EPTChapter II
Chapter III
Chapter IV
Chapter V
Chapter VI
Chapter VII
Jonathan (Jinro)
Thousands of stars glittered in the night sky, far above the streets of King’s Landing. Of noble birth he may be, Jonathan wore but a ragged black robe. The king has eyes everywhere, or at least Catz of house Root, the master of whispers, does. The master of whispers gets information from various sources throughout the city, that child playing on the street could spill vital information to Catz minutes later, the city guard protecting the gate could tell him who went where when, the man you were about to converse secretely with could, be sent by him to trap you. The entire city was smudged by his ink pot, and the blackest of people are often the ones offering you a white blank page to write your secrets on. Some words best go unheard, that’s why Dan insisted to meet in the dead of night.
“I’ve been following you for ten minutes, you should be more careful.” The voice from the shadows said. “This way, my lord hand.”
“Who are you?”
“A complicated question, no one really knows who he is. Especially a man with no face. Follow me, Artosis is waiting.”
He followed the man in black through a back way alley, infested with rats and vermin. The poor district, Flee Bottom, was slightly less luxurious than his five bedroom complex in the keep. The man entered a slummy brothel, and Jinro followed. It doesn’t matter how much money you have, there’s always some left over for a good whore. Not that the whores in this brothel would be considered good by any member of the noblesse, in fact he had no idea why for the gods Dan had chosen to meet here. The floors were wet and covered with mud, and the steps creaked as he took the stairs to the upper level. It was but a dark hallway with rooms on both sides of them, the only light came from a couple of torches, but they were so far apart from each other that it might just as well have been pitch dark. The man moved swiftly, almost supernaturally quick given the darkness. He stopped at the furthest torch, the burning fire gave just enough light to show his dark black beard, and a rather unflattering red scar on his right jaw.
“There’s a secret passage in there. The journey is rather unpredictable, but luckily you aren’t wearing that pretty velvet robe anymore.”
“How did you…never mind.” He had gotten quite used to people spying on him.
His hand reached for the door knob, and a turn later he was inside the room.
“AAAAH, OH YEA, AAAAH AAAH AAAH.” A fat man was taking a whore from behind on the bed. He was too busy trying to find his dick between the layers of fat, and the whore had her mind focused on releasing fake moans. They didn’t even notice him.
“Seriously, you couldn’t put the secret passage in an empty room?” Jinro yelled half frustrated, half amused.
“Look again, my friend, the brothel is now a meeting room.”
Jinro turned his head, and to his disbelief the whale and the prostitute were gone. The whorehouse had in fact disappeared completely, replaced by a beautiful palace room. A marble table with seats stood in the center, but only Dan had claimed a seat.
“How did you…”’
“Magic”, a woman said from behind him. She had long legs, golden hair, soft lips and the face of an angel. That and a deep red scar, going all the way across her right cheek.
“He, … she, isn’t even kidding.” Dan laughed softly. “Sit, we have matters to attend to.” He turned his head towards the blonde goddess, “Thank you for getting him here safely, you can go do that other thing now.”
Jinro sat down, still trying to figure out what by the gods had just happened here. His train of thought was stopped when Dan started speaking.
“Seven men walk into a room. Each powerful in his own way. One man is the kingdoms, he’s the chess player, and as long as his pieces obey him he’s more powerful than anyone. Another man is the army, he fights and dies for his lord, but swords are double-edged. The third man is the law, as long as everyone obeys his little rulebook, he is invincible. But the law is only as strong as the people who follow it. The next man has no particular skills, but he has enough gold to hire men who do. The fifth man controls the waves, entire cities can starve to death if he closes the trade routes, but once he plants his feet into the muddy earth of the land, he doesn’t stop sinking. The sixth one is a woman, and she can take your heart with smile and dagger both. No one knows who the seventh man truly is. When you’re walking the streets of King’s Landing late at night, and your sixth sense is telling you there’s someone watching you, but you do not see anyone when you turn your back, his eyes are lurking from the dark. Every men has secrets, and he knows yours. He is your shadow on the wall. Like death, he will leave you alone until your time has come, but when he puts his hand on your shoulder and drags you down, there’s no stopping him. So tell me, Jonathan, who do you fear most?”
He paused and considered the words, the truth was he feared none of the small council members, so he said: “I fear no one, Dan.”
“Very foolish of you. Look around next time you sit at that table, my friend, in the small council you can kill the man sitting next to you just as easily as he can kill you.”
Dan poured two cups of Dornish wine and slid one towards Jinro. “To the king”, Dan toasted with a half-grin.
“If we want to take over, we will need an army. As the master of laws, I can create my own law enforcement, the justiciars. I am the law, but the law is nothing without power. If I have an army, Dongraegu will be surprised to see what a man dual-wielding law and sword can do. The only problem is that such notions must be voted in. I trust I can have your vote. The king made Sean “Day9” Plott master of coin. He’s a friend of both of us, he will vote it in. Besides, his Satouri gold is the only reason he’s on the damn council, no one looks twice at his motives. Together with my own, that only makes 3 out of 7. The king will vote against for sure, but I happen to know he won’t be joining us the next meeting. As hand of the king, you will lead the meeting, and his vote will become irrelevant. So now we’re at 3 out of 6. Catz is too smart to give us an army, he will vote against. Queen Flo married the king out of lust for power, she wouldn’t even allow me to have a goat for production if I asked for it. That leaves one man. Johan Luchessi. Naniwa. He is from the same family as the queen, so he will follow her blindly. It’s quite ridiculous that a master of ships gets to vote on land matters, but what are you going to do about it.”
“I take it you know exactly what to do about it,” Jonathan knew him well enough to see he had a ruse planned.
Dan smiled. “Precisely so. I happen to know house Quantic isn’t very satisfied with his latest actions, they call him”, he shook his head in disbelief, “a traitor of the old king. They say he only survived the massacre because he threw his sword down like a coward and kneeled for king Dongraegu before Boxer’s body was cold. Such filthy lies, he would hate it if someone tried him in court for that. As the master of law, I took the liberty of scheduling a trial for tomorrow morning.”
“Who is challenging him?”
“Payam Toghyan, TT1.”
“Even if he has solid proof, it will be hard to convict and imprison a master of the council, and member of the royal house. I hope this will work, but I’m just not seeing it. We should look for another way to get an army.”
Dan smiled and finished his wine, then he got up and walked out of the door. “Tomorrow morning, great plaza. You wouldn’t want to miss it for the world.”
“AAAAH AAAH AAAAH,” the fat man was still having a go at his whore. He rolled off of her and planted his enormous body in the bed, exhausted. His big gloomy eyes turned towards Jinro, and they got even larger when he saw the sword around his belt. Jonathan put one finger on his mouth, and said “sssstttt”, then winked, gave him a half evil smile and walked out. “That ought to keep him quiet next time.”
The next morning the crowd had gathered at the great Plaza, executions were a good excuse to mob up and pick on one of the noblesse. O, how they loved a good trial. If they were lucky it would lead to an execution, which were even better excuses to gather around and throw mud at one of their former superiors, after which the best part followed: seeing the fucker that once terrorized them die. Jonathan would love executions too if he would be one of the small folk.
King Dongraegu sat on an absurdly high throne, his golden crown as ever steady on his dark hair.
“It won't be steady much longer."
There was a seat reserved for him next to the king, he was even sitting on the same level as the queen, something she seemed rather upset about. “The king shits and the hand catches it, a nice chair is the least they can give me.” Jonathan bowed before his false king, and his greeting words had the same tone as when he addressed king Boxer.
“Some wine, Jonathan? Trials are so much more fun with wine. It does make your judgment rather impulsive, yesterday I had a thief’s hands and legs cut off. He stole a bread, but he also ran away.”
“The punishment seems reasonable, your Grace.” “For a psychotic goat like you it isn’t too bad.”
“Finally someone who agrees!” He then proceeded to yell at his servants for more wine, and eagerly drank two more cups.
“Good, it doesn’t matter who wins, he’ll just feed them both to the lions for fun.”
As master of law, Artosis led the trial, but the king still decided the verdict. This could go very badly, or very well. Dongraegu wasn't exactly a man of justice, so it didn't really matter who was right.
Dan wore a magnificent black toga, and addressed the crowd with his booming voice.
“We gathered here to witness the trial between Johan “Naniwa” Luchessi of the southern deserts of Dorne, member of house Quantic and master of ships....
The crowd hated him, they roared curses at him and threw cow shit at the plaza. Naniwa just smiled with an evil twitch, he looked like the devil’s right hand, and as a servant of king Dongraegu he kind of was. “But the if the Hand of the king is the king’s right hand, the true right hand of the devil is myself.”
“....and Payam “TT1” Toghyan of House Root, Riverlord and acclaimed poet!”
The crowd threw cow shit at him too, after all poetry is for eunuchs who can’t grip a sword properly.
“He does quite look like a eunuch. No muscles at all, no skills with the sword either I dare bet. His olive skin and glittering dark hair make him look like a gay prostitute from Lys, and an ugly one at that.”
“I declare this case opened! Naniwa, come forward and make your starting statement." The king looked forward to it, his eyes were already twinkling, they always did that when he imagined unreasonably cruel punishments.
"You don't have Dimaga with you, I thought you liked having you mad dog around." Jonathan was happy about it though, he hated the man. Seeing him clad in the white of the kingsguard was simply disgusting, he would never forgive him for the terror he bestowed during the rebellion.
"He's hunting down MC, the bastard escaped and is moving north on the king's road. He's still a long way from home though, my dog will eat him before he gets there." He grinned, Jinro wasn't sure whether it was at the thought of MC getting eaten, or a cruel punishment he had in mind for the loser of the trial.
Naniwa seemed to be very calm. His eyes always looked evil because of a black shade that was ever around them, but now they did more so than usual.
“Payam, you challenged me like a sheep. I am no sheep, I am a lion, and I will fight and die a lion. I DEMAND TRIAL BY COMBAT, IT IS IN THE HANDS OF THE GODS NOW!”
The crowd went completely overboard, the only thing better than a trial was an execution, and the only thing better than an execution a good old duel.
Jonathan leaned forward and whispered “That’s our army getting carved to tiny slices” into Dan’s ear.
“Only if the gods want it.”
King Dongraegu seemed dissapointed, now he didn't get to pick the cause of death. Nevertheless it would end bloody, so he settled for it.
"Very well, I shall grant you tral by combat, may the seven shine their ligth on both of you."
TT1 didn’t even have an armor, he just wore a black vestment and had a short sword. It was actually more of a dagger than a sword. Naniwa was fully clad in the finest piece of armor, with a two-handed warhammer in his hands. It was a marvelous piece of craftsmanship, a black instrument of death and the hilt signed with the seven workers sigil of his house. His dark armor covered every inch of his body with a thick layer of steel, the finest plate you could find. And then came his helmet, an enormous bullhead with two sharp long horns.
“May the gods give you strength. BEGIN!” Dongraegu laughed like a child, games always amused him.
Naniwa charged forward and looked to end it with his first blow, the hammer came crashing down from above the bull’s horns, and landed into Payam’s skull. Only it didn’t. It wasn’t even at the last second, but at a much shorter measure of time that TT1 had dodged the blow. Naniwa himself didn’t understand how the foreigner wasn’t bleeding pieces of brain through his head by now, but the only thing to do was strike again. Another ferocious blow, and he missed again. TT1 went underneath the hammer in the opposite direction of the blow, and came up from behind Naniwa. His dagger shot out of his hand and pierced Naniwa’s heart right through the layers of plate, and came out bloody the other way.
“How is this possible, even valyrian steel couldn’t fully pierce that coat of armor.”
Naniwa dropped to his knees, and choked on the blood rushing through his throat. He fell forward flat with his face in the sand, it wasn’t much better than how a slaughtered sheep died.
“WE HAVE OUR WINNER, THE GODS HAVE GRANTED THEIR FAVOR TO TT1!” The king was amused, lucky for TT1 he wouldn't get executed for the fun of it.
Dan cheered along with the crowd, they got to see one of the most sensational fights of their lives and were storming the plaza. They picked Payam up and carried him around the plaza for a tour of honor.
The mob carrying him passed right in front of him, he couldn't believe it still. “TT1 isn’t even injured, how did he survive those blows? He only has some blood, at least I think it is blood, on his face. A deep red spot on his right cheek."
Then it hit him, he instantly turned to Dan. “What have you done, is this how the master of law thinks of justice?” there was anger and disbelief in his voice.
“It was all in the hands of the gods.”
