This chapter opens with Ned just arriving at the Red Keep in King’s Landing. Before he is even off his horse he is told that Grand Maester Pycelle has called a meeting of the Small Council and they are requesting Ned’s presence. He orders his steward Vayon Poole to see his family get settled in while he goes and attends to this unknown urgent business of the council.
Upon his entering the council chamber Ned sees most all of the members of the council present. They are as follows.
The Master of Coin Petyr “Littlefinger” Baelish
Grand Maester Pycelle
The Master of Ships Stannis Baratheon (Robert’s younger brother)
The Master of Laws Renly Baratheon (Robert’s youngest brother)
The Master of Whisperers Varys “The Spider”
Lord Commander of the Kingsguard Barristan Selmy
While we know Barristan is riding with the King through the city we learn that the King’s brother Stannis had left King’s Landing after Robert left to head north to Winterfell to his castle on Dragonstone.
We also learn that Robert doesn't really tend to the running of the realm and leaves the day to day matters in the hands of the council as those things bore him. He does on occasion give the council an order and they see the matter taken care of. On this day he has instructed the council to set up a grand tournament to celebrate Ned’s appointment to the office of Hand of the King.
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| I mean how could you NOT trust these guys??? |
Littlefinger estimates the cost of the tournament will be 100,000 gold and when Pycelle asks if the treasury can afford it Littlefinger reminds Pycelle that he knows damn well the treasury is empty and that he will have to borrow the money for the tournament.
It is here where we learn the Crown is in debt to the tune of 6,000,000 gold. Half of which is owned to Tywin Lannister the Queen's father.
Littlefinger further relates that the crown not only owes the Lannisters but also Lord Tyrell of Highgarden, the Iron Bank of Braavos, some Tyroshi trade cartels, and even the Faith of the Seven are owed money.
Ned is shocked at this news, especially since the Targaryen’s left the treasury in good standing, and the former Hand of the King would most likely have helped Robert with the finances.
Ned: “Aerys Targaryen left a treasury flowing with gold. How could you let this happen?”
Ned: “I will not believe that Jon Arryn allowed Robert to beggar the realm,”
Ned resolves to discuss the matter with Robert, but the council is going to go ahead with the King’s orders. They break as Ned says he is feeling weary from the road and needs to rest and freshen up.
As Ned is leaving going towards the Tower of the Hand Littlefinger gets to him and tells him he is going the wrong way. Baelish leads him through the castle and eventually to a door that opens up outside among the cliffs. Littlefinger tells him that his wife is waiting for him and Ned follows, but he is growing suspicious.
After a quick climb down the cliff they ride horses and come to a brothel where Littlefinger tells Ned his wife is inside. This is the last straw for Ned, he slams Littlefinger against the wall and pulls his dagger on him.
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| Does the Hand of the King need to choke a bitch?? |
Fortunately for Littlefinger Ser Rodrik Cassel calls out and Ned recognizes him without his beard. Cassel explains that Littlefinger is being truthful with Ned. Shortly after Ned and Catelyn are reunited and she explains the events that lead her to come to King’s Landing.
Cat tells Ned that Littlefinger has offered to assist them in uncovering what is going on at King’s Landing. When concerns about what Varys may or may not know arise, Littlefinger assures them that he can take care of the Spider but Ned should focus on the Lannisters.
While Ned doesn’t like nor trust Littlefinger he realizes he may need to work with him in order to accomplish his goal of seeing justice done.
Littlefinger leaves the two and reminds Ned that they don’t have long before they need to get back to the Red Keep as if they take too long they will be missed.
Realizing the situation is far worse than he initially thought and that Robert may not be the same man he once knew, and that any accusations that get made would constitute treason and plunge the realm into war, Ned instructs his wife to return home and have Helman Tallhart and Galbart Glover send a total of 200 archers to Moat Cailin. He also wants Lord Manderly of White Harbor to get prepared for war as well. In addition he wants a close eye kept on his ward Theon Greyjoy, as he could use him as leverage to get the Ironborn to fight for his side. If it comes to going to war over the death of Jon Arryn, Ned wants the North to be ready.
While Ned hopes it doesn’t come to war he reminds his wife that should he be successful in uncovering who killed Jon Arryn then he will need to take his findings to the King and hope that Robert is still the man he once knew and not too far gone into the man he is now.
And here the chapter ends.
So a lot of information in this chapter, let’s start with the King’s Small Council, and some of the basics, then we can get into some of the manipulations that are subtly going on here.
First is Grand Maester Pycelle who called the meeting.
Pycelle has been Grand Maester for about 40 years when Ned arrived in King’s Landing. It was Pycelle who convinced the Mad King to open the gates to Tywin Lannister claiming that the Lannisters were there to help. This is contrary to what Varys advised. As it turns out Varys was right and the Lannister men sacked the city, Jaime Lannister killed the mad king and the Mountain that Rides killed the wife and children of Rhaegar Targaryen.
So was it just bad advice from Pycelle or did he know what Tywin planned on doing once the gates were open? At this point it’s difficult to say, and Ned certainly has no way of knowing for sure.
Maesters take oaths and essentially are in service to the realm and it’s lords. They are sort of a mix of scholars, scientists, postmasters and healers. Given that Jon Arryn fell ill and died on his watch, Grand Maester Pycelle should have some valuable information for Ned as to the cause of death, which as we shall see Ned will discuss with him in a later chapter. .
But he does have an interesting exchange with Littlefinger..
Grand Maester Pycelle looked to Littlefinger and asked, “Will the treasury bear the expense?” “What treasury is that?” Littlefinger replied with a twist of his mouth. “Spare me the foolishness, Maester. You know as well as I that the treasury has been empty for years. I shall have to borrow the money. No doubt the Lannisters will be accommodating. We owe Lord Tywin some three million dragons at present, what matter another hundred thousand?”
Now lets assume Grand Maester Pycelle isn’t suffering from alzheimer's or dementia, why would he bring up the financial woes of the kingdom?
Maybe he is trying to make the new Hand of the King aware of the situation right away. After all he did call the meeting and opted to pose the question he already knew the answer to. Alternately he could be trying to simply make Littlefinger look bad literally on Ned’s first day. Perhaps he wants to make Ned fully aware of how little Robert actually cares about the running of his kingdom in a roundabout way.
But most likely he is trying to gage the new Hand of the King’s reaction to this news. This makes sense as he easily could have known the Royal party was approaching the city and wanted to see how Ned acted under pressure or when exhausted from travel. Not only did Renly ride ahead as revealed by his presence at the meeting, but Varys certainly also knew when they would be arriving.
In fact the first thing Varys did when Ned walked in was to offer condolences on the unfortunate happenings between Arya, Joffrey and the end result with Lady and how this has had an effect on the traveling party since.
So in my book I think Pycelle is testing the waters and getting an idea on how Ned will react when under pressure, even if it’s from a long travel and little time to prepare for something important. This gives him an idea of how quickly Ned thinks on his feet as well as a notion of his temperament.
Now lets for a moment turn our attention away from Pycelle and to the reply that Littlefinger gives when Ned stated his disbelief in how ruinous the kingdom's finances are.
Ned was aghast. “Aerys Targaryen left a treasury flowing with gold. How could you let this happen?” Littlefinger gave a shrug. “The master of coin finds the money. The king and the Hand spend it.”
Ok now this sort of thing isn’t unprecedented. How many celebrities and athletes have made fortunes only to see them all vanish on them due to living extravagant lives they couldn’t afford, or they owed unpaid taxes to the IRS and ended up going bankrupt?
After all they think they got a decent guy taking care of it for them so they feel that the financial issues are in fully capable hands, and if any really serious issues come up they will take care of them later.
But here is the kicker.. Littlefinger is supposed to be a sort of financial genius. Littlefinger ran the customs for Jon Arryn at Gulltown and increased the incomes tenfold. He’s like the Westeros version of Warren Buffett. So where did all this gold go?
It’s suggested that Robert has spent it. Even his brother Renly supports this idea.
“My royal brother loves tournaments and feasts,” Renly Baratheon said, “and he loathes what he calls ‘counting coppers.’ ”
OK for a moment let's entertain this notion. The Tournament of the Hand is described as a “Great Tournament” so lets assume with such great prizes on the line word will travel throughout the kingdom and knights will come from all over to compete in it. We can even use Littlefinger’s estimation of 100,000 for the costs. Well 6 million gold will get you 60 tournaments. But those are grand tournaments.
Robert has been ruling Westeros for roughly 15 years. That averages out to roughly 400,000 gold borrowed per year. This also isn’t counting the “overflowing” treasury that was seized from the Targaryens. Now we have no way of knowing exactly how much money was in the treasury when Robert came to power. But lets just for arguments sake say it lasted him three years. That means in the last 12 years he has borrowed on average 500,000 per year, and it only gets worse if the Targaryen wealth lasted longer than three years.
So that comes out to roughly 4-5 great tournaments per year? Maybe a few more or less depending on circumstances. But the notion that all of these were “Great Tournaments” seems off as Ned seems to be completely unawares of the extravagant lifestyle that Robert has been living.
In truth were they all great tournaments you would think that competitors from all of the Seven Kingdoms would have received notice and arrived. Further one would assume that Robert would send word to his best friend Ned and invite him to attend at least some of the tournaments.
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| I bet they looked like this! |
But Ned seems totally oblivious to the fact that these tourneys have even occurred. Let's assume while Robert has had feasts and tourneys they haven’t all been Great Tourneys as Ned has never gotten an invite at Winterfell. So lets assume he’s had one every six months at half the cost. So 100,000 per year for tourney expenses. That still is only 1.2 million out of the 6+ million they are in debt. So where the hell did the rest of the money go?
Is this what Pycelle was trying to clue Ned into when he asked Littlefinger about the treasury bearing the expenses?
Littlefingers reply is pretty craptacular when you really think about it. To put this into modern terms it’s like having a 401k retirement plan for a bunch of years, the checking on it one day and the plan manager just says “Shit happens” when you find out the plan you have been paying into doesn't have any money in it.
Perhaps Littlefinger has been skimming off the top and cooking the books and the only one to catch on has been Grand Maester Pycelle. This makes a lot of sense as the other members of the council may not be as good with numbers as Pycelle. There will be more on this issue with Littlefinger as we progress, but for now keep it in mind.
To be fair to Littlefinger, if the crown had to go into debt he could pick worse people than Tywin Lannister to owe. Tywin at one point tried to arrange a marriage between Cersei and Rhaegar, which didn't happen, but did manage to wed her to the man who became king anyway. So in a lot of aspects Tywin may even forgive the debt as he most likely sees his family coming into power through his daughter and grandchildren.
But until such time it seems to make sense that the level of debt is a way of keeping Robert from taking direct action against him. Also it serves to keep his daughter, son in law and later on his grandchildren in line as it’s generally not a good idea to piss off the people you owe money to.
OK enough on Littlefinger and Pycelle, let’s take a look at the King’s youngest brother. Renly is described in this chapter as wearing really nice and expensive clothing, and generally seems to be quite likeable and charismatic. Renly also has a good sense of humor, aside from laughing at Joffrey when on the King’s Road he learned Arya disarmed him, when Littlefinger says that he spends more money than the ladies in the court on clothing Renly replies with:
“There are worse crimes,” Renly said with a laugh. “The way you dress, for one.”
So we get a sense that Renly is not only a bit of a joker, but in many ways like his older brother Robert. Ned even notes that sometimes he looks the very image of his brother. But lets get a bit more info on Renly as he, like all the members of the council are big players in the game.
One passage that stuck out in my mind was Renly’s reply when Littlefinger mentioned they would need fools for the feast that would accompany the tournament.
Renley: “Fools we have in plenty.”
Clearly he doesn’t think too highly of some of the people in King’s Landing. Weather he is directly referring to anyone on the council or people at court isn’t exactly clear, but it does echo the words his older brother Robert said to Ned beneath in the Crypts of Winterfell
Robert: “I am surrounded by flatterers and fools.”
In addition the Renly's explanation that Robert doesn't like tending to matters of finance and state also echo Robert’s words to Ned in the Crypts.
Robert: “I swear to you, sitting a throne is a thousand times harder than winning one. Laws are a tedious business and counting coppers is worse.”
So there is a sense of like mindedness or at least a good level of understanding between the two brothers. Renly’s spending money on lavish clothing also mirrors Robert’s expensive lifestyle. This is all in stark contrast to Stannis who is described as humorless, serious and not really extravagant at all. Another thing is that both Robert and Renly are quite likeable again a trait that Stannis doesn’t seem to possess. This similarity between Renly and Robert may also explain quite a bit about the current situation and relationship between the brothers.
Lets take a look this for a moment.
Renly grew up at the family home of Storm's End, and was only six years old during Robert’s Rebellion. Being only a boy he didn't partake in any of the fighting, but spent the war under siege with his older brother Stannis. Currently Renly is the Lord of Storm’s End which was upsetting to Stannis as he felt as the older brother it should have been his by rights.
Now we can see a reoccuring theme going on here of Stannis, in spite of his capability being passed over for things he rightfully is deserving of.
So Stannis is the younger brother of King Robert, and also the master of his navy. Back in my review of Chapter 12 we noted that Robert picked Jaime Lannister to be the Warden of the East instead of Stannis. Perhaps the debt the crown's debts to Tywin factored into this. But the fact is that the holding of Storm’s End and his victories at sea during the Greyjoy Uprising surely made him worthy of the honor.
Yet Robert again seems to have opted to not pick his more than capable brother in favor of someone else.
From Ned’s recommendation it’s pretty clear that he thinks Stannis is a decent and worthy man who is loyal to his brother. Stannis certainly has proven it on a couple of occasions. But beyond stating he has simply left none of the council members give any reason for his departure nor go into any details on it. You would think Stannis and Robert's youngest brother Renly would have at least given a reason as to why. Ned also doesn't think to ask why either..
Perhaps he knows something that caused him to fear for his life. Perhaps he was angry that Robert passed him over for the position of Hand of the King. It’s hard to say exactly. More than likely it is a combination of things. We will get into a bit more into the motivations of Stannis as time goes on, but for now lets just consider Stannis to be sitting on the sidelines and not actively having an effect on the events in and around King’s Landing.
But clearly Robert has been playing favorites with his brothers and Stannis is clearly not the favorite, even though he may be the most capable.
But enough of the council for now, lets get away from them and take a look at the events after the meeting between Littlefinger, Ned and Cat.
Littlefinger really seems to be sowing the seeds of discontent towards the Lannisters with Ned. He points out that Tyrion never would have acted alone, and that the King most likely turned a blind eye to things that seemed to be unpleasant. This brings to Ned’s mind the recent reactions of Robert on the King's Road regarding Sansa’s direwolf, and also his reaction to seeing the dead Targaryen children at the hands of the Lannister men during the Rebellion the dead butcher's boy, as well as the discussion he and Robert had regarding Daenerys Targaryen's wedding to Drogo where Robert entertained the idea of sending an assassin. All these things are adding up and weighing on Ned's mind. Not to mention the danger that he will be in should he be able to find evidence and present his findings to the King.
Will Robert take action based off the evidence, or will he turn a blind eye and not take kindly to Ned’s accusations?
Now for a moment lets take a second to appreciate the brilliance of Littlefinger. Essentially he just got called incompetent in front of the rest of the Small Council, was somewhat sarcastic towards Ned, nearly got himself killed, and yet by the end of the chapter he has not only managed to get himself an alliance with the new Hand of the King, but has convinced Ned to focus his attentions on the Lannisters as well.
Littlefinger has done this through a bit of social validation. In spite of the fact that Ned neither trusts nor even likes Littlefinger he does respect the opinion of his wife. It’s a very subtle form of manipulation and preys upon doubts to be proven wrong.
Initially Ned is mistrustful as his older brother had issues with Petyr Baelish. Further Littlefinger seems to not only be arrogant but also sarcastic. In the end it all gets explained away by Baelish as a sort of act that he puts on to keep people at court on their toes.
Lets take a look at the following passage:
Catelyn went to him and took his hands in her own. “I will not forget the help you gave me, Petyr. When your men came for me, I did not know whether they were taking me to a friend or an enemy. I have found you more than a friend. I have found a brother I’d thought lost.” Petyr Baelish smiled. “I am desperately sentimental, sweet lady. Best not tell anyone. I have spent years convincing the court that I am wicked and cruel, and I should hate to see all that hard work go for naught.”
Catelyn's history and the time they spent growing up together at Riverrun as well as how Petyr has treated her since her arrival has won her over. This more than anything else is a factor that leads Ned into at the least working with Littlefinger. The validation his wife provides helps to put to rest some of the more serious concerns he may have about working with a man he clearly doesn't trust nor like.
Unfortunately this also causes Ned to not really investigate the finances and the issue that Grand Maester Pycelle brought up continues to be ignored. So it looks like Littlefinger is not only clever with financial capital but social capital as well.
Lets keep in mind he did use his connections with Lysa Tully to get him the customs job at Gulltown. Thanks to Roberts spending habit it more than likely was a no brainer for Jon Arryn to realize he needed someone who could create a lot of revenue like Baelish to help keep the kingdom from going bankrupt.
But unfortunately as we saw in Chapter 18 Review Catelyn isn't exactly the best judge of characters and often misses things. But this is enough for Ned to accept Baelish as an ally, at least for now.
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