The offices of the Master of Coin were located in a squat, grey tower of the Red Keep, and they were an unmitigated disaster. Lord Bronn had ruled the Crown's finances with the same chaotic energy he ruled a tavern brawl. Ledgers were stacked in precarious piles, contracts were shoved into unlabeled cabinets, and a fine layer of dust and spilled wine covered nearly every surface. It was the physical manifestation of a kingdom living hand-to-mouth.
Aaryan surveyed the chaos not with dismay, but with a surgeon's dispassionate eye. Chaos was simply a system he hadn't organized yet. He brought with him three of his recruits from Lannisport—men who had been failed scribes or bankrupt merchants, now remade as his agents. They were quiet, diligent, and utterly loyal.
"Clear it all," Aaryan commanded. "I want every book, every scroll, every scrap of parchment sorted, catalogued, and cross-referenced. I want to know every grain of wheat the Crown is owed, and every copper star we owe in return."
While his men began to tame the paper sea, Aaryan did not remain in the tower. A true understanding of the city was not to be found in dusty books, but on its streets. His first target was the Guild of Fishmongers. He arrived at their hall by the river gate, unannounced, with only Kaelen at his side.
The guildmaster, a blustering whale of a man named Orbert, greeted him with a greasy smile. "Lord Coinmaster! An honor! We were just preparing our annual gift for the Crown…"
"Spare me the rotten fish, Master Orbert," Aaryan said, his voice cutting through the man's obsequious tone. He produced a scroll from his sleeve—a copy of the guild's century-old charter. "This charter grants your guild a monopoly on all fish brought to the city's markets in exchange for a tax of one silver stag for every ten fishermen in your employ."
"A tradition we have proudly upheld for generations!" Orbert beamed.
"Indeed," Aaryan said, his smile thin. "My scribes count three hundred and twelve fishermen registered with your guild today. Your last tax payment, however, was for seventy. An oversight, I am sure."
Orbert's smile faltered. "Bookkeeping errors… the war was a confusing time…"
"The war is over," Aaryan stated. "And so are the errors. The new charter will be based on a ten percent tithe of your gross profits. Not your stated profits. Your actual profits. My men will be auditing your books this afternoon." He turned to leave, then paused. "Oh, and the Crown will also require back payment for the last five years of… oversights. With interest."
He left the guildmaster sputtering in his wake, his face the color of a boiled lobster. As he stepped back into the street, a familiar, cynical voice called out. "Putting the squeeze on the fish-gutters? I'm surprised you didn't just hang him by his thumbs."
Bronn was leaning against a wall, chewing on a piece of sourleaf. The former Master of Coin looked far more relaxed as the Lord of Highgarden.
"Violence is a tool, Lord Bronn. Not a solution for every problem," Aaryan replied. "Besides, a terrified merchant will hide his gold. A properly motivated one will make more of it for me to tax later."
Bronn chuckled. "You'll do better at this job than me. I never had the patience for it." He spat a stream of brown juice onto the cobblestones. "A piece of advice, Lannister. Watch the Hand. Your cousin Tyrion. He's the cleverest man on that council, which means he's the one most likely to stick a knife in your back while telling you it's for your own good."
"I will keep that in mind," Aaryan said. He saw an opportunity. "Your support on the council would have been valuable."
"I'd rather drink poison," Bronn grunted. "But… my granaries are full, and this city is hungry. You need my grain, and I need the Crown to pay the debts I racked up. You see that my accounts are settled, and I'll see that your city doesn't starve. Deal?"
"A most practical arrangement, my lord," Aaryan agreed. A self-serving alliance was far more reliable than one based on honor.
His next stop was not the docks, but the Red Keep's library. He found Grand Maester Samwell Tarly surrounded by a fortress of books.
"Grand Maester," Aaryan began, his tone one of polite curiosity. "I wish to better understand our King. The Hand mentioned he is… the Three-Eyed Raven. A title from the old legends, is it not?"
Samwell's face lit up. He was a scholar, and this was his favorite subject. "Oh, it's much more than a title, my lord! It is a being of immense power. Greensight, they call it. The ability to see the past, to witness events that happened thousands of years ago as if they were there. Some say they can see the present all over the world, through the eyes of the beasts and the leaves of the weirwood trees."
Aaryan listened, filtering the folklore. "So he sees the past and the present. What about the future?"
Samwell shook his head. "The texts are unclear. The future is a sea of possibilities. Glimpses, perhaps, but nothing certain. It is the past that is written. He is the memory of this world, my lord."
"And are there limits? Does he need a weirwood tree to use this sight?"
"The connection is strongest near a weirwood, yes. But the previous Raven lived for a thousand years in a cave beyond the Wall. The King's power… we simply do not know its full extent."
Aaryan thanked the maester for his time, his mind racing. The King's power was real. It was not infinite, but its rules were a mystery. He was not omniscient, but he was the greatest spymaster who had ever lived, and his archive was time itself. For a man whose plans relied on secrets, this was an intolerable threat.
That night, a raven arrived. It bore no sigil, only a small, coded mark on the parchment. It was from Rennifer, his agent at the Crag. Aaryan unrolled it in the candlelight of his new office. The chaos of ledgers and books around him had been tamed into neat, orderly stacks. His machine was already working.
The note was short. The coded message was simple to decipher. Rennifer had not only confirmed the Westerling smuggling operation, he had identified the cargo and the buyer. The ships carried high-grade steel, poisons from Lys, and, most disturbingly, the components for scorpion bolts—enough to outfit a small army.
But it was the final part of the message that made Aaryan pause, a stillness coming over him. The buyer, the final destination for this secret trade, was not some Free City magister or pirate king.
It was the new, unnamed Prince of Dorne.
Aaryan stared at the parchment, the pieces clicking into place with cold, terrible clarity. The realm was not at peace. While the Small Council worried about bread prices and the bickering of lords, a shadow war was being plotted. Dorne, which had always chafed under foreign rule, was quietly arming itself.
He looked out the window at the sleeping city. His cousin thought the game was about balancing the budget. Davos thought it was about feeding the smallfolk. They were all playing checkers.
Aaryan Lannister had just been reminded that the only game that mattered was the game of thrones. And he now held a piece that could topple a king.