The tally of Highgarden's losses after the battle soon reached Olenna.
Seventeen villages and towns had been burned, fifteen estates plundered, and twenty-one farms stripped bare.
Vast stretches of wheat fields had either been trampled into mud or burned to ash. The exact number of casualties was still being counted.
But rough estimates put the number of households wiped out entirely at no fewer than ten thousand. There were even more wounded and displaced, and countless families had lost their men.
Olenna sat in a side chamber that had been hastily cleared, listening as the clerk read through the entries one by one.
An account book lay open before her, with a quill beside it. From time to time, she jotted down a few figures.
Her expression remained calm, betraying little emotion. Only occasionally did she pause over a particular figure before lightly tapping the ledger with her quill, signaling for the clerk to continue.
After finishing the list of losses, the clerk turned a page and began reporting on recruitment.
"As you ordered, the two thousand men mustered at Whitegrove in Prince Aegon's name are already on their way. They are expected to reach Highgarden within three days."
"Highgarden's directly administered lands yielded fewer than a thousand men, mostly surviving farmers and able-bodied men who escaped from nearby estates, bringing the total to around three thousand."
Olenna did not speak at once.
She set down her quill, her gaze resting on the ledger before her.
Three thousand men.
At its height, Highgarden could easily muster more than ten thousand men from its own directly administered lands alone. With its other dependent territories included, raising an army of fifty or sixty thousand had required no more than a summons.
Now, three thousand was the limit. And that included the two