Chapter 35.4- The Seadragon's Roar

XXXX MID 109 AC

This was the second shipment so far, and so far so good it seemed like the Triarchy were keen to keep their end of the bargain. If only things with Dorne had been so simple, I thought with some measure of disappointment.

“I’ve never seen anyone look sad to be receiving gold before. Chin up, brother” Laena whispered to my side.

“Just thinking about Dorne” I said.

“I don’t see why you won’t just have us burn their coast and leave it at that” She replied with a shrug.

“Because that would be burning the bridge, and why should I be the one to do so? Qoren hasn’t ruled out the chance of making a deal, and since both you and Vaemond keep opposing any meeting between the two of us in person, then we have to keep communicating through intermediaries and then waiting for said intermediaries to complete the journey and then come back and then do that again and again. Things aren’t going to meaningfully proceed on that end for a while, and until I know we have no other choice, I don’t know if I feel comfortable just ruining the chance of ever making progress on it.” I said, and wasn’t that one hell of a dilemma. I had probably overplayed my hand by sending Daemon. Qoren knew I wanted peace now, and he was keen on dillydallying his way into the best terms he could.

And annoyingly enough, I was tempted to grant them to him. I wanted his sand. Dornish sand would work best for glassmaking. I had a lead on some sand in the Southern end of the Stepstones near the limestone deposits, but those were still less than ideal. It was just lucky that we were still constructing the furnaces right now before we could test things.

“Laenor, look over there” Laena said from her position next to me, pointing off in in the distance.

I saw the ship’s red banner clear as day as it flapped in the wind. The red lion of House Lannister.

“So he’s almost here then” I said. Ser Lancel Lannister, cousin to the Lord Lannister of Casterly Rock, and the one sent to take point in these negotiations. It had been a surpise that he had agreed to send a Lannister at all, much less one so closely related, but that was probably me imposing assumptions from my understanding of Tywin Lannister to the present iteration of the House.

House Lannister were yet to become the premier house of the realm. House Velaryon were just behind Targaryen in that regard, so in some ways one could say that sending a cousin rather than a brother was an insult in that respect. Of course, I wasn’t anywjhere near petty enough to raise a big stink about something like this. Not when I was still going to be getting what I wanted.

Besides, a cousin of the Lord Lannister was much easier to host than a sibling, or flames forbid, the man himself. This one wouldn’t expect much of a feast or anything of the sort. The pomp and pagaentry was going to be much reduced as well. In this way and many others, the man was doing me a favour.