Chapter 146: The Controversial Antics
Every man in that council chamber went very still.
Did the King also did not know about it?
The thought passed between them without anyone speaking it—The Hand of the King had arrested the Master of Coin, closed the harbour, seized a dozen properties across the city, and the King had learned of it from gossip like any other man.
Well Nobody waited around to find out.
Chairs scraped. Robes gathered. Renly cast one sharp, incredulous glance at Artos on his way past, and Varys drifted out on silent slippers with an expression of the mildest possible interest.
Artos was still smiling.
As the last of them reached the doors, he turned his head slightly.
"Ethan."
Ethan stepped in from where he'd been waiting at a discreet distance.
"Bring him in. And tell him to bring the papers."
"Aye, my lord."
Robert watched that exchange with the particular fury of a man who has come to shout at someone and discovered that the someone has been expecting him.
The doors closed. The room emptied. It was only the two of them, and the spreading stain of wine down the wall.
"ARTOS." Robert's voice filled the chamber. "WHAT IN THE FUCKING HELL IS GOING ON?"
"What," Artos said, entirely unbothered.
"You know what, Arty."
Artos smirked. "What? I'm doing my job as your Hand. Doing my best at it, in fact. You did rather insist on that part."
Robert's face went a deeper shade of red.
"DON'T YOU FUCK WITH ME, ARTY." He slammed a hand flat against the table. "I KNOW THAT DEVIOUS FUCKING MIND OF YOURS. I KNOW YOU DO YOUR BEST—I'VE NEVER HAD A FUCKING PROBLEM WITH IT, NOT ONCE. BUT YOU NEED TO TELL ME WHAT SHENANIGANS YOU'RE PULLING. I'M NOT ASKING YOU TO ASK FROM ME .BUT FOR GOD'S SAKE JUST FUCKING TELL ME."
He jabbed a finger at the empty chairs.
"I need to know why a member of my own council is in a cell. I need to know what crime he's committed to be locked up. Before I find out about from a whore I am fucking, Arty. "
Artos let him finish.
He had, he himself thought deserved most of that. But He had also very much wanted Robert frustrated when he walked in here.
A knock sounded at the door.
Artos's smile returned.
"What now?" Robert demanded frustrated.
"Your explanation," Artos said."Come in " he yelled
The doors opened.
Tyrion Lannister walked in, followed by Ethan carrying an armload of ledgers and loose papers.
"Your Grace." Tyrion bowed. "Lord Hand."
Artos gestured at him with an open palm.
"Robert—meet your new Master of Coin."
Robert stared at him.
Then he sat down heavily in his chair, dragged both hands down his face, and let out a long, exhausted breath.
The scandal of Littlefinger's arrest in a brothel. And now, before the city had even stopped talking about it, a Lannister dwarf in the seat of the Crown's finances. He could already see Tywin making a issue of it. His court would come apart at the seams. His wife would come apart at the seams. Cersei would find some way to make it his fault.
"Sit down. All of you." Robert waved a hand vaguely. "I'm tired already and it isn't even midday and I haven't even fucking Heard any of this. So Tell me fast what you've got to say."
Ethan set the ledgers on the table in three stacks and stepped back to the wall.
"Start with the simple version," Artos said to Tyrion with a smile " I don't think His Grace would prefer the longer version."
Robert glares at Artos , who is making fun of his suffering.
Tyrion coughed "The simple version," Tyrion said, seating himself on a cushion someone had thoughtfully placed on his chair, "is that Lord Petyr Baelish has spent the better part of a decade stealing from you, Your Grace. Not crudely I will say on the other hand quite cleverly. He was very, very good at it. Especially making it hide in plain sight."
"How much?" Robert asked, Artos already warned him before so he wasn't that shocked. He knew Artos was dealing with him. The suprise arrest shocked him just.
"We don't have a final figure. We may never have one. It's too complicated, Your Grace. But we are working on it but from my rough number its more than a 2 million gold at the very least." Tyrion opened the topmost ledger " But it is most likely more than that "
Robert spit his drink back from his mouth. "Gods"
Tyrion sighs "But I can tell you that we are recovering what we can and trying our best."
Robert's brow furrowed.
"And the ledgers?" Robert asked
"Are a nightmare," Tyrion said with something like professional admiration. "Not merely complicated—designed to be incomprehensible. "
"Then how do you know any of it?"
"We don't, Your Grace " Tyrion said"Atleast not fully "
"Because it doesn't have to be readable," Artos said. "It only has to be followable." He nodded at Ethan. "The Manderlys traced the shipping. Braavosi hulls unloading at White Harbour under Crown seals that no one at court had ever authorised. My people in Braavos traced the accounts on the other end. And the Iron Bank—"
"The Iron Bank helped you?" Robert sat forward. "The Iron Bank we owe millions to?"
"They did owe me some favours and SeaLord of Bravos is Father in Law and his hier my son. So yeah I have enough influence."
"And The Iron Bank hates an unpaid debt, Your Grace," Tyrion said.
"They found his slush funds," Artos said. "Three separate holdings and different assets in Bravos.They have seized them and set them against what you owe."
Robert stared. "Set them against—"
"One million gold dragons," Artos said. "Struck from the Crown's debt. This morning. Before I ever set foot on the Street of Silk."
The room went quiet.
"A million," Robert said impressed though he couldn't care about copper counting but it seems a huge number.
"Not only that , Your Grace " Tyrion informed
"A million there. More coming from King's Landing." Artos leaned back. "We have his properties here in the city—the brothels, the warehouses, the tenements, the shipping shares. All seized before dawn, before he could send a single raven. The man was a genuine financial genius, I'll grant him that. He put every coin to work rather than sitting on it. Which is precisely why it's all traceable and why it's all now the Crown's."
"We won't recover all of it," Tyrion added. "Some is gone into ventures we'll never untangle. But most of the substance? Yes. Most of it."
Robert looked down at the stacks of paper as though they might bite him. "This is frustrating, Fucking Some Copper counting."
"And that's not the whole of it," Artos said.
"Of course it isn't." Robert said.
"The theft was the smaller crime." Artos's voice cooled. "He built a system, Robert. Customs officers taking a cut to look the other way at the docks. Old Gold cloaks paid to enforce his interests rather than your laws. Guild masters bribed into fixing prices. Grain merchants given advance notice of Crown purchases so they could raise their rates before the coin arrived." He paused. "Half the corruption in this city didn't grow on its own. He planted it. Before I let Ethan reform your City Watch, half of them were in his purse."
That seemed to really threaten the peace of Robert
"Who?"
"Already taken care of . But there are more that i couldn't" Artos's expression did not change. "The bribery and roles of different houses."
Robert's head came up slowly.
"Houses."
"Several in the Vale mostly minor houses in his debt, moving his goods through their ports." Artos held Robert's gaze. "And some in the Riverlands. Men who took his loans on generous terms and repaid them with favours instead of coin."
Robert sat back in his chair and was silent for a long moment.
"Gods be good," he muttered. "Ten years. He sat at that table for ten years, "
Robert laughed—an ugly, humourless bark—and then rubbed his eyes.
"You should have told me," he said, and the shouting had gone out of him entirely. "Before. Not after."
"Aye," Artos admitted. "I should have."
"Then why in the hells didn't you?"
Artos's mouth curved very slightly.
"Well I did want to annoy you."
Robert's head snapped up.
"You gave me Joffrey, Robert.. You dropped him in my lap and enjoyed it thoroughly." Artos spread his hands. "So I thought I'd give you a shock in return. Consider us square."
Tyrion made a small strangled sound and became extremely interested in his ledger.
For a moment Robert looked as though he might genuinely come across the table.
Then he threw his head back and roared with laughter, hammering his fist on the wood hard enough to make the stacks jump.
"You petty fucking Northern bastard—"
"I did drop hints."
"Hints! You said—" Robert waved a hand, "—you said something about rats and granaries, Arty, that's not a fucking hint, that's a riddle—"
"It was quite a good hint. You are stupid after drinking and fucking so much."
"It was nothing." Robert was still laughing, wiping his eyes. "Gods. Gods, Cersei's angry with me constantly and it's nothing like as entertaining."
Robert looked between them, then let out a long breath and reached for the flagon himself.
"Fine," he said. "Fine. Gods help me." He filled a cup, drained half of it, and set it down. "But Arty—the next time you plan to arrest one of my councillors, you tell me the night before. I don't care if you tell me while I'm drunk. Tell me."
"Agreed."
"Say it properly."
"I'll tell you the night before, Robert."
Robert grunted, mollified, and turned to Tyrion.
"Well then, imp. Can you fix it? The whole rotten mess of it?"
Tyrion closed the ledger in front of him.
"Your Grace, I can tell you that with my Father contributions, the Iron Bank's seizures, the recovery of Baelish's holdings, and the restitution owed by the houses involved—the Crown will be debt free within four years." He paused.
Robert stared at him.
Then he laughed again, quieter this time, and raised his cup.
"Then get to work, both of you. And get somebody clean that wine off the bloody wall. It stinks."
The Small Council reconvened at dusk.
They came back warier than they had left, and they took their seats without a word, which Artos took as an improvement.
He remained standing at the head of the table.
"My lords. As several of you have already surmised, and all of you have already heard, Lord Petyr Baelish was arrested this morning by my order and under the King's authority."
Nobody moved.
"He stands accused of the misappropriation of Crown funds, the fraudulent use of the Crown's credit for personal enrichment, the systematic bribery of Crown officials, and the corruption of his office as Master of Coin." Artos let that settle. "The charges are documented. The ledgers are in the King's hands. The gold trail has been independently confirmed by the Iron Bank of Braavos, the customs house , and three separate merchant syndicates."
"He will be trailed," Artos continued. "Publicly, before the King, when the accounting is complete. I expect that will take some weeks. Until then he remains in the black cells and will receive no visitors."
Renly's voice was carefully neutral. "And the names in those ledgers, Lord Hand?"
"Will be addressed in due course, ofcourse" Artos said, and looked at him without blinking. "Every one of them. Whoever they belong to."
Varys's fingers stilled inside his sleeves.
"Which brings me to my second matter." Artos gestured toward the doors. "The Crown cannot go a single day without a Master of Coin, and His Grace has confirmed the appointment."
The doors opened.
Tyrion Lannister walked the length of the chamber, climbed into the chair three seats down from the King's, and settled himself with the composure of a man who had spent his entire life being stared at.
"My lords," Artos said. "Please meet Your new colleague. Lord Tyrion Lannister, Master of Coin."
The silence that followed had a texture to it.
Tyrion looked around the table, at every carefully arranged face, and raised his cup.
"I hope," he said pleasantly, "you look forward to me in this Council."
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