Chapter 24.2- The Seadragon's Roar

“Gain in what way?” Mother asked, shushing whatever Daemon had been about to impulsively add to the conversation. It was shocking just how easily she could manage his impulses. I was about to speak but then Pate, the former pirate, came in with more wine. I hadn’t been completely convinced as to his addition to the household but mother seemed certain of his loyalty, and there was the fact that we did not have so many options that we could turn down help. Besides, it was not like I could judge when I used former pirates for a lot of my work.

I watched Mother and Daemon accept glasses of wine and somewhat sullenly accepted the cup of water offered to me. Water, not wine. I’d had wine privileges till mother arrived, and then those had disappeared like the mist with the morning sun.

“Anything. Good trade agreements would be the start. We need people as well. If we win a war with the Triarchy, we’d be well-positioned to force them to give us their slaves either for free or at a big discount. Not just the farming slaves either. Slaves from all their big industries. Then there’s gold. We’d force the wealthy free cities to pay reparations and that would go towards refilling Driftmark’s coffers from what we’ve invested into making this place ours”

“And you just expect them to give you this, boy?”

“Have you paid no attention, Daemon? The plan is to beat them in war first, and the force them to hand these things over since they will be negotiating from a lower point. If there is no war, we will have nothing but antagonistic neighbors on all sides, except perhaps Westeros, and our utility as a trade route would be exponentially diminished by the lack of trade passing through. While I could be optimistic and say that pragmatism would win on all sides and they would use the Stepstones as their route, no matter how much I wish for it, we humans are not very pragmatic beings. The Free cities have the wealth to stomach what losses they would eventually incur for a time. We don’t have the wealth to wait them out like this so we need them to face us at what we Westerosi are good at. The Free Cities are better than us when it comes to Trade. They’d win any battle in that respect. But one thing we know better than any peoples in the world is war. We Westerosi know war, and is we will force them to war with us. When we win, we depose their existing rulership. Replace it with those we can influence for a time. And then marry their cities to the Stepstones as closely as we can so stability in the Stepstones becomes an integral driver of their economies. So integral that they have no choice but to act to preserve said stability when we need them to. Would also be useful for preventing convenient pirate groups becoming a perpetual problem.”