ARC II: THE ERA OF EXPANSION AND THE ANNIHILATION OF THE GREYJOYS
Chapter 8: The Invisible Network
**POV:** Petyr Baelish (286 AC)
Chaos is not a pit. Chaos is a ladder. Many will fail the climb, never to try again, but for those who know where to step, the rewards are immeasurable. Especially in these past turbulent years, this maxim has proven to be the absolute truth. From a mere and insignificant accountant born in the Fingers to Master of Coin of the Seven Kingdoms — well, perhaps "Seven Kingdoms" is an obsolete and nostalgic term that the Small Council insists on using out of pure wounded pride, since the North severed its ties with the Crown and transformed into an entirely independent kingdom under the baton of that Stark boy.
During the exhaustive meetings of the council presided over by Jon Arryn, I watched the other members perform their usual political dance. Robert Baratheon, as custom dictated, preferred hunting or drowning himself in jars of wine over governing, leaving the weight of the realm on the shoulders of his Hand. While Jon Arryn tried to patch up the dilapidated finances and the southern lords feigned that losing half the continent did not affect them, my eyes inevitably turned to the eunuco. I wondered, in silence, if Varys was experiencing the same dreadful and inexplicable problems that had been plaguing my own business.
As soon as I established myself permanently in King's Landing, I moved my pieces with surgical precision. I began to acquire, one by one, the main brothels of the capital, concentrating my largest investments in the luxurious establishments along the Street of Silk. After all, I understood human nature better than anyone: a man, right after reaching the peak of ecstasy in the arms of a skilled woman, tends to become surprisingly loose-tongued. His darkest secrets and most guarded ambitions slip out like spilled wine upon the sheets.
These business ventures, however, exacted an uncomfortable price on my personal life. My friendship with my beautiful Catelyn became deeply unstable and strained. At the end of the day, after all, it was to me that King Robert turned to stoke his vices; it was I who managed the Crown funds to bring in the most exotic and expensive prostitutes with whom her husband slept almost every single night. Seeing the veiled suffering and humiliation in the eyes of the only woman I ever loved cut to my very soul. It took a great deal of smooth-talking, quiet conversations under the moonlight, and a massive dose of psychological manipulation to crawl back into Cat's inner circle. Unfortunately, not nearly as intimate as I desperately desired. I foolishly thought that, in the face of so many public betrayals and bastards sired by Robert, Cat's pride would win out and she would return the infidelity in kind. But the cursed Tully honor was an inescapable prison; she remained stubbornly faithful to her boorish king.
At the end of yet another fruitless session of the Small Council, I bid my farewells with a formal bow and began to walk calmly through the winding corridors of the Red Keep. I did not need to look back to know who was coming to meet me; the heavy, sweet, and sickly scent of lavender announced his presence long before his soft steps touched the stone floor.
— Lord Varys — I greeted, turning half-body and shaping my face into my most characteristic smile, a mask of pure courtesy and irony. — How have you been keeping lately?
The eunuch stopped at a safe distance, tucking his plump hands inside the long sleeves of his Dornish silk robe. He let out that soft, characteristic giggle of his, almost a womanly whisper, which never failed to irritate me.
— I am perfectly well, Lord Baelish. And what about you? Still trying... and spending so much gold and time on that endeavor we all know to be utterly useless?
I felt a prick of irritation at his condescending tone, but I did not allow a single line of my face to alter. I maintained an impeccable posture.
— Obtaining detailed information on a neighboring, immense realm that has consolidated itself as a potential enemy of the Crown does not seem like a useless endeavor to me in the slightest, my dear fellow — I replied, narrowing my eyes slightly. — And you, as Master of Whispers, should know that better than anyone. After all, information is your business. Or have your little birds lost their wings when trying to fly beyond the Neck?
Varys let out another stifled laugh, shaking his head from side to side with a look that mixed mockery with genuine condescension.
— I think you are being rather biased in this matter, Lord Baelish. You are putting your personal grievances and frustrations above political pragmatism. If my eunuch memory does not fail me, you had a brief... well, let us call it a "clash" with the father of the current King of the North, correct? Challenging the late Brandon Stark to a duel of life and death in the courtyard of Riverrun cannot have been your smartest or most brilliant moment, I imagine.
The direct mention of the scar Brandon Stark had carved into my chest — and the public humiliation that had nearly cost me my life at the hands of the wild wolf — caused my mask of coldness to slip for a fraction of a second. My teeth ground together. I felt my blood boil and shot back with far more venom than court etiquette recommended:
— Yes, it truly was not my most intelligent moment, I freely admit it. But then, things have a way of sorting themselves out, don't they? In the end, I did not have to lift a single finger to have my revenge. The Mad King found Brandon in his dungeons and took care of that problem for me in the most permanent way possible. And you know perfectly well how that spectacle went, don't you, Lord Varys? After all, you were standing right there, watching it all from the front row of the throne room while the fire did its work.
Varys's smile vanished instantly. His aristocratic features paled in a way that had nothing to do with my taunt about Aerys Targaryen, but rather with something far deeper. His eyes, usually unreadable, flashed with a genuine aversion, almost an instinctive dread. He cleared his throat, and when he spoke again, his voice had lost its playful edge, turning cold and somber.
— Yes, I was there, Lord Baelish. Those were different times... times of madmen and ordinary fire. But what is happening now in the North... that is different. It is a perversion of the natural order of things.
I stepped a centimeter closer, intrigued by the Master of Whispers' drastic change in demeanor.
— Different in what sense, Varys?
The eunuch visibly shuddered beneath his silks, crossing his arms tightly against his chest as if trying to shield himself from an invisible cold. His childhood memories — the sorcerer's blade in Myr, the blue fire, and the voice that answered from within the flames — clearly exacted their toll whenever the supernatural was invoked.
— That place... the entire North has changed since young Arawyn Stark took control — Varys whispered, his voice laced with a visceral revulsion. — It is not just about politics, roads, or armies of wildlings marching through the ice. My informants on the borders bring me deeply disturbing reports. There are whispers of ancient and forgotten things awakening in the forests. Runas that glow upon the stones, warmth rising from the frozen soil where nothing but snow ought to exist, sorcery rooted in the very earth itself. Things that human reason dictates should remain dead, buried, and forgotten for the good of the world!
Varys took a deep breath, attempting to regain his composure, though his eyes remained fixed on the void.
— I despise magic, Lord Baelish. It is a cancer that erodes the will of men and plunges the world into absolute chaos to satisfy the whims of forces we cannot comprehend. I prefer to deal with the greed of ordinary men, with corrupt lords and drunken kings. Men who seek power through dark miracles and tree gods usually burn the entire world just to rule over the ashes. I have no intelligence and no whispers coming from that realm because my little birds simply die before they can even cross that boy's mystical defenses. The North has become a black hole for reason.
— Well, I think you are just being excessively superstitious, my dear eunuch — I ironed, though a troubling doubt lodged itself behind my ear. — At the end of the day, even magical wolves need gold and wheat to survive.
— May the Seven guide your naivety, Littlefinger — Varys murmured, regaining his neutral expression and resuming his silent walk down the corridor, leaving me alone with my thoughts.
When night fell, I decided I needed to clear my head and personally check on the progress of my most lucrative house of pleasure on the Street of Silk. I stepped through the grand doors of the establishment, expecting to find the usual sounds of laughter, lute music, and the clinking of gold coins. Instead, I was met with a strangely tense atmosphere.
I approached the main counter and called over one of my most trusted managers and assessors of the venue. As soon as she saw me, I noticed her face was completely pale, drained of any color, and her hands shook so violently she could barely hold the hem of her dress.
— What happened here? — I demanded, narrowing my eyes, my voice cutting through the air like a cold blade. — Where are the patrons? Why the face as if you've just seen a ghost?
The woman swallowed hard, her teeth chattering slightly from pure dread. She could not formulate a full sentence; she simply raised a trembling arm and pointed toward the most private corner of my personal office, at the back of the hall.
— A... a box, Lord Petyr — she stammered, her voice nearly fading away. — It was brought late this afternoon. Not by any ordinary man or messenger. A monumental eagle, with eyes that looked terrifyingly human in their coldness, landed on the upper balcony and dropped the package inside before taking off back into the sky. I... I only opened the wooden lid to see what was inside... and by the gods...
I left her speaking to herself and marched with quick strides toward the office, closing the heavy oak door behind me. Resting right upon my desk was a dark, rustic wooden box that exhaled a pungent, metallic odor of clotted blood.
I stepped forward without hesitation and pulled off the wooden lid in one swift motion.
The sight that revealed itself before my eyes drew an involuntary gasp from my throat. Sitting right in the center of the box, perfectly preserved by the residual chill emanating from the wood, was the severed head of the man I had hired at a premium to lead and structure my new secret spy network within White Harbor. His eyes were wide open in an everlasting expression of shock and absolute agony.
Surrounding the head, piled in a grotesque fashion, were several severed left hands — I counted exactly twelve of them — which I immediately deduced belonged to the other informants and subordinate agents I had infiltrated into the Northern lands over the past months. My entire operation in the North had been surgically excised in one fell swoop.
Clutched between the rigid, lifeless fingers of one of the severed hands was a piece of thick, high-quality parchment. I pulled the paper out carefully and unrolled it under the dim light of the candle. The text written there bore a firm, aristocratic, and flawless handwriting:
> *My patience is running thin, Littlefinger. This will be my last friendly warning. The next head I place inside a wooden box will not belong to any third-party spy or informant.
> — King Arawyn Stark, The King of Winter.
>
I stood frozen for a few seconds, absorbing every word of that direct threat. Suddenly, an involuntary reaction took over my body, and I could not help but let out a genuine, booming laugh inside the empty room. The wretched eleven-year-old boy had the audacity not only to crush my entire espionage network in a matter of days but made sure to sign his own name and royal title on the execution letter, as if he were playing a casual game of chess and announcing a checkmate with total disdain.
Behind that laughter, however, a massive wave of frustration and a cold sweat began to pool down my spine. Chaos is a ladder, yes, I still faithfully believed that; but in order to climb the rungs safely without plunging to one's death, it is absolutely vital to possess precise information on where to step and whom to scheme against. Without eyes and ears in the North, I was completely blind, groping around in the dark and forced to rely solely and exclusively on the limits of my own imagination.
I wiped the corner of my mouth and looked once more at the mortal remains of my men inside the wooden box. For the first time in many years, a real glimmer of doubt echoed in my mind. I could only hope, fervently, that I was not catastrophically underestimating the true, dark, and terrifying power that was rising in the lands of winter.