fire, the reality that everyone and everything you’ve ever known could burn in an instant was too fresh.
Ah, well. No matter to him. There would be profit for the Iron Bank in reconstruction, just as there had been profit in demolition and destruction. Today he would call on a few favored surviving clients, and then he begin his negotiations with Tyrion Lannister about the crown’s legacy debts. The lion queen had borrowed a small fortune to fund her last stand--siding with the lions against the dragons had been an imprudent wager on his part, he acknowledged--and it was likely lost but there might be some hope that the old aphorism “A Lannister always pays his debts” held some sway with the surviving brother.
But first, the dwarf’s wife. Former wife? Unwife? So hard to say. Remarried twice since then, so surely the original partnership had been dissolved.
Nestoris found the address to which he had been directed. Located three miles outside the capital, the Targaryen allies had commandeered a chain of villas abandoned when death itself had swept through the city. They sat on a clifftop on the southern side of Blackwater Bay, with King’s Landing proper visible to the east and the Targaryen home island, Dragonstone, to the west.
The dragons were all quartered at Dragonstone now, with debate ongoing as to whether and how they would rebuild the capital city and how much time His Grace and family would spend there. But the Starks, among others, were settled here until the upcoming double coronation.
His destination was a two-story stucco building built around a courtyard, with a red clay tile roof. It was in decent condition all things considered, and at the time of Nestoris’ arrival, a journeyman was removing each of the exterior shutters, one by one, and laying them out on a burlap tarp for sanding and repainting. Cypress trees surrounded the building and a dormant vineyard sat adjacent, waiting for the true return of spring. An assembly of soldiers, knights and squires were sparring in the stableyard adjacent, and some eyed him suspiciously, but there was no move to block his arrival or prevent his approach to the main house.
Nestoris nodded to his coachman and emerged from his shelter inside the carriage. Oh, these poor Andals need the sun. The lingering gloom is quite tedious.
Nestoris adjusted his cloak around him and used the large brass knocker on the right-hand door to announce his arrival.
A dark-eyed young lad--a Northerner by the look of him--opened the door and eyed the unfamiliar visitor suspiciously. How precious.
“Hello, my boy. Please tell your Lady Stark that she has business with Iron Bank of Braavos. We’ve never met in person but we have corresponded briefly. You may present me as simply Tycho Nestoris. We don’t hold with your elaborate Westerosi system of titles and houses,” he said, clutching his ledger to his chest and hoping that his smile seemed more pleasing than sinister.
The boy looked him up and down and allowed him entry. There were eight guards on watch inside the foyer, and six more surrounding the main peristyle. “Wait here,” he was told by the boy.
Clean and dry, the rooms smelled of fresh paint, although Nestoris thought he caught a whiff of roast chicken emanating from a distant kitchen. He saw that the garden beds in the peristyle were being prepared with fresh soil for new plantings. Lady Stark clearly had pride of ownership in this place, a home that she did not, actually, own. This place would be in better condition when she left it than when she arrived, which Nestoris found was a rarity as far as war plunder went.
The boy returned. “She’ll see you now, Tycho Nestoris,” he said, gesturing for Nestoris to follow him toward the back of the building. Lady Stark had made herself at home in a nearly vacant room at the corner of the building. When Nestoris entered her chamber through a small entry hall he noticed stairs to the left that led up to the second floor. He imagined that the family’s private quarters were above where he now stood.
A fire crackled in the small fireplace against the wall. The room was oddly pushed out from the rest of the building but that space left room for skylights around the edge of the room. They must have once been covered with Myrish glass, but were boarded up now, with just two left open for air circulation and a little light. Buckets sat below the two open skylights to catch the water that fell during one of the early-spring storms that periodically dropped slushy cold rain on the recovering city.
Lady Stark arose from her work table, a vast trestle table that would have been at home in the dining hall of soldier’s barracks. At that moment the table held a pen and ink, stacks of letters and raven scrolls, sewing notions and several bolts of cloth for a work in progress--based on the rich wine color and the quality of the brocade, no doubt a piece for a woman, likely Lady Stark herself--as well as a candle tree full of flickering beeswax candles.
The beeswax released a scent of warm honey into the air.
Nestoris bowed, and Lady Stark stood and offered him one of the padded chairs opposite where she had been sitting. Nestoris observed that none of the chairs in the room matched and had no doubt been themselves picked out of the detritus of the Crownlands to serve her ladyship. She sat down next to him, and looked at him with a charming combination of interest and alarm.
Nestoris observed that she was quite tall for a woman--wearing boots, as she was, she was almost as tall as him. Her famous copper hair was in a long braid that fell down her back. She had blue eyes, said to be “Tully blue,” from her mother’s ancestors. She wore a simple but fetching gown of ocean blue with accents of mustard, white and emerald green, which gathered below her bosom before sweeping toward the floor. Though young, like all the ascendant rulers of Westeros after a generation of war, she carried herself with the dignity of mature womanhood.
As she settled herself before him, Nestoris observed that her hands fluttered over her gown and tucked extra fabric around a slightly swelling belly. Oh yes. That was the truth of why he was here.
“Tycho Nestoris, I am so pleased to meet you after our exchange of letters but I am afraid your unexpected arrival has caused me no small alarm. Is there something awry with Winterfell’s accounts? I can’t imagine--” she began, leaning toward him anxious for an explanation.
“Not in the least, Lady Stark. Business as usual with your extant holdings at the Iron Bank. Rather, I am here about expanding our relationship and supporting what I understand is your interest in rebuilding Winterfell and the North at large,” he began, placing the ledger on the table between them.
“Oh,” she said, considering and then looking regretful. “I’m afraid you’ve been misled by someone. Winterfell is a ruin--again--and the North no better, but I’m afraid I cannot be persuaded to accept a loan from the Iron Bank. Nor will I raise taxes on my people. It is a misfortune that the northernmost kingdom must continue to suffer the cost of the recent troubles, but I will not add, to that, a burden of debt. I will not enslave my people to--oh!” concluded Lady Stark suddenly, awkwardly gesturing an apology for describing a loan from the Iron Bank as slavery. “Please I meant no offense, Tycho Nestoris, I just--”
“No offense taken,” he said, hoping that his smile was reassuring rather than sinister. “But you misunderstand me. I am not here about a loan. I am here to disburse the funds that your husband has transferred into your name. Well, your name and your sister’s name. He told us that we are to keep or leave his name on the account at your discretion. I believe his exact words were, ‘What the fuck do I care?’ “
“My husband’s accounts? With the Iron Bank?” asked Lady Stark, appearing entirely bewildered. Nestoris suppressed a smile. He was so rarely was the bearer of good news, and he so rarely did business with clients who were neither desperate for the bank’s funds nor determined to hustle some sort of meager “win” out of their negotiations.
“Wait, which husband?” asked the Stark, an expression of terror suddenly crossing her face. Nestoris had a flickering recollection that the motive for the infamous Battle of the Bastards was the conduct of her late husband, some other Northerner of no particular significance. He saw that she was afraid that he was talking about the bastard.
“The current husband, I believe. Sandor Clegane?” he offered.
“Sandor Clegane has an account at the Iron Bank of Braavos? Sandor Clegane, the Hound? Big? Scars?” she replied, incredulous, vaguely gesturing toward the ceiling to indicate her husband’s height.
“I believe so, but of course, I only know him by reputation and through correspondence. He did business solely with our old paymaster in King’s Landing. That gentleman has since passed and been replaced twice, but of course the funds remain. Would you care to review the account now and see that all is in order?” he asked.
The woman continued to stare at him in absolute confusion. The gentleman in question must have given her no indication of what was due her upon marriage--a cautious approach indeed, misdirecting potential mates ambitious for a fortune, and other greedy creatures.
He opened the ledger and turned to the appropriate page. He pointed out the initial deposit, ran his finger down the columns and rows of intervening interest payments and pointed at the current total balance in the account.
“I think you’ll see, Lady Stark, that this is more gold than you could spend in a lifetime,” he said as he gestured, feeling unexpectedly and rather unusually pleased to be revealing the fortune in question.
“I don’t understand. He’s--he’s not a money lender. He’s--he stole the boots he’s wearing off the body of a man he killed. He was going to ransom my--” she swallowed back the rest of that sentence and he wondered what or who was to be ransomed. “Sandor Clegane is not wealthy,” she insisted, her eyes turning to him and then to the total balance and then back again.
Tycho Nestoris appreciated her honesty. Confessing that her husband dressed in a motley of pieces looted from the dead was an unlikely gesture of trust, but he appreciated it just the same. So hard to trust anyone these days.
“He is, my lady. He’s quite wealthy. Or rather you are quite wealthy. As you can see here, several months ago we were informed that you and, I believe your sister, Lady Arya of House Stark, were to be the beneficiaries of the account in case of Sandor Clegane’s death, and just recently we received a second message, informing us that by dint of your recent marriage to the gentleman, he would have us transfer all funds into your name for the benefit of you, your children and heirs, as well as the maintenance of several keeps in the North including Winterfell, the Dreadfort, Deepwood Motte and, what does that say...Moat Cattin?”
“Moat Caillin. But...wait. Where did this money come from?” asked Lady Stark, seemingly past her initial shock and newly able to rationally inquire about the account.
“Let’s see, what did Lalbagh write here in the account notes? It says, ‘initial deposit, Robert Baratheon’s Tourney of the Hand, winnings, 40,000 gold dragons.’ Ah, yes. The final days of King Robert’s reign were notoriously profligate. He positively pissed money out of the Red Keep directly into the gutter. I think spending himself to death was the only thing that kept him from drinking himself to death. This appears to be an absurd amount for a tournament purse--solely in my personal opinion, of course--but it appears that it <i>was</i> paid out in full. Your husband deposited it in his account many years ago, and simply...left it there,” said Tycho Nestoris.
Lady Sansa of House Stark leaned back in her chair then, and he watched as she distractedly petted low on her curved belly, accentuating her advancing pregnancy. Tycho Nestoris couldn’t say he had any idea how pregnant she was, simply somewhere well beyond the beginning but perhaps not too close to the end. He wondered if she felt movement of the baby inside, or if she was simply soothing the discomfort consequent to the rapid changes in her body.
“King Robert organized that tournament in honor of my father. I was at that tournament--it was the first time I ever saw him fight,” she said, wonderingly.
“Oh, how utterly picturesque. I’m sure that your father--Lord Eddard of House Stark, yes?--would appreciate that the tournament in his honor now benefits his grandchildren, and the North at large of course,” said Tycho Nestoris, again, unexpectedly appreciating the completion of the circle.
There was something about this woman that made him feel...sympathetic? Empathetic? It was not his usual demeanor toward clients, but he found he did not regret it.
“And he, Clegane--he never spent any of it?” she inquired, gesturing toward the book.
He reviewed the ledger. “Well, I misspoke, that’s not entirely true. It appears that in the early years he had a regular payment made to a stable for the boarding of one horse, and he regularly deposited modest amounts into the account. Those appear to have been...the unspent leavings from his salary as...Kingsguard? Oh, and then there was a substantial withdrawal of four thousand gold dragons many years ago, but yes, after that the account was not touched again for years and years.”
She merely blinked at him, and he continued, by way of explanation: “Interest rates have been unusually high this past decade due to the many wars we’ve all suffered. And compound interest is, as they say, a very powerful magic indeed.”
He again ran his finger down the list of interest payments, the accumulating treasure.
Lady Stark put her gloved fingers to her lips. She looked at the dates of the many entries, and then pointed at the large withdrawal before client activity had all but ceased on the account. She looked into the distance, and Tycho Nestoris recognized the look of a person running numbers in her head. She looked back at the date and then again at him. Her tone was one of wonderment: “This was after the Bread Riots, but before Stannis landed. He was planning to leave. He was already...” she said, looking around bereft. “Oh, the wildfire. That damnable wildfire.”
The date of the withdrawal and the memory of the wildfire seemed to distress her considerably. If Tycho Nestoris looked closely at her eyes, he saw grief there. He wondered what she lamented so much. And then she drew in a deep breath.
“Would this be enough to rebuild the glass gardens?” she asked him then, hopeful as a child.
“I don’t know what those are,” he replied, with what he hoped with a kindly tone of voice.
“Winterfell used to have heated gardens, covered in clear Myrish glass.The glass gardens were smashed by the Boltons when they held Winterfell. It was sheer spite--those gardens grew food for all the North. I miss them very much,” she said, gazing into her memory toward a happy place not visited in many years. He saw her quiver into near tears for just a moment and then quickly reclaim herself.
“Oh yes, my lady. I have not personally priced either Myrish glass or Northern labor costs very recently, but I think you’ll find that this amount is so large and so self-renewing due to ongoing accumulation of interest that you will able to rebuild not only the whole of your kingdom but several of the other Kingdoms as well. I imagine that other Ladies and Lords Paramount may be asking you for loans soon enough. I do hope you will consider referring them to our establishment instead. We will happily offer favorable rates to any friends of House Stark,” he said.
She looked at him, skeptical, and then took a deep breath. He thought he observed that the good news about the glass gardens had finally settled this a bit in her mind.
“Is that all?” she asked, suddenly eager, he believed, to get on with the work that this money would allow her to do.
“Yes, my lady. Please tell your sister, Lady Arya, that her name is on the account as well and she is welcome to make withdrawals or deposits at any one of our branches throughout the known world. During my travels by ship to King’s Landing I was told that His Grace’s youngest sister has an adventurous spirit, and I do hope this gold allows her to see as much of the world as she cares to explore.”
“Thank you. Thank you very much for your assistance,” said Lady Stark, standing and curtsying distractedly. Nearly everyone in Westeros was meant to curtsy to Lady Stark, not the other way around, but he suspected she was so consumed by the news she had received that she had simply fallen back on old habits of courtesy.
He bowed slightly, inexplicably saddened that their meeting was over. He wondered why he found this particular woman so enchanting. Women, generally, weren’t to his taste, and this one didn’t seem so very unique, beauty and grace aside, and yet he found himself drawn to her. He reflected on stories that the red Stark was, in fact, a powerful witch, and wondered if there might be some truth to that.
She nodded, and opened the door, exiting ahead of him. “Castor will see you out. If you’ll excuse me, Tycho Nestoris, I need to go find my husband,” she said, a small smile battling with the continued look of amazement.
And with that, she swept down the hall and out through some back hall toward the yard, while he stared at her retreating form and thought that he enjoyed doing business with the Stark. He hoped there would be a few more such meetings in the years to come, as she rebuilt her kingdom from rubble and ruin to what Tycho Nestoris was improbably sure would be an era of prosperity, peace and general renaissance.