The processional column departed Evenfall Town through the northern gate shortly after the morning meal, and Cersei Lannister's education in the capabilities of Alexander Tarth entered a new and profoundly irritating phase.
The royal party travelled in a wheelhouse, a concession to comfort that Cersei had insisted upon despite Robert's preference for horseback, and the wheelhouse's windows provided an excellent vantage from which to observe the landscape unfolding on either side. What she observed, during the first hour of the journey, was a road that had no business existing.
It was not a road in the sense that Cersei understood roads. The roads of the Seven Kingdoms were, with occasional exceptions, rutted tracks of compacted earth that became rivers of mud in rain, clouds of dust in drought, and obstacles to civilised travel in all conditions. The Kingsroad itself, the primary artery connecting King's Landing to the North, was little more than a wide dirt path for most of its length, passable but never comfortable, and the lesser roads that branched from it were worse. Travel in Westeros was, had always been, and was expected to remain, an exercise in endurance rather than pleasure.
The road across Tarth was neither of those things.
It was paved. Not with cobblestones, which were common enough in city centres, but with a smooth, continuous surface of the volcanic cement that Alexander had apparently invented or rediscovered or stolen from some ancient text, Cersei neither knew nor cared which. The surface was grey-white and faintly lustrous, and it stretched ahead of the column in a ribbon of engineered perfection that curved gracefully through the landscape, following the contours of the terrain rather than fighting them. It was wide enough for the entire processional column, wheelhouse and all, to travel without crowding, and its surface was so smooth that the wheelhouse, which on the Kingsroad would have been a rattling instrument of spinal torture, moved with a gliding comfort that made Cersei feel as though she were floating rather than travelling.
"This road," she said to no one in particular, "is an insult."
Jaime, who was riding alongside the wheelhouse and who had heard her through the open window, raised an eyebrow. "An insult?"
"An insult to every lord in the realm who has ever collected road taxes and spent them on anything other than roads. If a boy on an island can build a road like this, then every rutted track between here and the Wall is evidence of negligence so profound it amounts to contempt for the people who use them."
"That is either the most politically astute observation you have ever made or the most accidentally generous."
"It is neither. It is simple fury at being shown up by a fifteen-year-old with volcanic ash and an excessive amount of ambition."
The road climbed into the highlands and valleys of central Tarth, passing through a landscape that alternated between cultivated terraces heavy with crops and wild mountain terrain that had been left in its natural state, presumably because even Alexander Tarth had limits to his capacity for improvement. The views were spectacular, Cersei conceded privately, though she would sooner have submitted to the Stranger's embrace than said so aloud. The sapphire waters of the surrounding sea were visible from the higher points of the road, and the distant peaks of the island's interior mountains rose above the treeline in formations that were both dramatic and slightly menacing.
But it was when the column reached the first rest house that Cersei's irritation crystalised into something more focused and considerably more concerned.
The rest house was situated beside a lake, a small body of water that was impossibly clear and that reflected the surrounding mountains with the fidelity of a mirror. The building itself was stone and timber, elegant without being ostentatious, with a covered terrace that overlooked the lake and a garden that provided fresh vegetables and herbs for the kitchen. Inside, the rooms were furnished with the same understated luxury that characterised the Sapphire Palace: fine linens, comfortable furniture, clean water, and the particular attention to detail that suggested someone had thought carefully about what travellers actually needed rather than what they merely expected.
There were refreshments waiting. Cold water infused with lemon and mint, the kind of detail that should have been trivial but that, after two hours of travel in the summer heat, felt like the most magnificent luxury in the world. There were also pastries, fruit, cheese, and a selection of the Tarth whiskeys that had become famous throughout the Stormlands, presented on tables that had been set in the shade of ancient oaks whose branches formed a natural canopy over the lakeside terrace.
"How many of these are there?" Cersei asked, addressing the question to Ser Barristan, who had joined the royal party for the journey and who had been unusually quiet since his defeat in the melee.
"Between Evenfall and Morne? Three, Your Grace. Spaced at regular intervals along the road, each one situated near a natural feature of particular beauty. A lake, a waterfall, a mountain overlook." Barristan paused. "It is, I should note, the most comfortable journey I have undertaken in forty years of service to the Crown."
"You sound impressed."
"I am impressed, Your Grace. And I say that as a man who has travelled the roads of every kingdom in the realm and most of the Free Cities. I have never encountered infrastructure of this quality. Not in King's Landing, not in Oldtown, not in Lannisport."
The comparison to Lannisport stung, as Barristan probably had not intended it to but as Cersei could not help feeling. Lannisport was the second largest city of the realm, the jewel of the Westerlands, the seat of her family's commercial power. And a knight of the Kingsguard had just told her, without malice or exaggeration, that the roads on a Stormlands island surpassed anything her family's city could offer.
She took a cup of the lemon water and drank it, because refusing would have been petty and because, despite everything, it was delicious.
As the column resumed its march, Cersei noticed other things that the road revealed about the island and its master. The landscape on either side was not merely scenic. It was productive. Terraced fields climbed the hillsides in orderly rows, their crops green and vigorous, tended by workers who looked well-fed and purposeful rather than beaten and resigned. She saw orchards of a kind she did not recognise, their branches heavy with fruit that she suspected were the tea plants she had heard mentioned in connection with the Dragonstone trade agreement. She saw fields of flowers, vast swathes of colour that painted the mountainsides in lavender and gold and white, the raw materials for the perfume industry that had made Tarth famous across the realm.
And she saw soldiers. Not many, not enough to be threatening, but enough to be noticed. Patrols of two and three men, moving along the route with the disciplined cadence of professionals, their armour polished, their weapons maintained, their bearing suggesting training that went far beyond the casual militia that most lordships could muster. At one of the Wall towers, she caught a glimpse of a formation drilling in the courtyard below, their movements synchronised with the precision of men who had been practising the same manoeuvres for years.
"How many soldiers does this island have?" she asked Jaime, who had been riding in thoughtful silence for the past mile.
"More than it should. The estimates vary, but Tyrion believes the total military force is somewhere between fifteen and twenty thousand, including naval personnel. For an island of this size, that is extraordinary. For an island lordship that is technically a vassal of the Stormlands, it is unprecedented."
"And Robert does not find this concerning?"
"Robert finds it admirable. He was a soldier before he was a king, and he respects military capability wherever he encounters it. The fact that a boy has built an army that could challenge some of the realm's great houses does not alarm Robert. It delights him." Jaime's expression suggested that he found his king's enthusiasm considerably less delightful. "It should concern someone, though. An army of that size, a navy to match, a wall that makes the island nearly impregnable, and a commercial network that generates enough revenue to sustain all of it without borrowing. That is not a lordship, Cersei. That is pure power."
Cersei said nothing, because Jaime had just articulated exactly what she had been thinking, and hearing it spoken aloud made it both more real and more urgent.
* * *
The second rest house featured a waterfall.
It was not a modest waterfall. It was a curtain of white water cascading over a cliff face of dark stone into a pool of such extraordinary clarity that Cersei could see the individual pebbles on the bottom from a distance of thirty feet. The rest house itself was built into the cliff beside the falls, its stone walls angled to provide both shelter from the spray and a view of the cascade through windows that had been glazed with the coloured glass that Tarth's artisans were becoming known for. The effect was of sitting inside a jewel while the world roared past the windows, simultaneously exciting and serene.
Robert loved it. He stripped off his doublet, waded into the pool, and spent twenty minutes swimming and splashing and shouting with the uninhibited joy of a man who had forgotten what it felt like to enjoy something simple. The lords who accompanied them joined in, some enthusiastically and some with the careful reluctance of men who were not certain their dignity could survive the experience, and for a brief, surreal interval, the most powerful men in the realm were behaving like boys at a country swimming hole.
Cersei did not swim. She sat in the rest house and watched through the coloured glass and thought about what this road and these stops and this entire, calculated experience were designed to accomplish.
It was not hospitality, though it wore hospitality's clothes. It was persuasion. Every mile of perfect road, every comfortable rest house, every breathtaking view and refreshing stop was a silent argument that whispered the same message: This is what civilisation looks like when someone competent is building it. This is what your roads could be. This is what your kingdoms could feel like, if you invested in infrastructure instead of armies, in comfort instead of conquest, in the kind of long-term thinking that turns poor islands into wealthy states.
It was seductive. Cersei recognised seduction when she encountered it, having practised it herself in various forms for most of her adult life. And the particular genius of Alexander Tarth's seduction was that it was genuine. He was not building beautiful roads and luxurious rest houses to manipulate his guests. He was building them because he genuinely believed that roads and rest houses were the foundation of a functioning society, and the fact that they also served as instruments of political influence was a consequence rather than a purpose.
Which made them more effective, not less. Because sincerity, in Cersei's experience, was the one form of manipulation that most people could not defend against.
She found herself thinking, unwillingly, about Casterly Rock. About the roads of the Westerlands, which were adequate but unremarkable. About the mines that had made her family the richest in the realm but that had never been used to fund anything as visionary as what she was witnessing here. Her father had gold. Mountains of gold, enough to buy armies and kings and the obedience of anyone whose loyalty had a price. But gold was not vision. Gold was not the ability to look at a ruined island and see a future state. Gold was not the imagination to build roads that glowed in the dark or walls that encircled islands or centres of learning that attracted the finest minds in Westeros away from the Citadel's ancient monopoly.
Her father was the most powerful man in the Seven Kingdoms. But he had never built anything that made people stop and stare. He had never created anything that made other lords feel small by comparison. He had never inspired the kind of spontaneous admiration that Alexander Tarth generated simply by existing in the vicinity of his accomplishments.
It was, Cersei reflected, a form of power that House Lannister did not possess and could not purchase. And that made it more threatening than any army, because you could fight an army, but you could not fight the feeling of inadequacy that came from standing in someone else's masterpiece.
Margaery Tyrell appeared on the terrace as the royal party was preparing to depart, fresh and composed and wearing a gown of pale green that complemented the waterfall's spray-misted surroundings with the kind of aesthetic precision that Cersei associated with women who never did anything by accident. She was accompanied by the Tarly boy, Samwell, who carried a leather satchel that appeared to contain books and who wore the slightly dazed expression of someone who had been dragged away from his research against his will.
"Your Grace," Margaery said, offering a curtsy that was perfectly calibrated to be respectful without being servile. "Is the journey to your liking?"
"The journey is adequate," Cersei said, which was the most generous assessment she was willing to provide in public.
"Lady Brienne has worked so hard on the preparations for the wedding. I know she will be honoured by the royal presence." Margaery smiled, and the smile was, like everything about Margaery Tyrell, simultaneously warm and strategic. "Ser Alexander was just telling me about the lights that line the road ahead. He says they are most spectacular at sunset."
"Ser Alexander appears to have thought of everything."
"He does tend to think of most things. It is one of his more remarkable qualities." The smile deepened. "Among many."
Cersei noted the possessive undertone in Margaery's voice and filed it alongside every other observation she had made during the past two weeks. The Tyrell girl was not merely interested in Alexander Tarth. She was staking a claim, subtly but unmistakably, in a way that any woman who had spent her life navigating the politics of attraction would recognise.
The Tyrells wanted him. The Tyrells, who had the food and the army and the political sophistication, wanted to bind this boy and his island to the Reach through the most reliable mechanism available: marriage to the most beautiful girl they could produce.
Which meant that Cersei's own plans had become not just urgent but competitive. If the Tyrells secured Alexander Tarth before the Lannisters could make their offer, the balance of power in the realm would shift in ways that would be very difficult to reverse.
She needed to act. And she needed to act soon.
* * *