GOT/ASOIAF: Ruler Beyond The Ice

Chapter 646 - 648: A Life-and-Death Struggle (Part 2)

Just as Aegor was hiding in the shadows, quietly weaving a great net and enjoying the thrill of playing against opponents above his level by relying on the advantages of time and place, the plan suddenly went off course and crashed.

It was quite a major matter, and to sum it up: the opponent who had been taking a beating the whole time suddenly threw down the controller, smashed the console, and refused to keep playing the game of thrones with him.

The fishing-style sting operation within the Night's Watch Industrial Research Institute had already begun in an orderly fashion. According to the original plan, Aegor would "urgently" meet Daenerys after noon to report the progress of the investigation, telling her that Magister Illyrio was suspected of directing and participating in the theft of gunpowder and artillery secrets. After informing her and obtaining permission, they would send men in the evening to form a joint investigation team with the Unsullied and search the Pentoshi delegation's residence. At that time, amid the chaos, a blueprint would be planted, and the chain of evidence would be complete, leaving no room for denial, enough that even if Illyrio jumped into the Blackwater, he still would not be able to wash his name clean.

However, a hastily decided plan could never be truly thorough. Harvey, who had been ordered to monitor Illyrio, suddenly discovered that the surveillance target had left the inn without any warning and was heading straight for the River Gate without even packing his belongings, looking very much as if he were trying to flee.

Afraid to make the decision on his own, he sent someone back to report to Aegor while personally leading a team to stay close to the target. Aegor's instructions had not yet arrived, but the target was already about to pass through the gate and leave King's Landing. In that urgent situation, he had no time to think much further and rushed to find the captain of the River Gate garrison. Using the token Aegor had given him beforehand, he falsely conveyed a military order, demanding that the gate guards stop the Pentoshi delegation and search them in the name of the Hand.

The River Gate garrison was, of course, loyal to Daenerys, not to Aegor, and it was impossible for them to help frame a foreign envoy. Harvey also could not forcibly stuff a blueprint into Illyrio's carriage in public under the gaze of countless witnesses. It could be said that this improvised pursuit and interception was very likely to end only in alerting the enemy, and the greatest result would merely be a harsh warning to Illyrio, leaving his departure a humiliating one.

Aegor had not guarded against Illyrio's escape. Besides a slight oversight caused by the hasty preparations, there was another reason: the framing plan was an open scheme, but it was not meant to kill Illyrio. On the contrary, if he suddenly left without saying goodbye at such a suspiciously coincidental moment, and then the gunpowder formula was leaked to the public, it would instead cement the blame of being the mastermind on his head, making it impossible for Daenerys to retain any trust or goodwill toward him. At that point, even if Illyrio did not die, he would not be able to pose any threatening interference to Aegor's King's Landing plan in the short term.

Whether Illyrio fled or not had little effect on the plan, which was why Aegor had overlooked the possibility. Who could have expected that the tiger would leave the mountain and strike at the man beating the grass? That cunning fat man had found a crack where none should have existed and forced it open, turning everything into mutual destruction.

...

When Aegor, drenched in cold sweat, rushed to Daenerys's temporary residence, Grey Worm, Commander of the Unsullied, the newly appointed Master of Coin Tyrion Lannister, and several other important officials had already arrived ahead of him because they were closer. Several people involved were being personally questioned by Daenerys. In the not-so-spacious hall, everyone was listening carefully to the most direct firsthand account, and no one even noticed the arrival of the most powerful man in the Seven Kingdoms at that moment.

"...At that time, the Hand's messenger rushed to me with a token. Without even dismounting, he directly ordered me to close the city gate and stop Magister Illyrio and his party from leaving. After verifying his identity and the authenticity of the token, I ordered the gate guards to disperse the residents passing through the gate while I led men to surround Lord Illyrio's carriage." Besides Daenerys, the speaker was the only person in the room who also had a seat, not because of any special status or rank, but because the gauze on his shoulder was still seeping blood. "That carriage was lavishly and conspicuously decorated, highly recognizable, and anyone could tell at a glance that it belonged to a noble. I loudly ordered the convoy, as well as the accompanying servants and guards, to stop and put down everything in their hands, and ordered the people inside the carriage to step out and submit to inspection."

Perhaps because of excessive blood loss, he took a long breath before continuing.

"The coachman and the guards obediently followed instructions. Only the person inside the carriage refused to show himself. I shouted once, then again, and by the third time I declared that if the other party still refused to come out, I would have men force their way in. Then the carriage door opened. Illyrio appeared, holding a very beautiful and exquisite short bow. The shape of that bow was unusual, and it reflected a dazzling golden light. At the time, I was still wondering whether it was gilded or forged from pure gold. He... he raised his bow, nocked an arrow, and shot at me."

The expression on the River Gate captain's face was still somewhat dazed. He truly had been stunned when it happened. He was stunned both that a diplomatic figure like the Magister of Pentos would choose to attack when his life was not yet in danger, and that a fat and bloated man like Illyrio could wield a weapon with such skill and ferocity, and that the arrow he fired in an instant was so powerful, heavy, and terrifyingly accurate.

If years of battle experience had not made him instinctively shift half a step to the side, that shot would certainly have struck the center of the gap between his chest and neck, hitting the weak point in his armor and piercing his windpipe and esophagus.

Had that happened, he would not be sitting here now describing the scene to Daenerys.

"Are you certain that you merely surrounded him with guards and ordered him to leave the carriage for inspection, and made no threatening or offensive remarks or actions that might have made him feel violated or insulted?"

Daenerys fixed her gaze on the injured garrison captain, not because she did not trust the confidant who had followed her all the way from Astapor back to Westeros, but because the story he had told was simply too bizarre. The war was not yet over, and King's Landing was in fact still under high alert. Every city gate was staffed with at least a hundred gate guards on duty, and there were an equal number of Unsullied standing by. Not to mention the port garrison outside the River Gate and the fleet controlling the sea.

With the size and military strength of Illyrio's delegation, it was impossible for them to force their way out of King's Landing. If he had not been driven or threatened by some outside factor, why would that shrewd and wealthy Magister commit such a suicidal act?

It made no sense.

It was not that she suspected her followers of betraying her, but years of leadership and rule had taught Daenerys that even loyal men could cause trouble. It was entirely possible in theory for decorated officers from the free companies to grow arrogant, stir up some incident, and then push responsibility onto the dead to clear themselves. She had to guard against that.

"What I said is true, every word of it. Before the incident, there was no verbal or physical conflict between the two sides. On this point, the guards present, the Night's Watch brothers, even the passersby and the surviving members of the Pentoshi delegation can all testify. Please, Your Grace, investigate thoroughly!"

Though his voice was weak, his tone was firm and full of confidence. In any case, at least the latter half of his statement was true. Looking into the speaker's eyes, Daenerys saw no sign of guilt. She decided inwardly to send someone reliable to investigate, but outwardly she could not continue pressing him. She could only provisionally believe him and end the subject. Then she glanced at Aegor, who had just entered the room and taken his place beside Tyrion, and turned her questions to another group involved. "I do not know your name. Tell me what happened."

"Reporting to Your Grace, I am Harvey, formerly an officer of the Night's Watch Industrial Security Team, and now captain of the Lord Commander's guard." Harvey bowed and introduced himself before answering. "I was ordered by Lord Hand to participate in the investigation into the theft of confidential blueprints from the Night's Watch Industrial Research Institute. The clues pointed to the wealthy Magister of Pentos. Today, while I was keeping him under close watch, I discovered that Illyrio and his party had suddenly set out to leave. After urgently reporting to Lord Aegor, I was ordered to stop the suspect group from escaping, which led to the matter of rushing to the River Gate to relay the order to intercept them."

He was still shaken and uneasy, but now that his backbone had arrived, he was immediately full of confidence. "The captain's account is roughly what happened. I have nothing to add. Our original intention was only to stop Magister Illyrio and his party. If the search found nothing, we would naturally have reported the situation to Your Grace and the Hand, and left the decision to the two of you. Who could have imagined... Illyrio suddenly attacked without any warning, forcibly turning a search that could have been resolved peacefully into a bloody conflict."

Hmph, he was throwing the responsibility away cleanly. Daenerys frowned and asked sharply, "The Magister of Pentos is an envoy from across the Narrow Sea. Even if his words and actions were improper, it should have been for me to decide how to deal with him. Why did you not report it first, and instead act directly?"

While rushing over, Aegor had already learned the outcome from the messenger: when Illyrio was intercepted, he had tried to force his way through the gate and engaged the River Gate guards in public, and had been killed on the spot. Now, standing there and listening to the captain's brief account while fitting the events together, the truth suddenly became clear.

As the wealthy Magister of Pentos and Daenerys's "benefactor," even if Illyrio had been confirmed guilty of stealing the gunpowder secrets, there was still a chance he might have returned home alive after an indefinite imprisonment. That would have depended entirely on Daenerys's mood and on future changes in the international situation. Even if he had decided to commit suicide, there would certainly have been less painful and faster ways to do it, such as poison or hanging. Yet in the end, he chose the unreasonable act of openly resisting. Why?

Because this hidden mastermind from the original timeline of A Song of Ice and Fire, when faced with interference and obstruction from an outsider like a transmigrator who should never have existed, had exhausted all his cards and all his methods and still failed to turn the tide. Furious and desperate, he made up his mind and, at the cost of his own life, did Aegon one final great favor.

Because by doing so, Daenerys's regime had publicly attacked a foreign diplomatic envoy with force, creating a shocking and horrifying diplomatic incident that would shake the world. With the help of the countless witnesses who passed through the River Gate into and out of King's Landing, and traveled between the Seven Kingdoms and Essos, this matter would soon spread across the world. The hostile slaving masters would not care about details such as "who attacked first." They would only fan the flames and make the incident as sensational as possible, using their advantage in controlling public opinion to plunge the newly established Targaryen dynasty into a diplomatic environment so dreadful it was hard to describe.

From the private perspective of being the real culprit behind the "Winterfell Poisoning Case," Illyrio's death was undoubtedly a great victory. Aegor had successfully used Daenerys's own armed forces to eliminate both a major threat and a predetermined scapegoat. Not only was he completely free of suspicion of involvement or incitement, which was true, but from this point on he could confidently pin the blame on Illyrio without any fear of him proving his innocence, and no longer had to worry about a seasoned and cunning schemer hiding in some corner and secretly working against him.

It was as easy as Varys's deputy killing himself in the Winterfell dungeon and taking the blame for the poisoning.

But in the end, he was not merely a murderer.

From the public perspective of being the Hand, that fat man had used his life as the price to interrupt both Daenerys's and his own plans, which were already half-complete and on the verge of successfully dismantling the various diplomatic efforts of the city-state coalition. In one tragic act of mutual destruction, he had not only viciously slapped Daenerys across the face, but had also left Aegor with a mountain of trouble.

If before, this anti-Dragon Queen alliance known as the "city-state coalition" had existed mostly only in thoughts and letters, then after this bloody diplomatic incident, it might truly be dug out of the rubbish heap and seriously pushed forward by the overly nervous rulers of the city-states, and ultimately be formed successfully.

The situation was so complicated that for a moment Aegor did not know whether he ought to feel pleased or alarmed.

But there was at least one thing he was certain of: without first coordinating their stories, Harvey would never be able to answer Daenerys's stern questioning flawlessly without making a mistake. Even if it meant being disrespectful and presumptuous, he had to bite the bullet and step forward to clean up this mess.

He frowned deeply, coughed, and stepped out from the crowd.

(To be continued.)

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