Chapter 34.1- The Seadragon's Roar

“They sure did manage to step on it this time, didn’t they?” I commented to Laena from where we sat in Igneel’s face.

“Yeah, I wondered why you were being so specific about timelines in your letter when there was so little chance of them being able to understand the timeline perfectly. You did it so they would move as quickly as possible, didn’t you?”

“Indeed. They would spend their time trying too figure out when the letter was sent to figure out how much they had, and then they would give that up as a waste of time and just hurry as much as possible to prevent Myr from hearing a dragon’s roar over its skies.”

“And then come here unprepared and easier to wrangle” She surmised.

“Well, I wouldn’t say unprepared. These are some of the smartest men in the world, sister. They will surprise us if we give them time to” I said as I walked over to the Palisade that Vaemond had overseen the construction of for these negotiations.

“Richest? Yes. But smartest?”

“How do you tell what makes a smart man, sister?”

“You’d ask them what they know, I guess. Interrogate them until you can see how smart they are”

“That would tell you a learned one. Learned men know a lot. Smart men might know very little. You can tell a smart man from how they behave. And if you can’t observe their behaviour for long enough, you look for other measures, other indicators that can give you an idea of. Where they stand on the hierarchy of things.”

“And you think you need to be smart to make money?”

“Well, to make as much as these people have, to some extent. But we shan’t deceive ourselves. They made their money in much the same way I made mine”

“Which is to say they didn’t.”

“Exactly. They inherited it. But I think they are smart men because they haven’t pissed it all away. If half the world is of below average intelligence, then you can expect that quite a few people in their place would have pissed away their immense fortunes already. Either on stupid business risking that they have and need for the little they don’t have or need, or on expensive whores, or slaves, or silly hobbies. They’ve managed to do none of that, so they are some of the smartest men in the world” I said.

“But you don’t think they’re smarter than you”

“They started a war against a family of dragon riders using wooden boats. I don’t think anyone is smarter than me, but they’re far from near my level” I said with a smirk that she returned. As we had gone closer to the palisade, our dragons had stirred and followed. Thankfully, the Bronze Bitch understood not to pull any of her usual nonsense here. Gods be good and merciful.