Chapter Text
"Red Empress Maureen Stark ascended the throne after a bloody coup in which she killed her father and brothers. She swiftly took command of the army and reversed the war that was being lost against the New Gish Empire. She set fire to the enemy fleet besieging Braavos, then liberated Norvos and Qohor from enemy occupation. In the end, she forced the New Gish Empire into a peace treaty and ended a war that had lasted more than twenty years in less than six months. She was only twenty-one years old.
When she won the war and returned home, she was welcomed with great enthusiasm by both the people and the nobility. However, this enthusiasm and love did not soften the queen’s heart of stone. After returning to Winterhold, she announced a series of reforms one after another.
Thanks to Empress Maureen’s reforms, public schools were opened and literacy rates increased. The Imperial Academy began accepting commoners as well, and those of low birth who studied there later attained high positions. The powers of the nobility were reduced, and merit-based appointments to state offices were proclaimed by law.
The rights granted to the people by Empress Maureen caused great unrest among the nobles, and her final reform ignited a civil war in Westeros: the abolition of the feudal system and the transition to a centralized state structure.
During the five-year civil war, Empress Maureen suppressed the traitorous lords with extraordinarily ruthless and bloody methods and eradicated many dynasties whose lineages stretched back thousands of years. These houses were as follows: in the Crowlands: Bracken, Blackwood, Darry, Caswell, and Rosby. In the Westerlands: Brax, Lydden, and Harlaw. In the Reach: Florent, Blackbar, Oakheart, and Peake. In the Stormlands: Buckler, Selmy, and Caron. In Dorne: Jordayne, Qorgyle, and Santagar. In the Vale: Templeton and Belmore. In the North: Bolton, Locke, and Karstark.
In the eleventh year of her reign, the Empress was poisoned to death by her lover. After her, her nephew, Eddard V, ascended the throne and strictly preserved the reforms. By masterfully employing the policy of carrot and stick, he saved the realm from internal turmoil.
Red Empress Maureen is regarded as one of the most controversial figures in Stark history. Today, many admire her achievements and genius as a woman, and interpret her reforms and revolution as a necessary inevitability, while her incredibly bloody methods are also frequently criticized.
The nobility gave her many cursed and insulting epithets such as Red, Bloody, and Kinslayer; however, the common people remembered the late Empress in a very different way.
On the Empress’s tombstone, no name is written; only that title is inscribed: The Empress of the People."
— Klaus Moretti, Imperial Academician.
Winter ended. It had lasted nearly two years.
During those two years, Ned ruled the realm from Riverrun and ensured that the laws functioned in a practical and effective manner. The southern lords personally experienced how a Stark governed during this period: harsh, but just.
Beyond that, however, he did not do much. The council had not yet begun the announced reforms; there was no urgency.
He treated the two-year winter as an opportunity to prepare for resettlement and to strengthen the foundations.
As soon as the council ended, the first thing he did was to gather maesters skilled in architectural craft and experienced architects of known reputation in Riverrun.
Ned gave them a great task: to draw up a construction plan and design for Wolf’s Landing. Where should the harbor be? Where should the market be? How would they make use of the Greenwake River?
Ned would not make the same mistake as the Targaryens. He would not build a city on the fly. No—he would ensure that everything was done in a planned and organized manner.
He set two absolute conditions for the Royal Council of Architects: the city would never stink of filth like King’s Landing, meaning that a sewage system was a priority, and Winterhold would contain no secret passages whatsoever. He gave them time until winter ended.
The council of architects took on the task with great enthusiasm. What architect would not dream of creating a work that would endure for thousands of years?
They immediately traveled to the region where the city would be built, settled into a small castle there, and spent two years discussing how the new city should be constructed. During this time, Ned supported some plans and rejected others. Meanwhile, vast amounts of construction materials brought from all across Westeros, as well as workers gathered from various parts of the realm, were assembled along the southern shore of the God’s Eye throughout the winter.
At the end of two years, the architects finally agreed on a rough plan, and with the king’s approval, construction began. Ned’s conditions were firm: the sewage system and the harbor would be built first.
The two greatest problems of Westeros were the construction of a new capital and the resettlement of the realm. The resources required for rebuilding—timber, marble, iron—were plentiful in Westeros. However, the most important thing was lacking: gold. After all, workers had lands and families they were responsible for; Ned could not expect them to work for him for free.
The construction of the new capital had only just begun. In addition, there were countless burned villages, towns, and castles in the Stormlands and the Reach. The Stormlands, in particular, had been on the front line of the Valyrian invasion and were now completely devastated. The royal treasury was not used solely for the capital’s construction; these lands were also being resettled, and populations from overcrowded regions were being encouraged to move there. The king covered their relocation costs, sold them land for a very small fee, and promised that no taxes would be collected for five years so that the refugees could settle properly. In return, however, the refugees had to agree to work as laborers on construction projects.
The Stormlands soon began to receive a massive wave of migration. The Crown decided which town the refugees would settle in, and all of these migrants would also work as laborers. Most of the migrants came from the southwestern part of the Reach, the most densely populated region of the kingdom. Lords retained the right to decide how reconstruction would be carried out in their own lands, but they were also supervised by a few selected royal inspectors. If a foolish lord wanted a grand castle for himself instead of building houses for peasants, Ned would not allow it.
The Crown provided the raw materials required for reconstruction and sold them in exchange for loans with very low interest and a repayment period of one hundred years. The lords were immensely grateful, and their loyalty to House Stark increased many times over.
While all these projects were ongoing, the royal treasury had already begun to run dry. A much greater flow of gold was clearly needed.
However, gold was not among Ned’s greatest worries. Compared to all the other problems, this was actually the easiest one to solve.
The sack of Lys carried out by Roose Bolton showed King Eddard something very clearly: Lys was the least populous of all the Valyrian cities, yet the plunder taken from the city had filled the coffers of the Northern Kingdom and its lords with gold.
In short, the Valyrian cities were rich. No—they were VERY rich, and they were responsible for the damage done to Westeros.
Eddard acknowledged that the Valyrian cities were strong in naval terms, but when it came to land armies, the balance shifted in the opposite direction.
The Westerosi possessed many skilled warriors and knights. Most of these men had been trained as soldiers and commanders since childhood. Even among the common folk, the same was largely true; almost all Westerosi knew the basics of using sword and bow. This was part of the shared way of life of all the kingdoms and a culture that had continued for thousands of years.
The Valyrians, on the other hand, relied mostly on mercenaries and slave armies when it came to land warfare. Even when the cities fought each other, they used mercenaries for land battles. Real wars were fought at sea, for if the Westerosi had a culture of war, the Valyrians had a culture of seafaring. This applied both to trade and to naval warfare.
Most mercenary companies lacked loyalty, and slaves were hardly eager to die for their masters. Exceptions like the Unsullied were so rare that they could be ignored.
In short, the Valyrians had almost no culture of land warfare. They only knew how to defend their fortresses and use local policing forces.
During the winter, Ned prepared an army of thirty thousand men for war. The Westerosi were crying out for revenge, and this time Ned had no intention of stopping them. After the Stag Tragedy, hatred of Valyrians had become a national policy embraced by all of Westeros, and Ned knew that the Valyrian people hated the Westerosi just as much.
A war between the Westerosi and the Valyrians was very different from an ordinary dynastic conflict. Dynasties could fight today and be friends tomorrow, but a war between Westerosi and Valyrians would not end until one side subjugated or destroyed the other.
If that was the case, King Eddard would not hesitate to be ruthless.
While Eddard was purging the Valyrian forces in Westeros, Braavos was dealing with coordinated attacks by Pentos, Myr, and Tyrosh. In the end, they managed to suppress the rebellion in Pentos, but the naval war with Tyrosh and Myr was still ongoing.
Eddard could not promise help at sea, but he could offer help in war.
Throughout the winter, he hosted Braavosi commanders in Riverrun, and with their counsel, a war plan was drawn up.
An army of thirty thousand men would gather at Duskendale and be transported to Pentos by cargo ships. Braavos would guarantee the safety of these ships.
Once the army reached Pentos, it would be reinforced by ten thousand additional Braavosi troops. After that, the army would split.
There were two targets: Myr and Norvos.
Originally, the only target had been the conquest of Myr. When Ned spoke with commanders of the Golden Company, who were highly experienced in Essosi wars, he was told that the city was conquerable. In fact, the Golden Company had done it once before, under the command of Maelys Blackfyre.
According to the commanders of the Golden Company, the city was absolutely conquerable.
Norvos was added to the plan at the insistence of the Braavosi.
Normally, Ned would not have attempted this. The conquest of Norvos was not easy; the city was surrounded by mountains and had many natural defenses. Still, he approved the plan, for he had two reasons.
The first was this: the Braavosi had a long history of war with Norvos. They had commanders who knew the Hills of Norvos like the back of their hand and swore that they could lead the Westerosi armies to Norvos by the shortest route.
The second, and the reason that truly convinced Ned, was this: at present, the city had no ruler at all. After Ned slaughtered the Valyrian army and killed many nobles, a massive power vacuum emerged in Norvos, Qohor, and Volantis. These cities had been locked in bloody internal wars for some time. Everyone was attacking each other like wolves, trying to seize abandoned lands and wealth.
In short, the nobles of Norvos had been fighting each other for two years. No city lord had yet been chosen, and the city was completely vulnerable to a conquest attempt.
The Rose Company, former mercenaries of Northern origin, had a long history of warfare in the region, and the company’s commanders supported the Braavosi plan.
Twenty thousand soldiers, mostly from the Rose Company and Braavosi auxiliary forces, under Robb’s command, would attack Norvos.
The remaining twenty thousand men, mostly composed of the remnants of the Golden Company, under Brynden Tully’s command, would attack Myr.
Eddard would remain in Riverrun; as king, he could not easily leave his realm.
Before sending off the commanders, Eddard gave them strict instructions: "I am not sending you to conquer, but to plunder. Even if you manage to seize the cities, we do not have the resources to hold them. The goal is to gain as much loot as possible so that Westeros can be resettled."
As Ned watched them sail across the Narrow Sea, he hoped that he had not taken too great a risk.
The first two major problems of Westeros were thus potentially solved. Even a single successful sack of Norvos or Myr could provide enough gold to support the resettlement of the realm. And if the gold was not enough, that was fine—there were many Valyrian cities that would gladly "contribute" to the royal treasury. After their great defeat in Westeros, they would not recover easily.
Plundering the Valyrian cities was a very sound plan, yet it also carried a great potential risk. The army Ned had assembled consisted largely of volunteers, and these volunteers harbored a deep hatred of Valyrians. This hatred could cause problems during the plundering, for a city being called a "daughter of Valyria" did not mean that everyone living in it was Valyrian. If the Westerosi army carried out brutal massacres in every city it occupied, hatred of Westerosi could spread across all of Essos. Fighting a people and fighting an entire continent were very different things. All Valyrians were Essosi, but not all Essosi were Valyrian. Yes, the Valyrians were the strongest people on the continent, but there were forty other distinct peoples as well.
Ned thought long and hard about how to solve this problem, held loud debates with his advisers and ministers, and in the end, with his wife’s help, found a solution: the Anti-Valyrian Doctrine.
Ned could order his soldiers not to act cruelly during the plundering, but how effective such an order would be was questionable. Almost all Westerosi had lost a relative or loved one to the Valyrians. Even setting aside the Valyrian invasion, the Greendoom was still fresh in memory.
The king could not extinguish this hatred, but he could direct it. The Anti-Valyrian Doctrine would serve this purpose.
This doctrine was written together with state officials and the Seven’s priests, and it was quickly adopted by the High Septon and proclaimed to the people. Ned made a particular effort to ensure that one specific article of the doctrine was known and embraced by the populace.
The doctrine itself turned the views that the people of Westeros had developed about Valyrians in recent years into a written declaration, and because it bore the signatures of the king and the High Septon, it gained official and sacred legitimacy.
It contained very familiar statements, such as Valyrians being genetically flawed and prone to disease, foul magic flowing through their veins, and so on. The part that truly concerned Ned was Article Three, the principles regarding Valyrian appearance.
Article Three interpreted the Valyrians’ silver-gold hair as a sign of monstrosity and of the corruption in their blood. No human accepted by the gods could have silver hair. The most important part was the final sentence: all Valyrians had silver hair; if someone did not have silver hair, then they were not Valyrian.
In Essos, there were many cities and millions of people who called themselves Valyrian, but the irony was that the vast majority of these people did not have silver hair. After the old empire was "punished by the gods," houses with High Valyrian purity had largely lost it. Even House Nasarin, despite calling itself High Valyrian, consisted largely of black-haired people. Only Lys and Volantis had paid great attention to preserving blood purity, but Lys was now gone.
The spread and acceptance of the decree "if they are not silver-haired, they are not Valyrian" among the people of Westeros would greatly reduce massacres after city conquests. It would not stop them entirely, of course, but reducing them would be enough. If the Westerosi began slaughtering entire populations in every city they conquered, they would accumulate a hatred they could not handle.
The first great problem was the construction of the capital. The second great problem was the resettlement of Westeros. These problems could not be solved immediately, but as long as the laws Ned had established remained functional, they would be resolved within at most ten to twenty years.
The third great problem was the reconstruction of the royal fleet. Ned postponed dealing with this issue. Westeros did not have the resources to focus on three problems at once; money could dry up very quickly.
In the agreement he made with Braavos, the king secured a guarantee that the Braavosi fleet would protect the eastern coasts of Westeros for the next ten years. He was also in contact with other non-Valyrian cities such as Lorath and Ibben, and warm trade relations were expected to be established soon.
As for internal issues within the realm: there were almost none. The nobility had largely accepted King Eddard’s iron-fisted rule and even saw it as necessary. King Eddard possessed political and administrative power greater than that held by any Targaryen king; if he wished to replace a Lord Paramount, he could do so on a mere whim. Of course, no one believed the king to be such a man—otherwise, they would have been far more cautious before kneeling to him.
The morale of the people of Westeros was extraordinarily high. Commoners and nobles had never worked together in such harmony. Everyone wanted revenge, everyone wanted to rebuild, and everyone trusted the king.
Thus passed the first years of Stark rule in Westeros.