"Earl Whent holding such a grand event is a great pleasure for nobles and common folk alike. If Your Grace would attend, the cries for the prince would surely become cheers for the king!"
Old Owen tried to encourage the frail king.
"Besides, the letters went out long ago. Noble houses across the continent have already prepared to join the festivities. The parties from farther away may even have set out already. To stop it without cause, I fear..."
...he feared it would only make the king even less popular.
The shrewd figures before the throne all understood what the old Hand had left unsaid.
Perhaps the Hand's talk of "winning back the love of the people" had moved him, or perhaps he thought his "enemies" would not dare plot against him beneath his very eyes. In the end, Aerys agreed to take a full force of troops and attend in person.
This would be the first time the king, who had scarcely ventured outside in recent years, had left the safety of his Red Keep since the Defiance of Duskendale.
Yet the king did not know that, apart from the young fellow at Storm's End, not a single lord of any consequence intended to attend this unprecedentedly grand tourney at Harrenhal.
Whether that was fortunate or unfortunate was anyone's guess...
Two days later.
Just as Maester Greg and Titus had expected.
A raven soon brought Highgarden's letter to Starpike.
Its contents were exactly as they had guessed. Invoking their titles of "Warden of the South" and "High Steward of the Reach," the Tyrells commanded the lords of the Reach to assemble at Highgarden within a month.
In all of Westeros, the Reach was second only to the Vale in the extent of its Andalization.
House Tyrell's ancestor had been an Andal adventurer from Essos-Alester Tyrell. He had sworn himself to Garwin Gardener V, one of the "Three Sage Kings," and his outstanding martial prowess had earned him a place as the King of the Reach's personal guard and sworn shield.
His diligence and competence had won the king's favor, and the royal House Gardener had made the office of steward of Highgarden hereditary in House Tyrell.
Later, the Peakes and Manderlys had thrown the entire Reach into chaos in their struggle for the throne, with both earls certain that their wives would inherit Highgarden and become Queen of the Reach.
The Storm King and the King of the Rock had seized the opportunity to take vast stretches of the Reach's lands, while Dornish raids had grown ever more frequent. House Gardener's rule had nearly reached its end.
Ser Osmon Tyrell, steward to the King of the Reach, had brought forty houses of the Reach together in an alliance, defeated the rebellious Peakes and Manderlys, reclaimed the ruined Highgarden, and crowned the late king's distant cousin Mern Gardener VI.
From that point on, the steward of Highgarden had become its "High Steward." The Tyrells had also gained the right to marry into House Gardener and begun claiming that they, too, carried the blood of Garth Greenhand.
During the Field of Fire in the War of Conquest, the Gardener royal family had all burned. With no one left to serve, High Steward Harlan Tyrell had changed sides with remarkable ease, promptly surrendering Highgarden to the Conqueror.
Aegon I had gone along with this, granting Highgarden and the entire Reach to House Tyrell as a reward and tasking them with keeping the other Reach lords, whose bloodlines were more illustrious, in check.
Thus, the Tyrells, lacking deep roots, could not fully control the Reach and had to rely anxiously on the Iron Throne. The vast Reach and its countless nobles had become a heap of loose sand, never able to unite.
After his military victory, Aegon I had also achieved his political aims perfectly.
To the Earl of Starpike, the so-called "High Steward of the Reach" was really the governor of the Reach, with a position and authority similar to House Tully's "Lord Paramount of the Trident" in the riverlands.
Both houses were models of opportunism, having never worn crowns yet seized the chance to become the ruling lords of a region.
Titus thought this was a path worth learning from.
House Tully remained as it always had: whenever a major war broke out, everyone could push them around, while their vassals routinely turned against them. House Tyrell, on the other hand, had flourished after House Hightower's decline.
Decades earlier, the marriage of Ross Tyrell and Olenna Redwyne-a man and woman whose betrothals had each been broken by the Targaryen royal family-had truly given the Tyrells the bearing of masters of the south.
The current Lord of Highgarden was Mace Tyrell, the son of those two rejected spouses-to-be. He had married the third daughter of House Hightower of Oldtown.
The powerful alliance of the Reach's three foremost houses was enough to cow the resentful lords. They no longer dared openly proclaim that their blood was far closer to Garth Greenhand and House Gardener than the Tyrells' was.
Just after Highgarden's letter arrived, a letter came from Nightsong as well.
Bryce Caron, who was beginning to hold real power, wanted to continue stabilizing the situation within his castle and did not intend to travel far this time.
Starpike was about as far from Highgarden as it was from Nightsong or Horn Hill, so Titus was naturally in no hurry to set out.
In the days that followed.
Titus put in thought and genuine feeling, relying on his usual approach of "trading sincerity for sincerity" and similar words to win over White Stag Wenda for the time being, along with her four subordinates. He transferred them into his own earl's guard.
Naturally, Titus also met his new deputy captain Wenda's Skinchanger companion: that magnificent, elusive gyrfalcon, snowy white with a scattering of beautiful markings.
This "sea hawk" was not particularly large among birds of prey in either body length or wingspan, but it had the fastest diving speed of any bird. Its main hunting method was to spot prey from the sky, take aim, tuck in its wings, and plunge down like a spear.
This impact-based hunting skill allowed it to kill birds larger than itself with ease.
With Wenda and her white falcon, Titus could do more things.
Once the other deputy captain, Bowen, returned from Nightsong and reported that everything was well with Earl Bryce Caron, Titus planned to set out with his men.
Master-at-arms Robinson was responsible for training the recruits and needed to remain at the castle. He would pass on the Peake Army's subsequent changes to Ser Duncan after he returned from the Red Mountains.
Gino, the battalion commander currently defending Starpike, could not readily be moved either.
Thus, Titus would take only his guard platoon, thirty people in all, to the gathering at Highgarden. Parker, Bowen, Wenda, Oswin, and the others would accompany him.
House Tyrell's directly held lands spanned both sides of the Mander River.
Their heartland lay on the southern bank of the middle reaches of the Mander River, northwest of Starpike. No highway ran between the two castles; the land was all rich soil and fertile plains.
If Titus and his party rode hard, they could reach the Tyrell seat of Highgarden in just a day or two.
Highgarden had been destroyed by war time and again, and rebuilt time and again.
This painted a very different picture from the proud boasts of many great nobles that "our castle has never fallen."
Just like House Tyrell's sigil, a golden rose blooming upon a verdant field: lovely yet frail, easily violated yet endlessly renewing itself.
Highgarden was now built of white marble, and many considered it the most beautiful castle in all of Westeros, without equal.
The people of the Vale disagreed. They did not accept that at all.
In the hearts of the people of the east, the Eyrie, wreathed in clouds and mist and standing above all else, was the most beautiful place in the world.
Highgarden:
Before you continue