Chapter 99

You had to admit that you were quite intrigued with the little Lord Palno as he somehow managed to make his plans seem halfway decent despite their obvious failure. And you had quite literally never encountered a single lord on your journeys that had such a massive soft spot for the Smallfolk, it was honestly endearing. So much so that you had even decided to alter your plan a little to see if some additional effort on your part couldn't improve his situation a bit after the cute and pure little lord had so readily helped your initial plan along.

And while your master was hard to understand at times, from what you saw your liege wasn't the kind of person that would waste a perfectly good piece in the game for the throne, even if this particular piece was in dire need of some proper tutelage. Things should work out decently If you swiftly managed to make the boy see reason and come with you, so your master could get a good look at him. Especially so since Nora and its harbour with such an inexperienced lord and the population up in arms would make for the perfect staging ground, as the supplies sent to help the Vale naturally required adequate protection.

"Apologies, my Lady, but my place is in my lands, so here I shall remain."

"Hmm, are you certain, my Lord?"

"There are many places in the Vale that could use your knights more than Nora, and a little preemptive action might be good for the morale of your men."

"I thought you were confident in the strength of your men, my Lady, if you require additional strength for your escort, you just have to say it."

"Hehe, what confidence, but I would honestly pity anyone who decided to try their luck with the men of House Lannister, long before I would worry about lacking safety, my Lord."

"Perhaps you will see it on our journey if you do decide to join us, but I genuinely doubt there is anyone in the Vale that could stop us from reaching the Eyrie."

"If you truly have such confidence in them, my Lady, why are you still so insistent that I should join you?"

"I already stated that I believe you and your men would be needed in the Eyrie, you could safely leave Watermoon in the hands of the captain of the guard, you did say that he was secretly acting on your behalf, yes?"

"He does, and some additional knights are always useful, so I don't doubt Lord Arryn would have some tasks for us, but that doesn't answer what you would get out of that, my Lady, the Lannisters aren't known to be very saintly in their rule."

"And I find myself doubting that has suddenly changed, since the whole realm knows of Lord Tywin's cold and calculating rule, so what do the Westerlands get out of my absence, what are the true goals the Rock pursues in my lands?"

"The possibilities are nigh endless, my Lord."

"It's indeed unlikely that House Lannister plans to support the Vale out of the goodness of Lord Tywin's heart, but since I never got the chance to meet them all, the possible gains the lords of the Westerlands at large wish for are quite difficult to grasp."

"For the moment the duty I was charged with is to simply assess the damage the lands of House Arryn have suffered and to see how said damage has affected the economy."

"A task that can no longer be pursued in Nora as it's currently impossible to tell what events had changed the prices, the best I could do here would be to write down what the total collapse of the Vale's economy without the threat of winter to hold everything together looks like."

"So you're in truth a spy of sorts?"

"Not at all, my Lord, it's simply very difficult to act if what you hope to affect is on the other side of Westeros and on top of that in an unknown state."

"And despite their wealth and martial strength, the Lannisters currently can't afford to waste their strength, not as long as Lord Tywin and his Majesty would like to squeeze the life out of one another."

"Though the truth is that my tasks and my insistence as you had put it are not really connected, I simply hoped that you would accompany me to the Eyrie since I feared that I might make a fool of myself and by extension House Lannister."

"And well, I believe you can imagine that Lord Tywin isn't the kind of lord that loves to give second chances, so since you had surprisingly turned out to be a fine and upstanding young gentleman with time to spare, I hoped that you might accompany me."

You hadn't realised that the boy still harboured doubt about your intentions for most of your conversation, and that he actually brought them up just because you decided to push a little further than you had initially planned had caught you off guard. But you had learned to deflect such changes from your master, and since every good lie should hold a core of truth, you had managed to do so without much difficulty. You were sent to find out more about the state of their economy, everyone knew not to cross Lord Tywin, and you were absolutely terrified that you would screw up and draw House Lannister's wrath onto you.

Though the reaction you got as you played the part of the dejected puppy still astonished you as the boy that a moment before still stood proudly in front of you averted his gaze as he turned into a blushing mess. It seemed like someone had more than a few dreams of being the knight in shining armour, or perhaps he was actually embarrassed that he forced such a confession out of a cute twenty-two-year-old girl, but whatever it was, you loved it.

There it finally was, the perfect opening, and you couldn't help yourself but have some fun now that the small but confident Lord Palno had turned into the fourteen or fifteen-year-old boy he was. So you naturally moved to capitalise on the opportunity as you were taught and swiftly used your looks and green eyes to recapture his attention as he failed to recompose himself while you closed the distance. Yes, you wanted him more and more on this little journey of yours, his reactions were just too adorable to pass up on, and he would be useful on top of that, this boy was truly the perfect little treasure.