The Gold Road had to be the most well-maintained road in the Seven Kingdoms.
Well, outside of the road leading to Baelish Keep. I really needed to rename my growing town. Baelish Keep was not accurate, nor did it roll off of the tongue. I would have to name the road as well. So many things to do after this war, so little time.
I hadn't been near a weirwood in ages. How were things going with the buildings? How many ships do I now have? Has everything been overrun by the clans? Was my gold still there?
It didn't help that the ideas in my head kept piling up. There were deals to make, plans to write down. Income to build.
Lands to conquer…
And yet I was here, crossing over the Golden Bridge.
"Terrible name for a fucking bridge." I muttered as I looked down at my men crossing over the bridge and into what was technically the Riverlands. It was only that in name. As far as anyone was concerned, this was the Crownlands. The nearest town was the Stoney Sept and they did not farm this land, nor protect it.
It was a wonder we hadn't run into any bandits on the march. Of course, who would be stupid enough to attack an army? Normally only other armies did that.
"Do you really believe this plan will work?" Ser Courtney Penrose asked as he rode up beside me.
I didn't respond immediately. I was too busy looking at the construction techniques of the bridge in front of me. It was built to last, with ironwood trunks serving as the beams piercing into the river bed. The wood that made up the beams of the bridge were also made of ironwood. As I looked closer, I noticed that the entire thing was ironwood, odd because of the cost. Funnily enough, the only gold on the bridge was painted that way…
"I do." I told him confidently.
I sat on top of my new horse at the top of a small hill overlooking my marching army. I still had yet to name my new horse, and I avoided it's stat sheet like the plague. About 10,000 of my men had already crossed, and I could see the end of this particular marching party. Most were infantry, although all of the archers were marching with them as well.
"They have a large host." Courtney responded eventually.
"Untested, and led by a man trying to prove himself as the new hand of the king. He will be eager to pursue." I answered, staying confident in my plan that I had thought long and hard about.
"True, but I would not underestimate Jon. He is gifted with the sword and tactics. There are rumors that Rhaegar had plans of making him Kingsguard." Courtney retorted.
Was he trying to make me less confident in the coming battle? Or was he truly warning me.
"I'll keep that in mind Ser Courtney. If that will be all? Your men have finished crossing and Connington will be here soon." I spoke to the man. It was a dismissal, as I did not feel like listening to his pessimistic views. Normally he was an optimistic man.
"Be careful Lord Baelish. It is no secret that the Stormlords dislike you. It is a wonder they haven't moved on you already." Ser Courtney said as he turned his horse.
"What do you mean by that?" I asked before he could ride off.
He paused for a moment, but did not whip his horse back around. "You disrespect them to their faces, and the gods in secret. Should it ever become more than a rumor that you practice blood magic, you will have many enemies."
Then he rode off to the bridge, to meet with his men.
I understood then. Ser Courtney was warning me, not just of the other Stormlords, but of himself as well. I had been stepping on a lot of toes as of recently. Robert trusted my battle plans and executed them without complaint.
But that was not a guarantee. If I could be swayed out of his favor through whispers of my 'blood magic', then my life could be on the line. Worst part about it was that Robert had witnessed it first hand.
I still had yet to talk to him about the night he almost killed me. It was like an unspoken agreement we had between each other.
Maybe it was time the agreement should become spoken, instead.
I could not believe my luck.
I was on my belly at the exact same hill I was on a day and a half previously, looking down to the Golden Bridge. The sky was black and lit with the stars of this universe. It was gorgeous to look at, but my eyes were not looking up, they were looking down.
Below me, on the bridge where I had sent half of my men across, and kept my other half hidden on this side, Jon Connington's forces were currently marching across it.
This was a disaster.
I had a grand plan in my mind, cooked up from countless hours on a horse. Ever since that scout had been captured, and I had sent it off with a message, I had developed this plan.
Connington was never going to send only one scout out at a time. Anyone with half a brain would know that.
So when I sent the scout back saying that I would meet Connington at the Stoney Sept, I actually marched my men south in the direction of Kings Landing.
This was another trick of mine.
And all of it was centered around the bridge that Connington was currently crossing in the night. I couldn't help but panic as I saw my plan crumble before my eyes.
The plan was to march to the Golden Bridge, split the army with one half crossing and the other half hiding on the other side. When Connington marched his army across, I had planned on smashing into them on both sides. Robert and Ser Courtney would lead the marches that crossed, while Ben and I would lead the marches that stayed.
But Connington had marched through the night, trying to catch up to us before we could reach Kings Landing. It was a bold move, but one I should have considered, and didn't.
My men weren't ready for an ambush, they were fucking resting.
"Look Petyr." Ben whispered beside me as he pointed a finger out at the massive conglomeration of torches.
I tried my best to squint and make out what he was pointing at. Eventually I found it in a man on a horse, holding his own torch. He was waving it about, pointing it, and yelling something I could not hear.
"What are they doing?" I asked rhetorically. I obviously did not expect Ben to know.
"I think they plan on making camp." Ben answered as we watched the men run about below us.
Just when he said that, the marching formations fell apart as some men dropped to the ground. Connington pointed towards them and yelled something at them that made them stand up.
Men continued to march across the bridge, while some stayed.
A lightbulb went off in my head. "He's going to camp on both sides." I said as I saw his plan.
"Why would he do that?" Ben retorted.
"In case of an ambush." I grinned as my luck turned from horrendous to glorious. "He could flee to one side of the river and easily bottleneck any army. But he didn't consider one thing, can you guess what it is?" I asked my faithful companion beside me.
Ben responded almost immediately.
"An ambush from both sides."
Had Connington pushed his army to either side of the river he would have thwarted my plans, but instead he walked right into them.
"Get the men up quietly, and take your time, we will let them settle into a nice slumber. We attack before the sun rises. Send a man across the river to Robert. Tell them that we'll be ready, Ser Courtney will start the battle with a volley of arrows, and then we charge."
We had never practiced this type of marching before, but we had time and the element of surprise on our side.
Ben stood at the front of our army taking slow, quiet steps. Ten thousand men did the same thing right behind him. Normally I would bitch to the men about wanting to hear their footsteps hit at the same time. Now I didn't want to hear a single footstep. Although I heard more than that. The clinking of metal was common, as was the sound of rubbing leather. But there was only so much you could do with 10,000 soldiers marching to war.
We had camped about half a mile from the river, so we didn't have very far to go, but it was slow going. It had taken about an hour to get the men ready and on the same page. Another hour had come and went as we slowly marched to the hill that I had planned on ambushing from.
Now they stood on the other side of the hill I was kneeling on. My eyes searched all around me, looking for scouts that might be surveying the land around us
My bow was in my hands, ready to end a life should they make a sound about the army preparing to kill them in their sleep.
I thought we would wait there for a long time. I was positive that Robert would take his time getting the men up and ready. He was technically camped closer, but he was not known for being a timely man. I was wrong.
In reality I wasn't even prepared for the random hail of rainbows that pelted the camp in front of me. It took me two whole seconds to realize that we should be charging and not staring like dumbasses.
I looked back at the men, as I drew my sword and took a deep breath.
"Charge!" I yelled as I pointed towards the direction of the enemy camp. I didn't wait for them to react, instead I decided to lead by example and turned around to the loyalist army before taking off in a sprint.
As I sprinted down the hill, I didn't even have my eyes on the uneven ground beneath me. All I could see was the shuffling of tents and men pouring out of them. The Lords who didn't expect the attack came out in normal clothing, a mistake. The regular infantry slept in their armor most of the time, so they stumbled into the night almost ready to fight.
My ears picked up on the sounds of screams and horns as soon as I approached the first tent. The men that had already seen me and the army following me made an easy decision, and that was to run away.
I was five tents deep before a man stumbled out of his tent at the wrong time. Heartsbane took his life before he could even realize what was happening.
My men caught up to me then, so I decide to stop and look around before I charged deeper into the sea of tents.
My men were opening the flap to every tent we passed. Some were empty already, but the vast majority resulted in the thrust of a spear and a dead man inside.
More of my men poured into the camp around me. There was no finesse to this. All the marching that we had practiced went out the window. We were not meeting a prepared force, we were slaughtering thousands before they could realize it.
I didn't even bother running forward with the rest of my men. I didn't have to. This was not a battle, but a butchering of the smallfolk Jon Connington had led to fight the rebellion.
"Lord Baelish."
I turned to see that Ben had caught up to me on his horse. In his hands was Gimli's replacement, a horse that I hadn't even named yet. I didn't have the heart to do it yet. I reached up and took the reigns from him and climbed on the back of the new horse.
"You did not want to participate?" Ben asked as men continued to pour around us and into the enemy camp.
"This is a slaughter my friend, there is no glory to be won today." I replied as I spurred my horse further into the enemy camps. Heartsbane was in my hand the entire time, ready to strike down any that snuck up to me.
With my new vantage point on top of my horse, I could see deeper into the encampment. It was a sea of tents as far as I could see. It was hard to tell how far the actual bridge was from my position. So I moved forward, following my men.
I gripped the horn at my side, ready to call them into formation in the event that the enemy put up a fight. That had been my initial plan the entire time, push into the encampment, take as many lives as possible along the way before eventually forming a line and pushing them into the river.
As I kept riding deeper and deeper though, it became obvious that it was not needed. The battle played out in my head the closer I got to the bridge.
My men kept stabbing into the backs of the enemy, some of them actively running away from my men, and others running towards another direction looking to reinforce something. Finally I passed a tent that allowed me to see the real battle.
At the bridge, the Connington forces had rallied up, just as I thought they would, although it took the much longer than anticipated. On Robert's side of the river, the main bulk of the fighting was going on.
Roberts forces were formed into a shield wall, with the spearman at the front, slowly advancing but killing hundreds every few seconds. This battle looked like it had been going on for a while.
On my side of the river, the loyalist forces were just becoming aware that we were attacking. There were so many men on the bridge not paying attention. They had no idea that we were about to squeeze them tightly on the bridge, from both sides.
I drew the horn up to my lips, and blew the signal to form a shield wall. My men obeyed quickly.
The loyalist army closest to me turned around quickly. I don't know why, but I was looking at a plainly built man's face. Confusion formed first, and then terror.
This was mirrored by most of his comrades.
I blew the horn in another signal that meant for my men to push the enemy together, to squeeze them and put them under pressure. A slow, but deadly advance. The left side of my wall would advance first, then the center, and the right would not advance.
"When surrounding an army, leave an outlet free…" I muttered to myself as I remembered the words from 'The Art of War'.
My right side would allow an avenue for the enemy to flee along the river and away from the bulk of their army. This would make them easy targets for the cavalry and would make it nearly impossible for them to regroup.
Arrows pelted the army standing on the bridge. Men fell to the ground, and they fell into the river.
I could see the exact moment that the enemy forces became frantic. The bridge suddenly got extremely packed as Roberts' forces reacted to my horn. We had been drilling for this battle for a while, ever since I had developed the plan, they knew what to do.
All that was left was for me to watch as the bridge suddenly became full occupancy. It looked so similar to how the show depicted the Battle of the Bastards. A circle surrounding panicking men, fighting for their lives. But there would be no cavalry charge to save them today.
And that's when the loyalists realized I had left them an avenue for escape. It was an odd thing to watch men flow like the river they were standing above, away from conflict.
And I let them escape, while Robert's forces pushed onto the bridge dealing death with every thrust of a spear and blade.
If I could have counted fast enough, the tally would have been near a thousand men fled while their comrades were butchered.
In the end, Jon Connington was captured, and his army was scattered to the winds. We lost little men, and gained valuable supplies, swords, and armor. Everyone congratulated me on another battle plan successfully executed.
All I could think about was how tiresome the road had become and how I wanted to be back at Baelish Keep, building and progressing my people to a better future.
The battle would go down as Robert's Massacre, The Stag's triumph, The Griff's Folly, and many other names I did not care to remember.
Already, Robert's Rebellion had been changed drastically. But as I stood there waiting for Ned Stark and Jon Arryn to cross the distance on their horse, I realized that it was so far gone that I could not predict what would happen next.
What would Tywin do now that we stood between him and King's Landing? Where is Rhaegar and the Dorne host? Will Mace Tyrell give up the siege of Storm's End and race to the capital to defend it?
Had my victories doomed us to fail?
"Jon, Ned!" Robert bellowed as his friend and mentor climbed down off of their horse to embrace him.
"Robert." Ned greeted as he returned the hug. Jon Arryn just hugged him in return, but did not say anything that I could hear.
"It's about time you joined the fight! We've been whipping the bastards left and right, Ned." Robert exclaimed.
"Yes, it seems sending Lord Baelish with you was a wise decision. The Seven Kingdoms sing of how deadly the pair of you are." Jon Arryn said as his attention turned to me.
"Lord Arryn, Lord Stark." I greeted with a small bow. I did not miss how the Lord had worded his statement. "Sending" me with Robert implied that he was taking at least some credit for my deeds as a commander.
Fucking Lords and their ego's, it was enough to make me want to grow one of my own.
"Congratulations on your marriage, Lord Stark." I added, to be polite.
One interesting thing was that Jon Arryn's heir was not slain in the Battle of the Bells, and so he did not see the need for a bride to produce him any heirs. For the moment, Lysa Tully was still a Tully, and not an Arryn.
Denys Arryn was still set to take control of the Vale, when Jon eventually passed from this world.
Ned nodded to me but did not say anything back.
Robert interrupted once again being his loud self. "We can talk of this over a feast and wine. The men deserve it, as do I! Hahahaha." Robert exclaimed as he drug the men away.
I rolled my eyes and didn't comment on how we had been resting for two weeks waiting on them to arrive.
For the first time, everyone was not waiting on me for the war meeting to begin.
I was currently leaning on a post in Robert's tent. It was fascinating to me that no matter how far we marched, his tent managed to stay the same. Every time the servants set it up perfectly. I could appreciate that sort of attention to detail.
Ben sat on a barrel of some sort next to me. The sound of a wet stone running along his blade continued to hit all of our ears with a soothing rhythm. Robert was staring at a map of Kings Landing and its surrounding lands on the table. Who knows what he was looking for, or what he was thinking.
A cluster of three Stormlords began pouring into the tent. Nearly all three met my eyes and sent me the most hateful look they could muster.
Ben must have noticed it, because he stood up abruptly and sheathed his sword. The look on his face was not murderous, but rather dismissing as if the men were not worth his time and blade.
I took note of that particular interaction.
I should expect it honestly, I have been confrontational to nearly every Stormlord since I was introduced. I thought as I shook off the interaction.
They wouldn't do anything but glare, I was too important. Too protected.
There was the sound of feet outside the tent, and in came Jon Arryn, Ned Stark, Ser Courtney, and other important lords from the Vale and the North.
Suddenly the tent became rather packed. It hadn't seen this much attention the entire rebellion. Jon Arryn had an entourage with him.
"Everyone is here, then." Jon Arryn said as he walked up to the table Robert was still leaning over. It was odd for him not to address his foster father… What had him in such a bad mood?
After a moment, Robert's head looked up to meet Jon Arryn. Jon gave him a nod. Not the kind of nod that was a greeting, but rather a nod that meant 'you can begin'.
Robert paused for a moment, as he still had a serious look on his face. I had never seen him act that way. He was normally loud and happy. Was he sick? '
His face finally changed to what some would call his normal upbeat self. "I would like to announce that Jon Arryn, as of this moment, is commander of…"
What the fuck!?
"…the rebellion. Are you bloody happy now?!" Robert said formally, before changing to a more angry tone, directed towards Jon Arryn.
Surprisingly, my first reaction was not to scream and shout, hell there wasn't even any anger right off of the bat. It was more just shock and surprise.
"What?"
It was Ben that said something first. My hand rose and I turned to Ben. I told him without words to shut his fucking mouth. He looked at me and then back to the Lords at the table a couple of times. Anger was rolling off of the man. His legs shifted back and forth and his fists were balled up.
Eventually, he got smart and decided to take back what he said. "Apologies my lord." He said as he averted his eyes from them.
"Do you have anything to say, Lord Baelish?" Jon asked.
All eyes turned to me.
That was when my anger kicked in. Not only did he have the balls to strongarm Robert into making him commander, he was actively taunting me in front of the other lords.
"Yes." I said, truthfully. I had a lot to fucking say. Luckily, I had the wits to know that now was not the time to throw a hissy fit.
Something was happening right now. There was something going on in the background that I wasn't privy to. Conversations between Robert, Ned, and Jon maybe? Perhaps even the Stormlords, none of them would stand up for me.
"Go on then." Jon said condescendingly, as he clasped his hands in front of him.
He wanted me to scream and shout. He wanted me to act my age, and embarrass myself, further cementing the argument that I was unfit for leadership. I would not play into his hand.
"Which horn is it for the Cavalry?" I asked as I pulled two horns off of my waist and held it out to everyone in the room to see.
Jon glanced down at them for a brief moment. His eyes flickered back up to mine and ignored the question.
"Ben?" I asked and looked to my right.
"Right hand." He said without pause.
"Correct!" I said as I held the horn up for everyone to see. "What is the sequence of calls for a false retreat, Lord Arryn?" I asked my liege lord then.
Jon Arryn's jaw clenched, showing the old muscles still hidden underneath his skin.
"I have no need for horns, or foolish tactics, to win this rebellion." Jon answered, dismissing me and how I was trying to make him look unfit for leadership.
"Those foolish tactics have led to …how many victories is it now Robert?" I asked, bringing him into the conversation.
It became deathly silent in the tent. Jon Arryn stared at me the entire time, and I made sure to meet his eyes. I was pushing too far, but it was hard for me to care. He started this, and I would be damned if I wouldn't get my punches in. I had only asked questions and pointed out facts at this point.
"You are lucky I do not hang you for blood magic, Lord Baelish. Your peers have advised me to strip you of your lands at the very least, for your transgressions against the Faith. Because of your deeds in this rebellion, I have not. Do not push me…" Jon Arryn said, in front of all the important lords in the rebellion.
This was the moment Jon Arryn was waiting on. He wanted to reveal this the entire time. My reputation would be shot now. Nearly all of the Lords in attendance would never want to be associated with me.
In a couple of sentences, Jon Arryn had hamstrung me.
Trade deals with other lords in the future would be ignored or so heavily favor the other lord that it would be ridiculous for me to accept. Marriage proposals would definitely be ignored.
I didn't even bother to respond. Anything I said could have been construed.
I walked out.