Chapter 155: Mind and Body

Forgive the delay in publication, dear readers...

As a modest gesture of apology, a double publication!

Happy Reading!

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POV: Barbrey

Never Winter Bank.

About a minute after the name of a new institution was announced to the world...

Pyrotechnics erupted the instant after the announcement.

A few drops of Wildfire and coloured firework powders created a magnificent spectacle throughout the hall.

One hundred stone cauldrons lit up simultaneously, creating green and silver light shows. The monumental candelabra in the centre dominated the firework of lights with a small red and white sun.

It was a small birthday present from Barbrey for her partner.

The candelabra began to sprinkle flakes of soft silvery faux ash, like bright white snow...

Barbrey sought out the birthday boy's gaze, and he fixed it, bowing his head with a slight smile of thanks. A smile that the lady returned.

Then... both gazes became more serious.

'The moment of truth... at least 100,000,000.' Barbrey thought with slight anxiety mixed with shivers of excitement.

{Hundred Million Gold Coins} was the minimum sum the Never Winter Bank had to be able to raise to stand a chance of competing against the furious, rich and ruthless Titan...

At the time, the Platinum veins shown were nothing more than a stage trick.

A compelling visual means belting the Bank of Braavos founded inside an Iron Mine.

In fact, the precious metal, yes, was present in the mountain, but the mine was not yet profitable enough to be called such. The mountain was certainly not Casterly Rock.

The chief miner and many other experts in the field estimated, in the rosiest prospect, a thousandth the amount of platinum compared to the overflowing golden rock found by the ancestors of House Casterly and Lannister.

On top of that, the rock was tremendously hard to work, and mineral veins were scarce. So even digging at total capacity, the Never Winter Bank was unlikely to make more than 8,000 gold dragons a month...

A relatively paltry sum compared to the Bank's exorbitant needs.

The North needed urgent liquidity to meet all the hyper-expansionist challenges the First Men would face in the next three years.

And Braavos was not going to sit idly by - no.

The Iron Bank would certainly have aggressively attacked the Never Winter Bank on all fronts.

Oldtown held the first place of war superiority in the Known World, but not even the combined resources of the Second, Third and Fourth World Organisations could rival the mammoth stockpile of gold and riches crammed into the Titan's coffers.

The Trade sector was Braavos' favourite battlefield, and no one had so far managed to wrest any notable victories against the World's Greatest Economic Super-Power...

Ronan estimated at least 1,500,000,000 gold coins in funds-deposits, and at least 700,000,000 shares. And that was the estimate for the mere liquid coinage available to the Council of Braavos...

Between: magical artefacts, Valyrian steel, mana stones, jewellery, precious stones, unknown treasures, real estate, ships, and holdings in a variety of business sectors, crammed and well guarded in only the Old Gods knew which remote corners of the world, the Iron Bank boasted total assets worth between 4 and 5,000,000,000 gold coins (approximately $ 40,000,000,000,000).

The Fourth World Organisation did not even hold a tenth of the assets. Yet, the Spider Queen had chosen to invest 30,000,000 gold coins in the Never Winter Bank, risking almost a third of the organisation's liquidity in the Bloody Snow & The Frosty Spice Queen project.

The investment agreed upon the year before saw 'only' 10,000,000 golden coins. Still, both The Watcher and the Spider Queen had not taken particularly kindly to the Titan's rudeness in moving against Zick's young heir immediately after the end of the protection period.

In response, Madame Zishua had not only tripled her investment but had also pulled several strings and called in several favours to get many of The Watcher's 'friends' to change their trusted financial institution and move their gold to a more promising Bank...

Almost half of those famous 41 million, taken from the Iron Bank in the last few months, belonged to the hundreds of wealthy merchants, warlords, nobles and heirs of Essos who owed one or more favours to the Fourth Organisation.

This was one of the peculiarities that elevated the body loyal to the Guardian of Love's preservation and devoted to the Spider Queen's commands to the pinnacle of world powers...

All that wealth, those resources, but most of all, that War Power hidden in great secrecy in every corner of the Known World had not been combined to create empires or legacies to be passed on.

The faithful followers of The Watcher had nothing of their own to lose, only a perpetual enormous debt to repay...

The most feared among them, the Nine Demons, would not weigh the pros and cons of a possible war against their benefactor's enemies. Whoever they were: Men, Kings or Gods...

The Nine Demons would have simply answered the call, gathered their weapons, invested whatever resources they possessed for the purpose, and marched to the end into the darkest confines of the Abyss with their predatory eyes turned towards their target and a smile on their lips...

This is why the Titan and the High Tower were reluctant to move to eradicate one of the greatest anomalies in human history.

{Why march against a mighty enemy with nothing to lose when the simple passage of time would dissolve the anomaly in a few decades for them?}

The natural death of the Guardian of Love was one of the most anticipated and, for others, most feared events in the World.

The Fourth World Organisation would be extinguished along with The Watcher's flame, and the looters would inevitably pounce on the enormous power vacuum left behind...

Unless someone picked up Zick's true legacy and managed to provide those thousands of men and women united by a single glue with another purpose to look forward to...

An almost impossible feat...

The Spider Queen Organisation was, perhaps, the most complex and intricate organism ever devised by man.

Each organ was different from the others, and almost all were composed of hundreds of widely separated and incompatible organisational tissues or cells...

The members belonging were not mere subjects of a kingdom, followers of creed or tradition... No.

There even existed adherents with eternal and unresolvable grudges between them that not even the Spider Queen could control with her web and prevent them from mortally slaughtering each other, but which only The Watcher could make coexist sometimes even collaborate.

Barbrey looked at her friend-dreamer and hopeful benefactor...

The new World Menace who, in all likelihood, was becoming more and more adverse to Braavos, Oldtown and all the remaining malevolent minor forces at the Guardian of Love.

The individual who both Barbrey and Zick believed could succeed in that impossible feat...

The one who would bring, not only to the North but to all the domains of man, a more remarkable and more revolutionary anomaly than The Watcher himself, and who would soon become the 'Number One' target of the most dangerous individuals and entities in this World...

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'I must watch that suicidal mad boy's back. I must at least defend him from the Titan... I cannot fail.' She thought instinctively, throwing avalanches of coal and rivers of oil over her feeble and insecure inner flame, thus generating a fiery glow that dispelled any doubts or insecurities.

"The Never Winter Bank will welcome with open arms any honourable and industrious individual, lineage, institution, society, city or kingdom in Westeros or Essos seeking financial or monetary aid!

Any noble or peasant seeking credit, security, assistance, bureaucratic facilitation, business advice or guarantee support will always be welcome and welcomed by me or one of the six hundred and twelve bright, helpful and knowledgeable business officers of this great and new institution!" The army of mathematicians began to make its debut.

Hundreds of accountants of both genders, wearing the same uniform and an identical notebook, arranged themselves in neat rows at the base of the staircase in hierarchical order.

Only the master accountants and senior managers took their places on the lowest ladder rungs below the Managing Director in command.

The spectators seemed rather impressed by the parade. Especially Nestoris...

With over six hundred educated trade officials, he was an official body that no Master of Coin in Westeros had ever managed to set up for the Crown.

Less than one per cent of the continent's population could barely read and write. Basic arithmetic was one of the few skills the populace was forced to learn to not be swindled by the richer, more educated merchants.

This was the invisible poison of the Citadel... Only noble blood and the rich could afford the services of the Maesters, the Keepers of Knowledge.

If the populace had wished to learn, they would have been forced to seek the permission and help of their feudal lord, with the benefit of a maester in their manor, or turn to Oldtown...

Not even the King of the Seven Kingdoms would have gathered several such individuals educated in the science of numbers and trade with trivialities.

"Allow me to introduce the Right Arm of the Never Winter Bank.

One of the brightest and most promising minds the North has ever known!

A young man who has had the honour of learning in the field with the best trading masters in Braavos, spending more than three years in the service of the renowned and respected Iron Bank...

The former Chief Treasury Delegate, Head of Trade of Torrhen's Square, and current General Manager of the Never Winter Bank... Ronan of House Atreides!"

A young man in his early twenties, clad in full black ceremonial silk robes adorned with platinum trimmings, descended the steps, positioning himself one step down to Barbrey's right.

Ronan Atreides respectfully bow to the audience, uttering no words but expressing all his confidence with his gaze and bearing.

Barbrey could not help but enjoy the brief moment of astonishment, rancour and jealousy that the eyes of the boy's former Master Trainee expressed in that instant.

"But even the best Mind in the world needs a vigorous Body to protect it.

Therefore, let us give a second welcome to the steadfast left arm of this new institution...

From the distant lands of IB Nor, the current Commander-in-Chief of the Company of the Rose!

One of the last descendants of Beris Stark, cousin of the last King in the North, Torrhen Stark, and

current New Executive Chief of Security and Trade for Foreign Affairs of the Never Winter Bank...Commander Cregan Ilayx Winter!"

A second man made his entrance, but unlike the first, he was twice as old, a much stockier and taller build, and was lined in steel, fur and leather of the highest quality the Bank of the North could offer as a gift.

It only took one glance to realise that this individual had been hardened by countless battles and that the rank of Commander-in-Chief had not been inherited by mere descent but earned by sweat, blood and steel...

Cregan bore a fair resemblance to Brandon Stark, with the same hair, a similar square jaw and a wild yet martial bearing that only an actual Alpha Wolf could display. However... 'the look'... That look was much sharper and more ruthless.

Those were the eyes of a man in perpetual contact with death and suffering.

The various scars on his face decorated the pale, hard skin almost artistically, marking the seriousness of the northern man.

It had not been easy to gain favour and cooperation with the Company of the Rose.

It took more than a year, dozens of messenger delegates, various gifts and gestures of friendship to achieve just one face-to-face meeting with Cregan Ilayx Winter.

A meeting that Barbrey was forced to take part in great secrecy in Sisterton...

The exiled descendants of Torrhen Stark vowed never to set foot on their homeland again until the North was once again the independent kingdom it once was, and the Old Crown of Iron and Bronze was once more worn by the Kings of Winter...

The members belonging to that Sellswords were no ordinary mercenaries.

Over the centuries, the Titan had signed hundreds of Iron contracts with almost every sellswords from Tyrosh down to Qarth, always keeping some captain, lieutenant or officer in each Company in reserve in case the current commanders-in-chief chose not to honour the agreement...

Should the need arise, Braavos could even force even the Golden Company, a company famous for its loyalty, to never break a contractual agreement, to dissolve minor contracts and benefit exclusively from their services.

History recalls Aegon Rivers, known as Bittersteel as the founder of the centuries-old Company, but few know where and at what price the bastard of Aegon IV had found the funds and resources to set it up from nothing.

Golden Company, Second Sons, Company of the Cat, the Stormcrows, Gallant Men, Long Lances, Jolly Fellows, Iron Shields, Windblown, Bright Banners, and so many others, too many to name... Almost all the major and minor sellswords in Central Essos were secretly in the grasp of the Iron Bank.

Only one major company, outside the control of the High Tower, Carcosa or the Spider Queen, continued to resist the insistent enticements, offers and manoeuvres of control of the First Four World Organisations... The Company of the Rose.

Five thousand swords and pikes, one thousand heavy knights, two thousand light knights, and two thousand archers and crossbowmen tempered mainly by perpetual skirmishes against Khalasar Dothraki, marauders and pirates. Loyal mercenaries in the service of one grand island that, three centuries earlier, welcomed and provided shelter to the exiled First Men in their time of need...

To wrest from the hands of IB and New Ibbis, their strongest and most trusted militia had not been an easy achievement, nor had it been achieved on the cheap...

Barrowton and Torrhen's Square had bestowed various facilities and trade agreements with the Ibbenese. Moreover, the Never Winter Bank had promised the IB Council the funds and resources to double the numbers of the Company of the Rose so as not to deprive them of their trusted militia...

As for convincing the Commanders and officers-in-chief of the company itself... well, it had been a different kettle of fish.

Mountains of gold, inexhaustible stockpiles of Karstark leather, thousands of Ryswell stallions and war mares, shares in the Never Winter Bank, and even Damascus Steel... nothing seemed enough to move the 'Honourable-Testardness' of the officers of the Rose Company one inch.

The not-yet-official 'Green Council' was even forced to reveal a few hands earlier than expected.

Lady Barbrey's latest offer disarmed the immovable distant descendants of the Starks...

The Administrator of the Never Winter Bank glanced at her trusty new shield, recalling the climax of that arduous and exhausting negotiation.

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End Chapter.

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