"Alas."
Diana folded the letter her father had sent. Donald Tarly knew there were flaws in the way he had raised his children, so this time, he had left the choice to his daughter.
He had merely laid out the advantages and disadvantages of a marriage alliance in detail. As a great lord who had received a complete noble education and possessed abundant experience, Donald Tarly had understood the moment he learned that the royal family wanted Lonzell to marry soon that, in truth, only a handful of houses were suitable. And if Lonzell had no objections, House Tarly was undoubtedly a choice acceptable to all sides.
Lonzell was nominally the Governor of the Borderlands now, and all Borderlands lords were theoretically meant to swear fealty to him. But the heart of the problem was that over the past several thousand years, the Borderlands lords had respectively sworn fealty to the Gardener family and Tyrell family of the Reach, and the Durrandon family and Baratheon family of the Stormlands. A mere title could not make them abandon tradition. After all, the Caron family held the hereditary title of "Lord Marshal of the Borderlands," yet no Borderlands noble had ever bent the knee to House Caron. The Tyrell family held the hereditary title of "Warden of the Borderlands," but most Borderlands lords still swore fealty to the lord of the Stormlands.
In his letter, Count Tarly mockingly called nobles like them people who would rather suffer than lose face, but the real issue was still profit. Because the Dondarrion family had received Lonzell's aid, they had sufficient reason to change their allegiance. The Selmy family was too weak, and Baratheon was willing to do them this favor. But the other houses were different. Losing even one would be a blow to