The hard fall of pride II

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-Pov of Tygget Lannister seventh moon 286 AC

The twin fortresses of the Prussians were imposing, and according to Kevan's latest reports, the Prussian religious order had stationed more than four thousand men to guard the most important road in the area. With their recent wall, which extended to the Riverlands, it was much easier for them to control merchants who wished to pass with their carts to the lucrative markets of The Reach.

Transporting swords and armor to The Reach had become impossible via the northern route, as the walls were very deep and the Prussians had listening posts on much of the walls to detect anyone attempting to dig a tunnel. Of the three attempts made by the septon of Lannisport with my brother's help, all had failed; the Prussians dug to find the miners.

This is why there was a large number of merchants on both sides of the fortresses, either entering or leaving. The Prussian customs were attentive to everything. Several members of the religious order were inspecting the carts, moving inventory, and checking some sacks to authorize the merchants. I spurred my horse and we approached the guards to try to pass quickly.

''HALT, papiere bitte,'' said a Teutonic knight raising his hand, stepping out of his group of men to block our path. My understanding of German was quite limited, as I had always used a translator or the Prussian nobles themselves spoke to me in the common tongue to avoid translation issues.

''Uh... we are guests of your lord for his upcoming wedding. We seek your authorization to enter your territory,'' I said in the common tongue, confident that he would understand me.

''Ja, papiere bitte,'' the Teutonic knight repeated, extending his hand, waiting for me to give him something.

'The bastard understood me, but he keeps speaking in his language.'

I tried to keep talking to the knight and explain who we were, but he kept responding the same way.

''He wants you to show your documentation,'' said one of the merchants waiting for the Prussians to inspect his cargo.

''What documents? Never before have I been asked for anything to enter The Reach,'' I replied to the merchant.

''Something to prove who you are and what you are here for. They've been asking for them for about a moon. Some merchants were caught lying a lot about their inventory, even about their identity, and now we all have to wait to be identified. Damn bastards, I hope they enjoyed their crucifixion, for having us waiting so long just to make a few extra coins,'' said the merchant, frowning as he looked at the long line.

''Thank you,'' I said to the merchant and refocused on the knight, who kept his eyes fixed on me.

''I am Tygett Lannister of House Lannister, brother of Tywin Lannister. We were invited by your lord for his wedding. We need to pass, or are you going to keep humiliating us with your little game?'' I said, staring at the Teutonic knight.

''Wo ist die Einladung, um Ihre Behauptung zu belegen?'' said the Teutonic knight, extending his hand again, waiting for me to hand him something.

I looked at the merchant who understood German.

''He's asking for... an invitation... I don't understand the rest...'' said the merchant, scratching his head.

''I don't have it with me, but you must recognize the Lannister heraldry,'' I said, quite annoyed by the knight's disrespectful attitude.

''Keine Papiere, kein Durchgang,'' said the Teutonic knight, shrugging and walking away, then giving orders to his men, who positioned themselves to guard the gate.

''He denied you passage,'' said the merchant.

''Damn it... did you see anything strange while you were waiting?'' I grumbled and then asked the merchant.

''Maybe, but my memory is not so clear,'' said the merchant, raising an eyebrow.

I quickly reached for my waist, took my pouch where I kept my gold, and threw it to the merchant, who quickly caught it in the air and immediately began counting how much was inside.

''Some riders passed through as if someone unknown was chasing them. The Teutons couldn't stop them and the few guards at the gate jumped to the sides to avoid being trampled. Later, many knights began to pursue them,'' said the merchant, very happy, counting the gold coins.

''How long ago was that?'' I asked immediately.

''Well... I'd say no more than 30 minutes,'' said the merchant after looking at the position of the sun.

'They went through here, we still have a fresh trail.'

''Go find the rest, they went this way,'' I told one of my men, who began to gallop to gather the others.

With this information, I tried to convince the knight to let us pass, but he continued to refuse completely and kept repeating the same thing in German over and over.

For a moment, I considered using the technique that our pursued used to pass the Prussian control, but it seems my look caught the Teuton's attention.

''Grrrr, don't even think about it, Westerosi, because if you do, we will hang you in front of everyone and display you as you rot slowly. I already have enough with a group of idiots, but it seems you have every intention of starting a conflict with my lord. If you want a war, go and pass, we will hunt you like a pig,'' said the Teutonic knight finally in the common tongue.

I kept staring at the knight, who seemed as annoyed as I was with him for his stubbornness.

''Now, if you don't have my lord's invitation, get out or we start a battle right here,'' said the knight, making a hand signal, and several crossbowmen appeared from the fortress walls.

I clenched my lips in anger and immediately sent another of my riders to go to the camp to get the invitations we had there.

We lost quite a bit of time waiting for the invitations to arrive and I was losing patience quickly. Every moment we lost here we were losing the trail of the soldiers who needed to be eliminated to hide the mess Tywin had made of his own son.

When the rider finally returned with the invitations, the bastard of the knight began to take his time verifying that they were genuine and not an attempt to deceive them. He took his time asking each Teutonic knight there if they recognized the signature on the invitations.

I was getting very desperate with everything and was about to explode with rage when the Teuton finally handed me the invitation and pointed to the gate.

''I am very sorry, Ser Lannister, for these complications and the lack of decorum we had earlier, but the previous circumstances put us in a state of high alert and we couldn't take any chances. With unscrupulous merchants trying to lie to us about their identity, we had to take these measures to properly identify you. If you wish, we can create new documents stating your status as a noble guest so you don't have to wait again, but it will take quite some time,'' said the knight, this time in a friendly tone.

"I'm a bit short on time... so, can I pass?" I asked the knight without paying much attention, as I just wanted to cross the gates.

"You can... but I insist, if you have your documents..." The knight continued speaking, but I just spurred my horse, and we started galloping through the gates to try to follow the trail.

Now, the new problem was that all Prussian roads were paved with their liquid rock, so we couldn't follow the horse tracks, and with the time lost, we could only rely on luck.

We split up again to look for any clues that might guide us, but we only found merchants who had passed earlier or the frequent Prussian patrols guarding the roads.

I was quite fatigued with all this frantic search. We kept looking until it was almost dark, but we lost all tracks. No one found anything to show nor any idea where the riders went or if the Teutons managed to catch them.

It was already very late, and we were far from our camp. I was too tired, and my back was killing me, so we decided to go to one of the nearest inns.

It turned out to be a great idea, as it was much better than I expected. We found hot food and comfortable beds. Using the few coins I had left, I paid for all my men to have decent rooms and not have to share a bed.

To my surprise, the inn had a bath with hot water, and I decided to wash up a bit.

'Now what the hell am I going to tell Tywin? Surely he'll find a way to make all this my fault... damn it, my head hurts so much.'

Overcome by fatigue and everything that had happened today, I collapsed into the soft bed.

But what I hoped would be a night to regain strength was the opposite. My head hurt as if I had been hit with a mace; it was very difficult even to get out of bed.

I don't know how much time passed, but finally one of my men came to check on me.

"Ser Tygett, we must..." one of my men said as he looked at the floor.

"Call a maester..." I said with much difficulty.

I don't remember much of what happened next, as I frequently lost consciousness.

When I regained consciousness, I found several maesters examining me.

"Bloody flux? What nonsense are you talking about? Ser Tygett doesn't have that, the symptoms don't match," shouted one maester.

"Then what do you think he has? He has abdominal pain," another maester complained.

"He also has a fever," added another maester.

"We can't be wrong. If Lord Lannister finds out that his brother died because of us..." said the second maester, swallowing hard.

"Ahhh right... A purgative and leeches to control the symptoms. We have to wait for it to progress a bit more to identify the illness," said the first maester.

After that, I lost consciousness again. Occasionally I would open my eyes and only see the worried faces of the maesters, or wake up with leeches on my body, or be given something to cleanse my insides.

I don't know how much time had passed. I opened my eyes again and was surrounded by more maesters than before, and they had worried expressions.

While I watched, the door opened and I saw the innkeeper signaling to someone I couldn't see from my position.

A man with a bird mask, carrying a large bag in his hand, entered the room and all the maesters looked at him with distrust.

"Step aside, incompetents, I'm here to do your job," said the man with the mask, entering the room.

"Who do you think you are...?" tried to say a maester.

"I am a doctor from the state of Prussia. All sick persons within the king in Prussia territories are under my jurisdiction. If you try to prevent me from doing my duty, I will call the police to show you the prison for interrupting my work," said the doctor without wasting time, while taking out his equipment and showing a small and very sharp knife to the maester.

"Are you with us?" the doctor said, waving his hand in front of my eyes.

"Yes..." I said with difficulty.

"Great... you're sweating a lot... fever... Let's see, let's do this... Muscle pain... Could be food poisoning... clean hands... Well, well, what do we have here? Boils," the doctor began examining me.

The doctor started moving my body to find those boils in various parts of my body.

"Smallpox... Very contagious... Alright, I'll take him to my hospital," said the doctor, taking out many bandages.

"You can't..." tried to object a maester.

"Let's hope you haven't been infected, idiots. His illness is contagious and I must isolate him. I remind you, if you bother me in my work, you will spend several days in prison," said the doctor while bandaging my entire body. Soon more men with masks arrived, began to carry me downstairs, and another group arrested the maesters.

"Contagious disease, you will come with me to see if you have been infected. Don't touch anything, we need to burn everything," said the doctor to the maesters, and then addressed the innkeeper.

Before it all ended, I lost consciousness again.

A gust of wind woke me, and I found the doctor staring at me.

"You finally came back... Bad news, you have smallpox. The good news is it's not hemorrhagic smallpox," said the doctor.

"How is that good news?" I said with difficulty.

"Because hemorrhagic smallpox is fatal, there's nothing to be done. The one you have, you might survive... The problem is the maesters treated your symptoms terribly. They gave you purgatives, leeches, and other things for three days. You need to be drinking fluids, not losing them... I see it unlikely you'll survive," said the doctor while noting everything in his book.

"Am I going to die?" I murmured.

'Damn it... I hope Tywin does not punish my wife for my failure.? Well, if he does, I wouldn't be surprised, honestly.'

"Yes, you're likely going to die. I have nothing to treat you with. If you had been vaccinated, it would be easier, but those vaccines are still experimental and it's too late. I'll control your symptoms," said the doctor.

The doctor began forcing me to drink a lot of fluids to lower my fever, which caused me to stay conscious longer to watch my body fill with those boils and see how the doctor performed experiments on me.

As time passed, it became easier for me to speak, although I was covered with those things all over my body. The doctor, by his tone, seemed very amazed.

"You know, you're very resilient... You exceeded my expectations... In fact, one of your maesters got infected and died, ha ha ha. He was too old and weak. Four of your riders were infected, they're still alive, and likely to survive... like you... Just make sure to keep drinking this herbal infusion, as you could still die," said the doctor before leaving.

'Great, I'm going to be alive to hear Tywin's tantrum.'

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I remind you to leave your ideas or what you would like to see.

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