Chapter 189: Luring the Snake Out of Its Hole
The atmosphere in Rosby, which had just been joyous, changed drastically; the air itself seemed to turn cold. Before the assassination attempt, it had been a blossoming spring. Now, it was a bleak and bitter winter.
The lively celebration ceremony descended into chaos.
Dragons screamed in the sky while the murderous Dragon Guards in black armor raised their spears around the venue. The white-cloaked knight frowned as he remained close behind Rhaegar. A Kingsguard knight could wait ten thousand hours to guard his king—steadfastness was their duty. But when danger truly arrived, Barristan had not expected Rhaegar to react even faster than himself, and he regretted his own momentary delay.
Rhaegar looked at the colors around him.
The dragons gleamed silver beneath the sun.
The Dragon Guards wore black armor.
Ser Barristan wore pale white plate armor.
Lord Gyles Rosby wore a dark overcoat.
The panicked smallfolk wore plain and simple clothes.
On the raised platform, only Rhaegar Targaryen, Ser Barristan Selmy, and Lord Gyles Rosby remained standing. The silver-haired, purple-eyed prince now looked like a blade drawn from its sheath, fierce and dangerous, like a tiger ready to devour prey at any moment.
An assassination attempt in broad daylight undoubtedly implicated House Rosby. Lord Gyles barely dared to breathe. Prince Rhaegar was both magnificent and terrifying, and every lord in the Crownlands had heard tales of his exploits.
Lord Gyles's face became even paler. He was already sickly, plagued by a cough that never truly healed. Now he could hardly withstand this shock. What was meant to be an opportunity to curry favor with the prince had instead become a disaster involving assassins. If anything had truly happened to Rhaegar, Lord Gyles felt his best option would be to take the black and join the Night's Watch.
Rhaegar quickly calmed him.
This was one of the Crownlands' most loyal royalist houses, and since Lord Gyles currently had no heir, Rhaegar did not believe he would participate in such madness. Rhaegar already had a rough idea where the assassins had come from.
He ordered Lord Gyles to calm the people of Rosby while Ser Barristan led the Dragon Guards in securing the area.
Assassins.
Rhaegar had expected an assassination attempt eventually, but he had not expected it to come so soon.
Still, assassins appearing now only proved how deeply his enemies feared him. Such dangers were inevitable on the road to becoming a great monarch.
The skill level of assassins across the Narrow Sea varied greatly. The most famous organizations were the three great assassin sects:
The Faceless Men of Braavos
The Sorrowful Men of Qarth
The Shadowbinders of Asshai
Compared to them, killers like Blood and Cheese during the Dance of the Dragons, the catspaw who attacked Bran Stark, or the wine merchant who attempted to poison Daenerys were little more than independent operators.
Rhaegar understood these three organizations fairly well.
The Sorrowful Men were probably the weakest. Their methods relied heavily on stealth and manticores, without especially profound techniques. Of course, Rhaegar had not yet encountered the organization's true elite assassins.
The Shadowbinders possessed the strongest magical abilities. Their shadow assassins were terrifying, but the cost was enormous. Even Melisandre could only perform such rituals sparingly before exhausting Stannis Baratheon's life force.
The truly mysterious and terrifying ones were the Faceless Men. They were the most complete and refined assassin organization in the known world. Rhaegar even suspected they might have been responsible for the death of Lysandro.
Two corpses now lay before Rhaegar atop the temporary platform.
One belonged to the old woman who had offered the orange.
The other belonged to the thin middle-aged man whom Rhaegar had killed with a thrown spear.
Beside them lay the shattered remains of the manticore.
Lord Gyles quickly summoned Rosby's steward to identify the two people.
"Your Highness! Lord Gyles!" the steward said nervously. "These two people are indeed registered as residents of Rosby. One was supposedly a childless widow, and the other a hunter."
"These people are not from Rosby," Ser Barristan suddenly declared.
Barristan crouched down and used his sword to peel away the false skin from their faces—a bloody but effective method. Beneath the disguises were unfamiliar features marked with numerous scars. Their pale skin resembled that of the people of Qarth.
"They are Sorrowful Men from Qarth, Your Highness," Barristan confirmed after seeing both the disguises and the manticore.
"Lord Gyles," Rhaegar said calmly, "search their homes. The real residents may already be dead."
Lord Gyles immediately sent men to investigate the mud-and-wattle huts where the pair had supposedly lived.
Sure enough, two fresh corpses were discovered hidden inside, their faces flayed away. The real widow and hunter had been dead for some time. They had been perfect victims: isolated smallfolk with no family, no children, and no one likely to notice their disappearance.
"Who hired them?" Rhaegar wondered silently.
He had enemies everywhere.
Such was the fate of every conqueror. Wherever there was power, there would be conflict and bloodshed.
Rhaegar had seized the Stepstones and begun collecting tariffs, offending slavers, pirates, and merchants from the Three Daughters. His declaration that the dragon had risen again had likely alarmed Braavos as well. Even the distant Dothraki khals surely remembered dragonfire with hatred.
After careful consideration, however, Rhaegar believed the Three Daughters were the most likely culprits.
The Dothraki were brutal but straightforward. They lacked the subtlety for such schemes, and Ghoyan Drohe had not yet become a real threat to them.
Braavos, meanwhile, tended to act cautiously and would not move so quickly.
That left Lys, Myr, and Tyrosh.
The people of the Three Daughters had the strongest motive for a decapitation strike. Rhaegar himself was the core commander of the Iron Throne's eastern campaigns, as well as one of the few dragonriders in the world. Remove Rhaegar, and the royal forces in the Narrow Sea would become leaderless.
Strike the snake at the head.
If the assassination succeeded, the strategic balance would immediately shift.
"Was it the Lyseni? The Myrish? The Pentoshi? Any of them are possible," Rhaegar thought.
During the Dance of the Dragons, assassinations and decapitation strikes had become commonplace. Both the Blacks and Greens had repeatedly targeted each other's commanders and dragonriders. The Greens, however, had suffered especially heavily because they lacked strong successors once their elite leaders fell.
Then Rhaegar suddenly smiled.
"An opportunity," he thought. "A perfect opportunity to lure the snake out of its hole."
Danger and opportunity always existed together.
Since the enemy had already acted, Rhaegar could now deliberately bait them into revealing themselves.
He considered all his future enemies:
The Others in the far North
The Ironborn in the west
The Three Daughters in the southeast
Braavos in the northeast
The Dothraki beyond the Narrow Sea
All of them would eventually become threats.
But no ruler could fight every enemy at once. Opening too many fronts simultaneously was suicide. The wisest strategy was to crush enemies one at a time, and the safest target at present remained the Three Daughters.
Rhaegar called Barristan and Lord Gyles close and quietly whispered several instructions.
Soon afterward, the silver dragon descended onto the platform.
Rhaegar mounted the dragon and prepared to fly toward Dragonstone. If he wished to lure the enemy into the open, the performance needed to be convincing.
"After I leave for Dragonstone," Rhaegar told Barristan, "the safety of the Dragon Guards and King's Landing will rest with you, Ser."
"I shall hold fast until death," Barristan replied solemnly. "I will not fail you."
"Do you remember what I told you to report to the king?" Rhaegar asked as he stroked the silver dragon's horn.
"I remember," Barristan answered.
Satisfied, Rhaegar guided the dragon into the sky. Its vast silver wings stirred up powerful winds as it spiraled upward, departing Rosby for Dragonstone.
Lord Gyles watched the dragon disappear into the heavens.
Then, trembling, he suddenly spoke.
"I failed to protect the prince," he said hoarsely. "I am willing to go to King's Landing and accept punishment."
A new storm was coming.
------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
If you like the story please give it some power stones and reviews. And if you want to read 40+ advance chapters or just want to support me please join my patreon at [email protected]/Translatingfanfics