Chapter 42

The plan had been to set off at dawn. It essentially meant that the only people who would have seen him leave the Red Keep would have been the castle servants and the guardsmen that were on duty. Even then, in the early mornings, he would have been surprised to pass the old servant here and there through the various corridors and hallways of the castle.

I had just forgotten to take into account that I happened to be something of an information leak. To be honest, could I be blamed for telling my wife my plans? No? I didn't think so.

I just didn't think that she would try to use this moment to try and get me to step down by trying to use our own children against me. There was a certain... low cunning to that. She knew I happened to have a weakness to this particular brood of mine.

When they asked me for something, I had trouble resisting. I liked them better when they were nothing more than loud squawling babes that I could drown out in white noise. But now? When they could move on their own power and speak? That was quite different to what I was expecting.

"The sun isn't even fully up yet and you two are already up? What's the special occasion?" I asked the both of them, Dany and Luc, feigning ignorance.

The name of the game was trying to figure out what they knew. For all I knew, this wasn't some ploy by my lovely wife (or grandmother, couldn't rule her out...should probably add Duncan to that mix as well) to try and keep me from leaving the castle and setting the business with Duskendale once and for all.

Dany busied herself by idly twirling her hair. "Oh nothing. I thought I would have an early start to the day."

I would have been offended if she thought I would buy that, but the sheer coyness of her statement told me that she didn't think I would buy it or that it was even going to try and be sold on me. I nodded my head slowly. "Okay then, what's your reason?" I asked as I moved my head to look down at my heir.

Luc shrugged as he gave me his answer. "Figured I might as well get an early start on my martial training with Ser Harrys. Might be able to get Arthur, Oswell and Jon to join in as well."

"That's not a bad idea." I said, nodding. "You never know when an extra hour in the training yard may come in handy on the field."

Luc nodded his head as much as his six year old wisdom could muster. "That's true."

"What about you then, father?" Dany asked, eyes pointedly staring up at me. "What are you doing at such an early hour?"

It seemed my Kingsguard were rather enjoying seeing me being interrogated by my own children. Try as they might, but I could see the amusement dancing in the light of their eyes. Didn't they have jobs to do? Which they happened to be doing right now, so I really couldn't fault them.

I quirked my brow upwards in amusement at the sudden turn of questioning from them to me. My daughter was seemingly of the type to get to the point instead of pussy footing around. "Last time I checked, I happened to be King of Seven Kingdoms. My day starts rather early because of that."

They shared a look between the two of them, Luc shaking his head. "That was a stupid question to ask."

"And you have a better one?" Dany retorted.

"I do, in fact!" Luc responded as he turned his attention from his sister to me again. "So what kingly duties require your armour?"

Clever little brat. "All sorts of kingly duties." I replied. I wasn't lying, my armour was going to be used for the duties that is required of me as Protector of the Realm. So it wasn't me lying. I kneeled down to get face level with the two of them and smiled. "Now what exactly is this all about?"

They shared a look between the two of them again and Dany pressed an idle foot into the stone floor. "Mother says you are about to do something stupid and that we should try and stop your from doing that stupid thing."

I figured as much. "It's not stupid." That was my only pet gripe. No plan was stupid until it made contact with the enemy. Until then, everything was completely viable. "It's just something I have to do."

"Why does it need you having your armour though?" Luc asked, shaking his head in confusion. "It's not something dangerous is it?"

I mean, those eyes were getting rather watery and cute. Something those that hanged around the manga and anime scene back in my days, called the 'shota effect' or something along them lines. I'm sure there was a female version as well. It's been a while.

"No it's not." If I had anything to say about it, I was going to be as far away as possible from any sort of fighting. I was just there for moral purposes and to observe. Hopefully, if things worked out the best way possible, no-one was going to die. "I'll be back long before you even knew I was gone."

"But you are going somewhere though...we are seeing you go somewhere..." Dany pointed out slowly. "That sort of defeats your point." She had something of a look on her face that just screamed, 'Gotcha ya!'.

"Where you always this smarta-." I stopped myself there, no need to swear in front of the children. I gave each of them a peck on the forehead. "Go back to sleep the both of you. You have a busy day ahead and I would rather have you well rested to face it." I finished as I stood back up.

They both had a frown that showed that they disagreed with my last command to them, but eventually they relented. "Alright," Dany grumbled, her little arms crossed across her chest. "We'll go, but you better come back quick. Just like you said, we better not notice that you were gone." Said the girl that had just previously defeated my point about that particular statement.

It was nice to know that she was willing to play a certain amount of wilful ignorance on my behalf.

"Dany can go back to sleep, if she wants." Luc said as he kicked at the floor. "I might as well go to the training yard. It wouldn't be a waste to get some early practice in." He finished with a nod of the head in my direction.

I nodded back and smiled. "Good. I promise, I won't be long."

xXx

This was probably going to be longer than I thought it was going to be.

"How long have we been here?" I asked rather calmly as I sipped my tea. It was no PG Tips, but it did the job in calming down the nerves.

Ser Roderick grumbled an answer. "Three days. Going on four."

I nodded as I continued to drink my tea. I look down at the china that held the liquid beverage that every damn near English man was bound to be blessed with at least once in his life. I toyed with the idea of throwing it, then I realised the china was something of an import and expensive and I didn't need that to add to the royal expenses.

And anyway, I have never been one to actively go around throwing things or smashing things or doing other things to things when I was particularly miffed. I have been one of the mind that one should never let his emotions rule their actions.

To be honest though, I really should have thought this a possibility. I set the cup of tea down on the table inside my personal tent and shook my head. "We should have seen this coming or thought about it in truth." I really should have thought about this.

Armies have exercises for a fucking reason!

Just look at a newspaper or two that actually knew what it was talking about, you would come across the odd report of one army or another holding a military exercise here or there with so and so. I was going to take a wild stab in the dark and guess to prepare for situations such as this.

"Aye, gathering and moving thousands of men takes time and effort, but for this?" Ser Roderick shook his head. "We should be faster than this. We trained the men for this. No excuses at all."

I waved Ser Roderick off. He was just being responsible. I don't even think military exercises were a thing in these sort of times. "No, you are right. There are no excuses for this utter shambles of a disaster, but I should have seen this coming and taken steps to address it."

Ser Roderick had a slight frown on a face. "I know, Your Grace, that you are an incredibly knowledgeable man, but are you saying that you are clairvoyant as well? If not, you could not have foreseen Lord Darklyn doing foul treason as such as he did."

"No, not about that." I said, stopping him as I slumped into a chair. I looked at the blood red roof of my tent. "About the time when it came to mobilising the army. As you said, Ser Roderick, gathering and moving such a large number of men takes time. We should have held exercises for such a thing." I snapped back right up and immediately started making notes. "In facts, that is what we are going to do from now on."

The General of the Royal Army raised an eyebrow. "Your grace?"

"After when this is all over and done, we are going to be holding military exercises to make sure that the army is prepared to meet any and all threats." I rambled on as I wrote down the memo on any piece of paper I could find. "In fact, we should ad the Royal Navy to this as well. Loading men and supplies. Making amphibious invasions, landings and all of that nonsense. I'm probably forgetting somethings, but we'll fine tune it out on a later date. This is nothing more than a rough draft after all."

I continued muttering to myself and adding more to the memo and somewhat forgetting about Ser Roderick in the tent with me. Credit to him, he kept himself quiet for the duration it took me long enough to put my hurried thoughts onto paper.

Looking over the memo, it was certainly a mess, but a mess that can be worked upon, cleaning it up and then making good use of it. Gods be damned, I was not going to suffer another situation like this if I had anything to do about it.

I crashed back into my chair again and crossed a leg one over another. "Okay, I'm done."

My good-father nodded his head before he spoke up again. "By now, Lord Darklyn should know that we are mobilising our forces."

Even if he didn't have spies in my army, anyone passing by the goldroad would have noticed the fact that men were coming in from all over the domains that I controlled and vassal houses underneath my direct control. Knights and the new militia that I had some of my younger knights-slash-officers had been training up in the villages and towns in my land.

"Would he know that we are coming for him directly?"

The near middle-aged men could only give me a shrug of the shoulders at my question. "You pay me to train your soldiers and lead your army. Not to spy on your enemies."

I smirked. "That's true."

Still though, I doubted Lord Bennar was a complete and utter fool. Sure, what he did, was completely foolish, but I liked to think that the act was enough to make him sufficiently paranoid enough to think that when my host was gathered, I was going to be gunning straight for him and make preparations to meet me.

If not, he was more a fool than I would think he would be.

"Would it be a siege or a field battle?" I asked, out of the blue.

The general rubbed at his chin in thought. "Me? I would put the stakes on a field battle. Duskendale is a large town. Second largest in the Crownlands. Loads of mouths to feed, so I wouldn't try to hold out for a siege, even if it means losing the advantages the town's fortifications."

"So a field battle then?" I got a shrug of the shoulders for my troubles, not that I could blame him. We were walking in the dark on this one and I was holding out for a siege battle.

There was something standing behind big castle walls that did wonders to a defenders moral. The same can also be said there could be something said about that said wall being smashed into dirt by cannons that did something to those very same old defenders walls.

Now I was just going off my own head canon and I certainly wasn't von Clausewitz or Napoleon or Suvorov or Wellington. I just happened to be a guy who had several of this particular worlds only working cannons.

Cannons that can smash down walls with some ease. That had to count for something, didn't it?

I wasn't particularly looking forward to any sort of field battle. Those involved charging and the Ninepenny War had filled me enough with my shares of charges.

That, and I wanted to use my cannons. Just for the sake of showing off royal power.

Note to self; should get Serret to see if he can work on mortars of some kind. I think those would be useful in a field battle? Probably.

"A certain lion has somehow found itself wondering into the wolves den."

"Wolves?" I repeated with a rise of the eyebrow as I looked at my good-father. "I'm quite certain the emblem that you are wearing right now is that of a dragon. What's this about wolves, goodfather?"

Ser Roderick gave me a playful grin. "Figured it sounded far better as the Wolve's Den rather than the Dragon's Den. And this lion, he came looking to be one of us."

"Tygett Lannister?"

He nodded. "Either that was a lucky guess or you already knew."

"Already knew." The last report I had of him was that he had been seen going back down the goldroad. I had figured he was going back to Casterly Rock after whatever talk he had with Tywin, seems like he ended up in my army. Now what was Tywin trying to accomplish here? "Is he going to be participating in this particular operation?"

Another note to self, I should have some of my own little birds inserted into the Army. And Navy. Can't forget about the Navy. Preferably both in the officer and enlisted ranks.

Ser Roderick scoffed. "He hasn't even finished basic orientation yet. He wasn't particularly happy to learn that I had set him aside for this. Lots of fire in that one. Anger too."

"Probably because you hurt his feelings."

"Well then, pardon my language your grace, fuck his feelings. If he is going to get emotional over every little thing, then he isn't going to get far. And I don't care what his name is or how much gold his family has."

I grinned at that last statement, that was exactly the sort of attitude I wanted. "Right, off with you general. I do believe you still have a job to do."

Ser Roderick gave me a quick nod. "By your leave, your grace." He said with a quick salute before turning crisply and leaving the tent.

Alone in my thoughts, I just figured out that by the time I make my way back to the Red Keep, people were going to have noticed that I had disappeared off to somewhere. My children were going to give me hell over that.