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The Golden Company had always been a rather complicated force. Or rather… from the very beginning, this mercenary company had been fundamentally different from all the other sellsword bands scattered across the Free Cities.
Their first captain-general was the man known as "Bittersteel" Aegor Rivers. He was the legitimized bastard of Aegon the Fourth, also called Aegon the Unworthy. Which meant that, in a certain sense, this man had once held a faint yet undeniable claim to the Iron Throne itself.
Unfortunately, fate had never intended the crown for him. When the Blackfyre Rebellion broke out under the leadership of Daemon Blackfyre, Aegor Rivers chose the wrong side. He stood alongside the man who carried the banner of the red three-headed dragon upon a field of black.
The outcome of that rebellion had been decided long before the first blade was drawn. When the Blackfyres fell, Aegor Rivers fled across the Narrow Sea, taking with him the surviving descendents of House Blackfyre. And in the years that followed, determined to uphold the status and honor of the exiled Blackfyre lineage, he built the Golden Company from the ground up — its backbone formed by exiled nobles and knights, outcasts and dreamers alike.
So many years had passed since then, yet the Golden Company had never fully shaken off a strange and almost contradictory sense of purpose:
They were going home!
They were not men of Essos. Their true home lay across the Narrow Sea, in Westeros.
Once, back when Viserys — the so-called Beggar King — was still alive, he had tried to negotiate with them. But at the time, Viserys had neither soldiers nor ships, and, truth be told, not much ability to speak of either. His performance at those feasts had been pathetic, and the sellswords laughed him off with thinly veiled scorn.
And so, the plan to crown Viserys Targaryen and lead the Golden Company back to Westeros quietly fell apart before it ever began.
Naturally, one could not ignore the role of Illyrio Mopatis, the Magister of Pentos, in all this — ever the schemer, ever the one pulling strings from the shadows.
Later, a crown of molten gold was poured onto Viserys' head, and with the death of the last male of House Targaryen's royal bloodline, the Golden Company set aside their ambitions once more. They did not believe a girl could accomplish much.
That was, at least, until now.…
News had reached them that Daenerys had seized Astapor without shedding a single drop of blood of her own. Not only that, but she had stabilized her rule there, and it seemed she had even gained the support of the Dornish from across the sea in Westeros.
Among the ranks of the Golden Company, some still clung tightly to the belief that they were Westerosi men, and this news stirred something within them. They wanted to reach out to Daenerys. They did not wish for their families, carried from generation to generation, to slowly fade into oblivion… nor did they want their bloodlines and memories to be forgotten.
But the current captain-general, Harry Strickland, saw things differently. Much like his predecessor, Myles Toyne, he did not particularly care to embrace his Westerosi ancestry.
In fact, Illyrio of Pentos had approached him long ago with promises. Promises to lead the Golden Company back to Westeros.
In exchange, Illyrio offered them a "true king"—a young boy by the name of Aegon Targaryen, said to be the son of Rhaegar Targaryen, the one who had escaped death when Varys supposedly swapped him at birth.
Deep down, Harry Strickland actually favored the Magister of Pentos and the little king he had created, Aegon. In his eyes, these people had far more potential for success. And more importantly, his own status would be far more significant if he stood with them.
If they took the initiative to approach Daenerys, setting aside the fact that Daenerys herself surely knew about their past dealings, who could say what impression she would have of them?
Besides, Daenerys was no longer the same as she had been. She now had the Unsullied standing guard by her side, four dragons circling the skies above, and the steadfast backing of Dorne. It could be said that she had already gathered enough power to shape her own destiny and didn't necessarily need them.
Illyrio's side, however… was different. The so-called Pentoshi City Guard, though nominally under Illyrio's command, belonged to Pentos itself. In reality, Illyrio's actual control over that army was rather limited.
But if Harry and his ten thousand men sailed over, they would become the core foundation of Aegon Targaryen's rise to power. And if fortune smiled upon them, if they truly won in the end, perhaps Harry Strickland could even secure himself a lofty position as Hand of the King, or maybe the Lord commander of the royal armies.
Illyrio had promised him that he would do everything in his power to arrange a marriage between Aegon Targaryen and Daenerys. But there was one matter they needed to be cautious of — a man who claimed to be from House Belaerys. According to Illyrio, one of Daenerys' four dragons might actually belong to this man.
Harry Strickland could not have cared less about that. That was Illyrio's problem to deal with, not his.
All Harry needed to concern himself with was the outcome.
And after carefully weighing all the possibilities, he had come to the conclusion that standing with Aegon Targaryen offered him the brightest future.
Of course, he understood full well that this was a dangerous gamble. But Harry Strickland had always been a gambler at heart. He trusted his luck. He trusted that he could stake everything on this wager and buy himself a glorious future.
In his mind, he was, after all, the captain-general of a formidable mercenary company ten thousand strong. No matter how he looked at it, he was selling himself. So why not sell himself for a good price?
That was why, when Oberyn Martell reached out to him, Harry did not refuse. He only made a subtle mention of Illyrio's involvement.
It was, after all, a seller's market. Let the two buyers fight it out. Whoever won, he would follow. Either way, they would pay, they would bring him back to Westeros, and who knew, maybe he would even be granted a vast stretch of land, enough to live the comfortable, decadent life of a noble lord from then on.
And Oberyn Martell, as the representative of both Clay and Daenerys' growing influence in Essos, naturally knew who Illyrio was. But the Prince of Dorne didn't fear the Magister of Pentos in the slightest.
He had endured all these years, smothering the burning fire of revenge in his heart, watching the Lannisters strut about in King's Landing as if they owned the world. His hatred had only grown with each passing day. Now, at last, he saw a glimmer of hope. And anyone standing in his way was the enemy!
So, without hesitation, he sent an envoy straight to Pentos, carrying the Prince of Dorne's message:
"Tell Illyrio of Pentos this — he's touched something that I have set my eyes on. If he wants it, let him come to Astapor. But if he dares to act, it will be considered an act of war, against both House Targaryen and House Martell."
"As for your so-called Aegon Targaryen, whether or not he truly carries Rhaegar's blood is still up for debate. Think carefully. His claim still requires recognition from the true dragons. If you have the guts, let him mount a dragon and fly over my head. Then we'll talk."
As for young Aegon, Clay and Daenerys had discussed this matter long ago. For anyone who cared to look, the boy's existence could not be hidden for long.
Daenerys naturally harbored a deep wariness toward Aegon. She understood better than anyone the weight her blood carried when it came to claiming the Seven Kingdoms. There was no way she would simply acknowledge this suddenly-appeared nephew of hers without proof.
Clay, of course, knew the boy's true identity. But he could not reveal it openly. What he did know, beyond all doubt, was that there was no dragon's blood running through Aegon's veins. The simplest way to settle the matter was to bring the boy before a dragon and see whether the beast recognized him or not.
But if it came to that, and the test failed, the facade would completely fall apart, and their factions would be at each other's throats. Clay wasn't afraid of standing against that boy, but it simply wasn't the right moment for that. Food should be eaten one bite at a time, and enemies… enemies had to be dealt with one by one, steadily and methodically.
That was why, after carefully discussing the matter with Daenerys, they had decided to play for time. Push back just enough to remind the other side where they stood, but not so much as to provoke them completely.
After all, Illyrio Mopatis had been scheming for so many years. No one could say how many traps and hidden arrangements he had laid, both out in the open and hidden in the shadows.
Clay would have preferred Illyrio to lay all his cards on the table, let young Aegon lead his army back to Westeros, and then, when the time was right, Clay could crush them all in one sweep and resolve every lingering problem in one go.
Far away in Pentos, when Illyrio received Oberyn's threat, he hesitated for a long time but didn't dare retaliate in any way.
Varys, after all, was now trapped in King's Landing, unable to spare a thought for anything else. The city was engulfed in flames and chaos, and the Spider was hiding within the tunnels beneath the Red Keep, ready to flee at a moment's notice.
Illyrio understood perfectly well the truth of young Aegon's identity. In this matter, gaining Daenerys' support was absolutely essential. Even if he planned to find some way to remove her later, perhaps through an accident or a convenient death, for now, he had no choice but to coax her, to appease her.
The reason was simple — the dragons.
As long as the dragons existed, Daenerys' Targaryen bloodline was as unshakable as steel.
There were plenty of silver-haired, purple-eyed Valyrian-looking people scattered across Essos. Young Aegon's appearance alone meant nothing.
What's more, Illyrio still had no clear understanding of what that Dragonlord beside Daenerys, the one he had met once before, was truly up to. His stance on this matter was critical.
Back then, that Dragonlord had told him bluntly that he had no interest in Westerosi affairs. But whether that was still the case now… Illyrio wasn't so sure anymore.
The Dragonlord could be killed, of course… but first, you had to know where he was.
Illyrio and Varys had unleashed every spy at their disposal, yet not a single trace of the Dragonlord could be found in Sunspear. It was as though the man had never existed at all.
And yet, soaring above Sunspear, that enormous blue-and-gold dragon, clearly far larger than the other three, was undeniable proof of the Dragonlord's presence.
The Dragonlord was lurking in the shadows. They were lurking in the shadows. It simply wasn't time for either side to step into the light.
At a moment like this, Illyrio could only proceed with extreme caution, testing the waters little by little, not daring to make any rash moves.
Faced with Oberyn's threat, Illyrio hesitated for a long time, but in the end, all he could do was stall. He didn't even dare utter a single harsh word in response.
He wasn't ready to give up — not yet. After all, this was the foundation for young Aegon's claim to power. Without an army, how could they ever hope to reclaim the throne?
"Send word to the Prince of Dorne," Illyrio finally said with a sigh to Oberyn's envoy within the grand halls of the Pentos Magister's residence. "Tell him I will personally travel to Astapor to discuss this matter with him. He need not be in such a rush."
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[Chapter End's]
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