Chapter 40.4- The Seadragon's Roar

“No one. I repeat, no one. Is ever going to call the city Bloodcity when a nice name like Bloodport is just right there for the taking.” She said, pitching her own name.

“Bloodcity is a much better name than Bloodport, can we be serious for a moment” I said.

“Not even close to being true, but that’s besides the point. You can’t rebuild the city”

“Watch me” I could actually rebuild the city. We had some spare manpower I could take from the glass factories now that we had a good stockpile on hand and no immediate bulk orders to work on. And with the advancement in concrete and miners on loan from the Westerlands, it was a perfect storm of factors. Laena sighed at my words, placing her hand on the bridge of her nose.

“That was stupid on my part. What I meant to say was that you shouldn’t rebuild the city.”

“Have you seen what it looks like now? It’s a mess”

“It’s a growing city, Laenor. You have a million and one other things on your plate. We’re still yet to hit profitability and keep having to dip into the funds we got from the Triarchy. When that runs out, what are we going to do? Get more gold from Driftmark? I don’t think it’s prudent for us to take up any expensive projects anymore. Unless you want to take Maester Bernard’s suggestion and cut the pay for the laborers.” She said.

“No chance of that. We pay them little enough as is”

“We pay them enough for three meals a day with some left over for savings and whatnot.”

“Little enough, like I said.”

“In Westeros, only the richest smallfolk eat three times a day. And savings? Don’t kid yourself”

“Damn it Laena. I told you already. We’re not rebuilding Westeros. We’re building something better” I only just managed to avoid screaming the words as I got to my feet. I tired of having this argument over and over again. Bernard thought he knew best and kept recruiting people to convince me to do things his way.

“I know.” She said, and then she stepped around the table to place my face between her hands .

“I want to see what you build, Laenor. I don’t want this to fail for any reason. And that means we need to temper your ambitions. Food prices are rising, and I know you want to get a handle on that. The shipyard just started working. Concrete is good but in your words, we need to scale production. You wanted to get our glass production to the point where we can manage smaller and smaller bits of glass without losing quality control. So many things you want to do, Laenor. And there is only one of you.” She said, and I sighed, feeling the rage leave me, my fire dying out to an ember. She was right.

“You’re right” I whispered back .

“I know I am. Now can you stomach an ugly city while we work so that the people of the city keep having food to buy?” She asked.

“Yes. Yes I can.” I said.

“Good. Because I didn’t come here for no reason, there’s news from King’s Landing” She said.

“From Mother?”

“Half of it, yes. The other half is a personal invitation from the King himself.”