Chapter 23.4- The Seadragon's Roar

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“We are leaving the city?” He asked once they came upon the gates. He felt a twinge in his chest. It was quite possible that the Prince would have gotten the Triarchy to do his dirty work for him. There had obviously been correspondence between the parties— correspondence of which Icarus had no idea as to the content or character. Nothing more than what this man had told him, bad if this man intended to kill him, what was his incentive for honesty?

“Yes, the Council of Magisters have jointly decided to move all meetings to the Jointly held Territory formerly known as the Disputed Lands.”

“May I ask why?”

“Naval journeys are less safe than they used to be with the Velaryons and their barbarians prowling the narrow sea, and to prosecute the war against them even more effectively, we need to remain more in contact than we ever were, so we have begun the construction of a town within the jointly held territory to act as a headquarters for the Council of Magisters.” He said.

“Do these lands not provide the bulk of your food?” He found himself asking.

“The farming continues with little interruptions. Besides, our cities are more than conversant with alternate means of securing food when needed.”

“I see” He said, and went silent. The Triarchy was supposed to be a union in name more than anything else. Yes, the cities collaborated on certain matters— they went to war together, they pooled resources for defence when the time arose, but beyond that they were as individual as cities could be. They charged separate tolls for ships that came to their harbour. They had different goods they allowed and barred. They tended to form individual trade agreements when that was concerned. But ow all that seemed to be turning on its head. Sure, this was being described as a temporary measure but no one built a town only to abandon it.

If their council went from meeting once every half-year to meeting maybe once a moon, they would slowly begin to align on more and more things. Turn from an alliance of cities into a Kingdom in truth. And wasn’t that a scary thought. Dorne used all three cities and Pentos as their primary trade partners. Moving from having four trade partners to two could be disastrous. They would no longer be able to play the daughters against themselves to get better terms, and would instead begin to find themselves on the back foot in any negotiations. After this war ended— if this war ended in such a way that left their Kingdoms intact enough to trade, things would be interesting.

The town being built was an interesting one. For one, it had no walls to speak of. That was interesting considering the Dothraki were famed for riding far and about Essos in search of plunder. Either they had faith in their men to beat back the horse raiders or they were confident that the Dothraki would otherwise not be a problem.