The next morning, Aegor and Tyrion rose early, taking with them the certificate signed by Eddard Stark and the letter of commission from Mormont. Without wasting any time, they launched into their first true shopping spree since arriving in this world.

For the first time since its establishment, the Night’s Watch office remained closed in the morning. Every employee, including Jaqen, followed their chief supervisor through the bustling trade hubs of King’s Landing, Iron Street’s warehouses and the Blackwater River port on a massive procurement mission.

The role of the guards was straightforward: carry the money and ensure its safety.

A peculiar and intimidating entourage roamed the marketplaces: several Night’s Watch brothers clad in black, armed and watchful, two fully armored Lannister guards in dark red plate, and a dwarf recognizable to nearly everyone in the city. Such a conspicuous combination made it highly unlikely that anyone in King’s Landing would dare to entertain any ill intentions toward them.

They brought with them half their total funds, over a thousand gold dragons. By the time the sun had fully risen, they had already secured deals with several of the city’s most well-stocked merchants. Their purchases? A staggering amount of supplies: enough provisions to feed the entire Night’s Watch for several months, hundreds of horses, and a vast arsenal—steel swords, crossbows, and enough arrows to arm seventy or eighty men to the teeth in an instant.

They didn’t bother haggling, instead paying slightly above the market rate, putting down a deposit equal to one-tenth of the total cost. Their only demand was that the merchants sign a contract.

The agreement stipulated that all goods were to be tallied and gathered in the port warehouses as soon as possible, then shipped to Eastwatch-by-the-Sea within two weeks. Upon delivery to the Night’s Watch at the Wall, the transporter would receive a receipt from Eastwatch’s garrison, which they could then present at the Night’s Watch office in King’s Landing to claim the remaining 90% of the payment.

As for penalties, if either party breached the contract, the offending side would forfeit an amount equal to the deposit—one-tenth of the total payment.

Put simply, if Aegor suddenly decided to back out of the deal, he would lose his entire deposit, essentially handing free money to the merchants. Conversely, if the merchants failed to uphold their end of the bargain before the goods were shipped, they would be required to return double the deposit as compensation.

—

On the surface, the terms seemed fair, and the price reasonable. However, in reality, Aegor did not have the funds to cover the remaining 90% of the payment. What he had done was leverage the situation to gain temporary control over a vast cache of food and weaponry, goods worth ten times the deposit and five times the total assets of the Night’s Watch.

Once word spread about the upheaval in the Vale and the Red Keep caught wind of it, the prices of food and arms would inevitably skyrocket. What Tyrion had deduced, those seasoned merchants who thrived on trade and war speculation would also figure out, perhaps just a step behind. Before Robert could even muster the Seven Kingdoms’ armies to march north, the cost of grain and fodder would surge by well over 10%.

But Aegor and Tyrion weren’t looking to profit from the price hike itself; instead, they aimed to collect the penalties from breached contracts.

The reasoning was simple. Profiting off price surges was akin to plundering a lion’s den, extremely dangerous. Any merchant capable of supplying such vast amounts of goods had significant backing, noble title or not. If Aegor attempted to resell those supplies at a higher price without the ability to pay the remaining balance, the entire scheme would collapse. The original suppliers wouldn’t just sit back and let someone else profit off their goods, not without consequences.

The deal would reach a deadlock. If the deposit had come from Aegor and Tyrion’s own pockets and they were reckless enough to take the risk, they could have negotiated for an even higher penalty clause, squeezing even more out of the merchants. But in reality, with creditors already knocking to redeem debts, the capital chain would soon tighten, then snap altogether. And once that happened, it would all be over.

By taking the initiative to concede, accepting the penalties, and playing the role of the wronged party, they would appear as mere victims of the merchants’ broken promises. On the surface, it seemed like they were sacrificing the larger profit, but in truth, they were walking away with a substantial sum, without attracting unwanted scrutiny. Best of all, it would keep them out of trouble. After all, the goods never actually passed through their hands, and the Night’s Watch could simply claim to be another casualty of rising food and weapon prices. Who could accuse them of war profiteering?

And then, there was the matter of the current Hand of the King—Eddard Stark, a man known for his honor and rigid sense of duty. Committed to governing the Seven Kingdoms justly, he would never allow the campaign against the Vale’s rebellion to turn into an unchecked profiteering spree for arms dealers and grain merchants. Before those merchants could even count their ill-gotten gains, sanctions could rain down from above.

At that point, it would become a power struggle between the forces backing those merchants and the King’s future father-in-law, the Hand of the King himself. So long as Robert Baratheon still sat on the throne, Eddard held the upper hand. The question was not whether he could suppress these profiteers but rather how much he was willing to compromise with the local power players of King’s Landing. How much of a price hike would he tolerate before stepping in? That would depend on the outcome of his ongoing battles, both in open court and behind closed doors against the city’s nobility and wealthy elite.

Regardless of how that struggle played out, Night’s Watch Industries had already secured its profits. With the penalty fees in hand, they could settle their outstanding debts. Through strategic foresight and timely action, they had successfully navigated the treacherous waters of fundraising and business survival, clearing their first major hurdle. From here on out, the road to expansion and prosperity lay wide open before them.

—

The above was what Aegor and Tyrion had envisioned. According to their plan, these steps would likely take a few days to a week to fully execute. If, by chance, a particularly diligent merchant had already tallied their inventory and was prepared to ship the goods north, the chief logistics officer might have needed to find some excuse to delay the process—after all, once the ships set sail, they would have to worry about the remaining 90% of the payment.

…

But in reality, everything unfolded at an astonishing speed.

—

Aegor wasn’t the only one with eyes and ears in the royal court.

The news of the uprising in the Vale had first reached King’s Landing through a raven sent by the very faction that initiated the rebellion. Varys’ intelligence network, as extensive as it was across the Seven Kingdoms, could not outpace the speed of that raven. The incident had erupted too suddenly, and while his “little birds” were everywhere, they simply couldn’t be faster than a message in flight.

As a result, the first person in King’s Landing to learn of the upheaval was Grand Maester Pycelle, who oversaw the city’s ravens. He received the information from the official declaration of the so-called League of the Just. The second person was Queen Cersei. However, with her utter lack of political foresight, she neither considered its implications nor thought about how it might affect her own position.

Next came Varys, though the eunuch’s true allies and long-term plans lay far beyond Westeros, across the Narrow Sea. Seeking the Iron Throne for his chosen ruler, he had neither the means nor the interest to profit from a war economy in King’s Landing.

The fourth to receive the news was the Hand of the King. Only after he convened a royal council and briefed Robert did the rest of the ministers—and finally, the king himself—become aware of the situation.

And then, there were the spies scattered throughout the Red Keep, listening intently for valuable information.

These spies would try to smuggle the news to their respective patrons. Once those patrons grasped the full implications of the civil unrest, they would dispatch their own people to warn merchants aligned with their interests: hold onto stock, because prices were about to surge.

But all of this took time. The informants inside the palace, the ears and eyes of noble houses and trading consortiums were mostly lowly servants and handmaidens, whose movements were strictly controlled. They could only leave through the gates at designated times in the morning and evening.

Even after slipping out, they had to find ways to deliver their reports. And their masters? They weren’t sitting in fixed locations all day, waiting for messengers to arrive. In an era without telephones or instant communication, relaying intelligence required patience.

And then, there was Arya.

During lunch, she had overheard her father, Eddard Stark, discussing the situation in the Vale with his advisors. She even learned the specific time of the emergency royal meeting scheduled for that afternoon.

Not long after, as was her habit, she left the Red Keep with her guards and rode to the Night’s Watch office. As usual, she chatted with Aegor for a while before heading to her sword-fighting lesson. Before she left, she casually relayed what she had heard, treating it like just another tale, another bit of exciting gossip.

To Arya, it was simple. Aegor was always telling her adventure stories; in return, she naturally wanted to share something equally thrilling. What could be more interesting than the fact that her aunt—an aunt she had never met—was now besieged in the Eyrie?

And so, in this frantic race to control information, Aegor unwittingly became the victor.

Littlefinger, the one person most likely to have seized the advantage, had been placed under house arrest at the Treasury due to his involvement in spreading certain rumors. And just like that, through a mix of luck, timing, and sheer happenstance, Aegor ended up ahead of everyone else.

By the time the purchases were completed, the sun was high overhead. When Aegor and Tyrion returned to the office, it was already past noon. By then, the market had shifted. Anything that could be of use in war was no longer being sold at a fixed price.

Before sunset, a payment of 600 gold dragons—along with an additional sum as a penalty for breach of contract—was delivered straight to the Night’s Watch office and placed on Aegor’s desk. The man who brought the gold also carried a message from his employer to Aegor and Tyrion:

“Next time you have inside information, we can work together. No need for tricks.”

As Aegor and Tyrion stared at the large sack of gold on the table, a heavy silence filled the room.

Aegor was drenched in cold sweat, his heart pounding. If not for Arya’s first-hand information, wouldn’t his entire venture in Westeros have collapsed before it even began?

Meanwhile, Tyrion sat deep in thought, his brow furrowed. If even the Red Keep, a royal stronghold was so riddled with leaks, then was the so-called peace and stability of the Seven Kingdoms nothing more than an illusion?

***

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Source: Webnovel.com, updated by NovelKeep