The Eminence in GOT-Chapter 18: Notes of the Captain of the Beast King, Part 3 - Hoarding and Investing
Chapter 18 - Notes of the Captain of the Beast King, Part 3 - Hoarding and Investing
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9.05.275
Braavos
After a long voyage that proved to be easy and uneventful for all, we reached the local Venice, Braavos. It was only after that voyage that Victarion, Hoar, and Edward, who for a month had seen our two werewolves, the Black Panther, the White Tiger, and the Purple Rhinoceros, sailing like leaves in the wind, skirting the storms and pirates, catching the wind with their sails, recognized that my idea had paid off.
In Braavos itself I stayed a long time. Even here, in the trading capital of Westeros and Western Essos, goods from I-Ti were rare. Until all the authenticity checks were done, all the hands that wanted to take my goods away for nothing were beaten back, and all the tax issues were discussed, I couldn't start trading.
But when, finally, the counter was opened... I have not seen such queues even in the USSR, in times of scarcity. The queue of rich people who wanted to buy silks, velvet, incense, mirrors and ivory statuettes was lost in the alleys of Braavos. It turned out that I had arrived just in time - the last Sea Lord, Merua Boparo, had died a few days ago and now everyone in the city was preparing for a new election. According to rumors, the future Sea Lord of Braavos has long been known. Ferrego Antarion was a member of a very ancient founding clan and one of the richest men in Braavos.
It was said that their clan had managed to become considerably rich in recent years and now owned approximately 20% of the shares of the Iron Bank. Unless one knows that the average share among the other Key Keeper families rarely reaches even one percent, the numbers would not seem very significant, but they were not. As one of the merchants who bought several rolls of velvet and silk for his daughter's dress told me in confidence, even owning a tenth of a percent of the Iron Bank's shares guarantees you an annual dividend income of ten thousand gold valars. And when I asked him how much the Antarions get, with their one-fifth share, he only laughed and said that I simply did not know such figures.
So many people bought my goods for clothes, jewelry and gifts with which they would soon go to the Sea Lord's Palace to choose and celebrate the appointment of the new ruler of the city.
The only thing that was a bummer was the spices. Braavos had its own Dyers Guild and Spice Guild, which had a monopoly on all spices and pigments. Only they were allowed to sell to them. In the end, they wanted to buy my spices for next to nothing, saying they couldn't get them anywhere else in Braavos. In the end, I sent them away, saying I could sell them safely either in Chayach City or in King's Harbor, where the locals simply had no power, like Pentos and Lorath. These extortionists, of course, got angry, started to claim rights, yell, insult and even hint at a possible visit from the Faceless Ones, but when I showed them my invoice slip, stamped with the Iron Bank's seal, with 6 different numbers in the storage amount line, they shut up.
No matter how loudly Braavos claimed that the Sea Lord's Palace, the Iron Bank, and the Black and White House were unconnected, all people with a modicum of reason and logic understood that no government would keep an uncontrolled organization of professional killers under its thumb. So everyone who has been at least a little in the merchant circles of Braavos knows that in addition to the famous "black" list, where the goals of the Faceless Ones are specified, there is also a "white" list, people from which are untouchable for the servants of the Many-Faced God (except for special circumstances - when the Palace of the Sea Lord and the Iron Bank sharply wanted someone to die). And the easiest way to get on that list is to have a deposit within the walls of the Iron Bank exceeding 100,000 gold dragons. And I, thanks to some lucky trades, already had that amount.
In the end, we parted with the guild representatives almost amicably - they bought spices from me at the standard markup (exceeding their original cost by five times), and I did not keep something for myself and take it to Westeros. I'm sure those stingy guys will get much more out of them than they spent, because monopoly is so... lucrative.
14.05.275
Braavos
Today, standing on the prow of my new ship, I left the hospitable Braavos.
It was beautiful. Four decks, with special cages for animals and compartments for transportation of rare and moisture-sensitive cargoes, three tall masts holding a whole system of slanting sails made according to the latest technology, a hidden underwater battering ram that could split a medium-sized galley in two with a single blow, special nests for archers and scorpions, allowing to shower the enemy with a hail of arrows... And much, much more.
No matter how much the Iron Islands boast of their unsinkable dracars, the Summer Isles of their elegant swan ships, the I-Itians of their super-capacity barges, and Volantis of its invincible dromons, they will never surpass Braavos in shipbuilding prowess. As long as the Arsenal and the dynasties of craftsmen who work there, building one fast and deadly galley or one heavy merchant galleon in a single day, no one will be able to overthrow the sea lord of the western oikumene.
This beauty, which became the flagship of my small fleet, was christened the "King of Beasts". The reason is simple - all my ships had the name of some animals, and the newcomer was the main among them.
Edward became the captain of the "King of Beasts", who proved to be a good sailor and a responsible subordinate. On the "Black Panther" his deputy, who became the new captain, remained in charge, and the rest of the crew was recruited in Braavos itself. Still, it's a sailor's town, and there's a lot of people willing to kill their neighbors for a steady job.
And now we're heading northwest, toward the legendary Isthmus, where the First Men were able to fight back the Andals, stopping their advance to the North.
There awaiting me are swamp dwellers with their secrets and mysteries, lion-eaters, strange hybrids of crocodiles and lions that manage to survive even in the bitter cold, and communities of werewolves, millennia in hiding from the world and developing their talent.
P.S. After re-reading you, my dear diary, I realized that I write down too much of the tradecraft that actually needs to be recorded in the ledger. Now the entries will be less frequent, but only on interesting moments.
26.05.275
Isthmus, shores of Jaws Bay
The Isthmus was exactly as it was described in the books, a narrow marshland that connected the North to the southern regions of Westeros. This wooded land, teeming with lakes and swamps, greeted us with large and dangerous creatures that looked like a hybrid of crocodile and lion, huge snakes that were several meters long and possessed a very strong corpse poison, and giant multicolored flowers whose pollen could suffocate a man in a few hours.
The latter was found out by the example of Oberyn, who had stashed a few furs of wine somewhere and managed to get drunk right before landing. And this world would have lost the second prince of Dorne, if not for the locals who came to the rescue and poured several colorful vials of some bourbon down his throat and gave him a good crack on the head to stop him from kicking.
After thanking the locals with a small gift in the form of a sack of good flour (judging by the looks on their faces, it was worth its weight in gold to them) and telling them the purpose of our journey, Oberyn and I, in the company of a small retinue, were invited to stay in a village of the Horey family, living all of half a day's journey from the coast.
27.05.275
Isthmus, village of the Chorey family
Shock.
Disbelief.
And the ensuing freak-out.
That's how I could characterize my state when I saw the local settlement.
Though similar emotions were on the faces of everyone who accompanied me.
Instead of the wretched shacks, makeshift rafts, or the rare patches of stable land described in Maester Prontz's book The Wild North and Its Barbarian Peoples, written before the Targaryens came, I saw a tree. A giant fucking thirty-meter tree, with bog houses on its trunk and a bright fire burning at the top, in the very crown, on a hollowed-out platform where, judging by the silhouettes I could see, food was now being prepared.
The meal to which we had been invited consisted of a large quantity of fresh boiled fish, some strange seaweed, very much like Japanese nori, and small loaves of very sodden bread made of first-milled flour, so that we were ready to be kissed for our gift of a whole poodle of good flour. Now it became clear why most of the locals are a meter tall with a cap on a stool. Here as in terrestrial Japan, from lack of food and rather damp climate there was a decrease in people's height for generations. It's a kind of adaptation mechanism - in these swamps the one who eats less and is harder to notice will live better.
After a meal and conversation with the local headman, I learned that just hunting lion lizards without killing them is a very original way to lose half of your team. But there is a way out - a special paralyzing poison, which is made from decoctions of several local plants. It can put these dangerous creatures into a kind of lethargic sleep, giving them a chance to be tied up and dragged into cages without unnecessary casualties.
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But there's one small problem - only the Reeds, the main clan on the Isthmus, know how to make and produce this poison. According to the headman, we are very lucky. In a few days' time, the Watch will be sailing close to these parts.
30.05.275
Isthmus, Dozor-in-Serovodje
My dear diary.
I have a confession to make.
I'm freaking out. Just incredibly fucked up. I've seen Volantis, heir to Valyria, the jewel of olden times. I've seen Braavos, the island wonder that unspokenly rules all of Western Essos and stands as an unshakable colossus over all the Free Cities. I saw Qarth, a city of great wealth and luxury, whose architecture is considered the wonder of the world, the navel of the earth, the gateway between north and south, the bridge between east and west. But it wasn't them that made the biggest impression on me, it was this... floating city.
Yes, a city.
The ancestral estate of Isthmus' main family, the Reeds, was a huge elongated column stretching across small rivers, swamps, and seasonally sprawling creeks. Composed of boat houses and floating crannog islands, the castle moved constantly throughout the Isthmus following its core, the main Reed estate. The three-story mansion itself wasn't much of a defense, but it didn't need one.
In the three days I'd spent here, I'd learned long ago that the marshes were impregnable. Any army would die here, any outsider would die of local diseases, any knight would fall under the water with his horse and armor, becoming food for the local aligators and lion-eaters. The only ways to subdue the lake people were tons of wild fire, which could burn everything here, and dragons, for which a column of lights against the gloomy swamp was a very good target. Hats off to the Starks - how they were able to defeat and overthrow the Lake Kings I just can't imagine.
Merchants were incredibly rare in this part of the continent, so the Reeds immediately invited me to their house, without the traditional "greeting" of the nobles - to make me wait for "some peddler" until the gentlemen were pleased to see him.
Ailis Reed, already an old enough head of the family, welcomed me and Oberyn very cordially. He fed me a hearty supper (when I asked whose meat it was, he looked carefully at the lion lizard's head, which was pierced to the wall), listened to stories about our journey, told us about interesting features of life on the moors, and even asked the Dornian if he liked the local girls (this womanizer even in a place where there were no brothels managed to find whores). We came to discussing the case only a few hours after the meeting, drinking a low-alcohol tincture with a very interesting earthy flavor.
The lake people needed everything. Iron, flour, cloth, salt, coal. And it was all on my ships. But Reed was not an easy nut to crack - unlike the Skagos, he knew the value of his things and would not give them to me for nothing.
The haggling began, which ended only the next morning, and I gave the little green-eyed Jew all the contents of the ships' holds and paid on top with a pouch of a hundred gold dragons. In return, the locals would catch 14 of the biggest and strongest male lion lizards for me within a week, deliver them to pre-made cages, fill all the vacated space with their poisons and rare plants (after visiting local witch doctors I realized that I knew not even half about plants) and let two hundred local archers go on a free voyage with me, whose fame as poisoners and excellent shooters, not much inferior to the inhabitants of the Wolf Forest, was known all over the North and the Riverlands.
So in a week we left this strange and magical land.
14.06.275
King's Landing
My first visit to the capital of Westeros was memorable for only two things - an accidental fall from the impact of a mast out of tune and a subsequent swim in the fifty percent shit and filthy harbor water of King's Landing. So I spent the entire two days we were here in my cabin scrubbing myself of the freshly dead cat odor and refusing to go outside. I already hated this town in absentia.
The second event was Oberyn. He had decided to repeat his Volantine exploits and had snuck into Baelor's sept and slept with one of the septs. Thank all the Gods, he was not caught in the process of planing his descendants and was caught only when he was leaving the female wing of the temple. Naturally he managed to sneak away and before he was caught by an angry crowd of septons, we had to leave very quickly.
P.S. Somehow, through Joen, who had once been here with his master and more or less knew the main places of the capital, I managed to give that septa a bag of coppers, with gold and silver hidden underneath. If she's not a fool, she'll take the hint and leave the city quickly.
28.06.275
Volantis
As much as I didn't want to look into it, there was such a thing as needing to - the ships were running out of supplies, and our plans to replenish them in Lys went down the drain. An epidemic of Grey Sickness had broken out there, suddenly erupting in the port side of the city. Some merchants we met along the way said it was a diversion by Mira or Tyrosh, and some thought it was a way for the local council of magisters to get rid of the slums that had grown dramatically in the port areas in recent years.
Anyway, we had to go into Volantis to sell some of our goods in the form of plants and poisons (though Lys is famous for its poisoner guilds, Volantis is not far behind, having its own markets for substances that people die from excessive concentrations of).
And there was a surprise.
Thoragos's daughter, who was spoiled by Oberyn almost ten months ago, gave birth to a baby girl named Nymeria.
You should have seen Oberyn's face. Such a mixture of shock, disbelief and joy must have been on his face for the first time. Though I can understand it myself - I had the same emotions when my beloved wife informed me of her pregnancy or my children told me that I would once again become a grandfather... Beautiful memories, which, unfortunately, are slowly getting grayer, but thank the Gods they are not forgotten. They are one of my greatest treasures and I just can't lose them.
Because of this little lump of laughter and joy, which in the future will grow up to be a beautiful and intelligent girl, and now just loves to lie in my arms (Only nurses here know how to handle children normally, and I had more experience than most of the local "professionals"), my ships even had to delay for three days, while Oberyn and Belichio decided how to be with the child. In the meantime I visited Atraxes Belroy, through whom I was able to sell most of the poisons and rare plants at a very favorable price.
The rest that followed boosted my spirits even more. I don't know where Atraxes found a Valyrian-looking virgin in Volantis, but she was not bad in bed.
In the end, Oberyn and Thoragos agreed that Nymeria would be raised here until she was three, under the care of nurses and an occasional mother, and then Oberyn would take her away for good.
12.07.275
Meereen
The city of the Golden Pyramids met us very cordially.
The owners of the fighting pits were ready to kiss me as soon as they saw the lion lions sitting in their cages and tearing the meat into the British flag. And when I showed them a whole batch of stimulants and poisons of similar action, which could for a while to turn any man into a raging berserker (barely persuaded Reed to sell them to me), then ... I was scared for a moment. With such anticipation to look first at the poisons, and then at the gladiators training nearby... I'm afraid to imagine what sums thanks to my guests will receive the owners of the arena.
As a result, after staying in the city for almost a week and selling all the goods I had brought, I was about to set sail when I heard some interesting news - one of the biggest Khalasars of the Dothraki Sea, led by Khal Bharbo, had camped near the Skahazadhan River, the nearest to Meereen, for the sake of trade.
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