Game of Thrones: Viserys the Three-Headed Dragon.

Chapter 107: Dragonstone Island (Part )
"dragon!"

"It's a dragon!"

When the idle sailors, travelers and vendors who were sitting in the empty streets near the reception inn and staring at the castle burst into exclamations, even the old man could not help but look up at the castle on the distant mountain and saw a small dragon with wings spread the size of a giant eagle hovering in the sky.

Someone said, “Isn’t it too small?”

Someone sneered, "There was already a small one, so it must be new. After the earthquake at Dragon Mountain, we rarely see the dragons of His Majesty the Dragon King."

"Dragon Mountain is shaking?"

"A few days ago, Longshan suddenly made a loud rumbling sound, as if the mountain was about to collapse. You don't know how loud the sound was at that time, it was like thunder."

"Ah? Then why are you guys acting like nothing happened? Aren't you afraid?"

"His Majesty the Dragon King sent someone to tell him that it was the sound of his dragons digging the mountain to build nests. Now that his dragon nests have been built, that won't happen again. So you won't see any big dragons. Unless you're lucky, you'll see His Majesty the Dragon King calling his dragons back to the castle, and occasionally you'll see them."

"Wow, it flew back."

The little dragon circled in the sky for a few times before it flew back into the castle and disappeared. The crowd then let out a cry of disappointment.

These travelers who were idle in the open area and looked at the castle were now a normal occurrence on Dragonstone Island, and the locals were used to it. At first, the town guards wanted to control it, but after driving them away from one place, these people would gather in another place, and some of them would gather at the docks, making it impossible to control them.

There are certainly spies and other scouts of the pseudo king among them, but in this case, it is better to disperse than to block, so they simply designated an area for them to gather, and local vendors set up stalls to sell things.

The old man also came to join in the fun.

He got off Illyrio's ship yesterday, and as an ordinary crew member he was first arranged to be received elsewhere, with his own meals and accommodation arranged for him. As an "ordinary guard" on the ship in name, he was also assigned a private room in a town hotel because of Illyrio's special care, and he did not have to sleep in a large bunk bed with the sailors or others or in the cabin of the ship docked at the pier.

Because he was an "ordinary guard", he was unable to go to the castle with Illyrio for the banquet, and only had a sumptuous dinner in the town at the foot of the mountain.

Today, Illyrio's ship remained in port, and all of their visitors were free to move about the town.

If an old man is seen by someone who is not particularly familiar with him.

Unexpectedly, the white-haired old man who was now strolling in the town of Dragonstone with a long hardwood cane was Barristan Selmy, a well-known legendary figure in the Seven Kingdoms, a member of the Kingsguard, known as "Barristan the Fearless".

Barristan is a living legend in the Seven Kingdoms. He is the eldest son of Lord Lyonel Selmy of Harvest Hall. At the age of sixteen, he anonymously participated in the Winter Tournament held in King's Landing. After defeating Prince Duncan the Short and Ser Duncan the Tall, the captain of the Kingsguard, he was knighted by King Aegon V himself.

During the Battle of the Nine Copper Plate King, he charged into the midst of the Golden Company alone and successfully killed the last Blackfyre, "The Fierce" Malis, in a one-on-one fight, thus ending the rebellion of the Blackfyre pretenders to the throne.

At the age of twenty-three, at the recommendation of Captain Gerold Hightower of the Kingsguard, King Jaehaerys II put a white robe on him.

After the death of Jaehaerys II, Barristan continued to serve the new king, Aerys II Targaryen, in the Kingsguard. During the Duskendale Rebellion, Aerys II was taken hostage and held in Duskendale for six months. Tywin, then Hand of the King, originally planned to forcefully attack the city, but Barristan proposed to go alone to rescue the king, and Tywin decided to give him one day.

Barristan acted boldly, disguised as a masked beggar, approached the Brown Keep; before being discovered, he assassinated the guards on the wall, found his way to the dungeon, and rescued the king. He was discovered when he was leading the king away, and Barristan killed a group of guards who came to stop him and the coach of the Brown Keep in Duskendale. He and the king ran to the stable, hacking and killing along the way, and fled Duskendale on horseback with an arrow in his chest.

During the Rebellion, Hand Jon Connington was defeated at the Battle of the Bells. Ser Barristan and Ser Jonoso Darry reassembled the remnants of Connington's army. During the Battle of the Trident, he was wounded by arrows, spears, and swords. Roose Bolton thought that his throat should be slit, but Robert Baratheon called his maesters to heal his wounds. After the Rebellion, the Targaryen dynasty was completely ended. Although he fought bravely for the Targaryen crown, King Robert I Baratheon still pardoned him and appointed him as the captain of the Kingsguard.

But after Robert's death, Joffrey ordered him to take off his white robe and leave the Kingsguard, using his old age as an excuse. But in fact, it was because Cersei wanted Jaime to be the captain of the Kingsguard, and Joffrey wanted his dog Sandor Clegane to wear a white robe.

When Joffrey orders him to be captured and questioned for King Robert's death, he kills the gold cloaks who come to arrest him.

Later, Barristan escaped from the city. He could have returned to Harvest Hall, where his family would have accepted him without hesitation, but Barristan did not want Joffrey to vent his anger on them, so he sold his armor and disguised himself as a commoner.

He let his beard grow and joined the rest of the citizens of King's Landing who were trying to stay out of the war.

He was among the crowd that witnessed the beheading of Lord Eddard Stark, and afterward, he prayed for him in the Great Sept of Baelor, thanking the gods that he had been dismissed.

Events like these forced Barristan to reevaluate his years as Captain of Robert's Kingsguard. In the end, he decided that he had done an unforgivable and terrible job in Robert's service. He thought Robert was a good knight, but not a good king, and Barristan felt that he should find the true king and swear allegiance to him. This thought led Barristan to finally sail across the Narrow Sea to Pentos.

Because he had heard Varys's report on Viserys from King Robert.

He found Illyrio in Pentos, but Viserys had just disappeared, so he had to wait for news from Viserys with the Governor of Pentos.

And this wait lasted until Viserys captured Dragonstone, and countless rumors about the Dragon King spread to Pentos. Viserys's first fleet commander Grolal went to Pentos to meet the "Dragon King's Finance Minister", and he finally came near the king he wanted to observe.

By this time, Barristan was no longer sure whether he was still qualified to serve Viserys, and he didn't know how Viserys would view him. Barristan heard about the Dragon King's treatment of the guards of Dragonstone Castle.

It was said that when the king held a funeral for the dead soldiers and the soldiers who attended the funeral were done, if he asked them to surrender, they would have sworn allegiance willingly. But the fact was that the Dragon King did not ask any of those who surrendered to surrender, and he has kept them in the dark prison until now, and no one knows what he is planning.

Like all travelers who came to Dragonstone during this period, Barristan saw the dragons in the designated gathering area of ​​the town, and then went to see the rumored cemetery of the dead on both sides of the attack on Dragonstone.

The cemetery was in the Dragonstone Cemetery. Many people came to see it out of curiosity to see if the story was true or not. There were even people selling flowers outside the cemetery.

Barristan walked into the cemetery and was shocked by the more than a hundred new tombs. For a war, the number of casualties was not that many in the war that Barristan had experienced, but when so many new tombstones were placed together, he still felt sad.

After most wars, almost no one would take care of the bodies of the defeated troops on the battlefield unless there were relatives or nobles to collect them.

If there was a church near a battlefield, gravediggers would sometimes be sent out. However, gravediggers usually could not handle so many corpses, and the battlefield was chaotic, so gravediggers were often in danger. Many times, the corpses on the battlefield could only be left to be eaten by wild beasts or rot, and eventually turned into piles of bones in the wild.

Even in a small battle like Dragonstone where only a hundred people died, the bodies of the defeated were usually either burned or buried randomly, and would not be handled as decently as they were now.

Barristan looked at the tombstones. They showed the names of the dead and the places they came from, not the soldiers or subjects of any king.

Even the victors' tombs were not ostentatious, and Viserys did not write any big words on any tombstone. The victors' tombstones were all engraved with a pattern of dragon scales, and at the front of the tombstone was a monument in the shape of a giant dragon head.

Above is the bilingual version of "Dragonstone Memorial" in Common and Valyrian, said to be written by Viserys himself, and below is a line of small words, "Here rest the victims remembered forever by Viserys Targaryen."

It is said that these dead were foreign soldiers brought back by Viserys from Essos in the east. These people had no children to inherit the rewards, so he gave them additional honors in this way.

Walking in the cemetery, Barristan suddenly wanted to know what the king thought of the war? What did he think of the dead on both sides of the war?
After leaving the cemetery, Barristan came to the most novel street on Dragonstone Island, which was used to manage island affairs.

Originally, this was just the location of the town's garrison's bell tower, armory, training ground and a warehouse for the castle owner. Now, except for the garrison part that remains unchanged, those warehouses have been turned into various affairs departments managed on the island.

The largest warehouse was converted into an accounting, port, taxation, and customs office under the jurisdiction of the finance department. Dragonstone Island under the Dragon King's rule used legal means to recover the tax rights of the tax farmers and set up its own tax collection team. Many of the heavy taxes imposed by the lords during the war were even more stringent when they were imposed on the tax farmers. The Dragon King strictly prohibited all kinds of heavy taxes and rectified the taxation. He specifically removed the legal taxes from the laws and regulations and let the newly established tax department collect them according to the law - although most of the tax officials were still the same people as before, the big taxes remained unchanged.

However, the change is actually the clerk system that Viserys quietly promoted, which has gone the furthest in the Ministry of Finance, and many people in this world are not aware of it. A group of clerks who are not yet called civil servants have filled various functions of the department and work according to Viserys's rules - although they are very immature in Viserys' eyes now, I believe that after they are familiar with the business, they can be transformed into secretaries of ministers and supervisors at any time, freeing up their positions for nobles and politicians to work. These clerks will become "humble social tools" and work hard to "implement the will of the ministers."

Next to the Finance Office is the Legal Arbitration Department's office. Because the king does not have a Minister of Justice now, when something needs legal arbitration, people always have to go to the castle to find the lord or the acting lord. However, most of the things are trivial and the functions of this agency have not been completely clarified. At present, it is aimed at handling those trivial matters and the preliminary hearing of some important cases. Because Dragonstone is currently stable, their main task is to assist the Finance Department in managing taxes and adjudicating taxes. Because there is no problem yet, Viserys is not sure whether the Legal Department can do the same thing as the Finance Department.

There is also a so-called reception desk.
Dragonstone was not big enough, and the government affairs of a small town were not that troublesome. But Viserys needed a test field to try to implement the civil service system he understood in Westeros, and to make changes while doing it, until this deformed system in his hands met his ruling needs. Dragonstone was undoubtedly now serving as a test subject.

However, Barristan had no way of understanding Viserys's purpose behind doing this. He just came to visit out of curiosity to see what these new things looked like and whether they were harsh or good policies.

But Barristan was just joining in the fun. He didn't even know how the underlying financial affairs of the Seven Kingdoms were run in the past, let alone now.

What he understood was the army and knights. Here, Barristan saw many free riders and hired knights from other places queuing up at the reception set up on Dragonstone Island, trying to see the king. But Barristan saw that many of these people were taken to a temporary military camp built on a flat land outside the town. According to his prediction, these people might be reorganized into a temporary army and serve as scouts, vanguards or light cavalry in wartime. Because even those who have their own horses are not of noble birth, if they are not desperate, they can wait for a better opportunity to join the army in order to survive.

Barristan knew very well that many of those who were willing to enter the military camp for reorganization did so so that they would not have to pay for their own food and that of their horses.

Barristan watched here for a while. Although he had a clear understanding of the affairs of these free riders and hedge knights, he himself was also very confused. He felt that it would be difficult for him to ask for an audience with Viserys through normal means. Illyrio promised to introduce him, but he refused.

Barristan didn't know whether he was a traitor in Viserys's eyes. He had sworn allegiance to the Targaryens until death and became the Kingsguard of the Targaryen King. The glorious deeds that people spread about him could not cover up the fact that he had served Baratheon. If the Dragon King rejected him with this reason, how should he deal with it?

Barristan had actually only intended to take a quick look, but when he was reading the Dragon King's notice of a reward for saving the Blackwater River at the bulletin board on a business management street, he suddenly heard light footsteps approaching, which made him clench his hardwood cane.

There are not many people at the notice board. After all, there are no portraits to be seen here like the list of domestic criminals in the center of the town, and literacy is a scarce talent not only in Dragonstone, but also in the Seven Kingdoms.

Although Barristan was old, he still thought that his ears were very sharp. He never thought that in a place like Dragonstone, he would have to be within four or five body lengths of someone on the street before he could notice him.

Barristan turned his head and saw that the person who came was an ordinary-looking middle-aged man. He was not carrying a sword and was dressed like a respectable man. The man was concentrating on the recruitment information for the Dragonstone Castle Affairs Officer on the bulletin board beside Barristan.

Not long after, the man turned around and left, strolling towards the office of the affairs department on Dragonstone.

Barristan watched the man walk away, but he walked lightly.

He turned his head and looked at the notice board, which said that Dragonstone Castle was urgently recruiting clerks who could read and write. He suddenly became interested. It was said that clerks would have the opportunity to meet the Dragon King himself in the castle.

(End of this chapter)