Fandomweekly Challenge 216 - Made of steel
Jan. 1st, 2025 12:10 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
m_findlowTitle: Made of steel
Fandom: Game of Thrones (A Song of Ice and Fire)
Characters: Tyrion, Bronn
Author: m_findlow
Rating: M (Language)
Length: 1,000 words
Content notes: None
Author notes: Written for Challenge 216 - Meticulous at![[community profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/community.png)
fandomweekly
Summary: : 1,000 words
Fandom: Game of Thrones (A Song of Ice and Fire)
Characters: Tyrion, Bronn
Author: m_findlow
Rating: M (Language)
Length: 1,000 words
Content notes: None
Author notes: Written for Challenge 216 - Meticulous at
fandomweeklySummary: : 1,000 words
Summary: Tyrion’s plan to protect the city requires precision and a small army.
Tyrion didn't have much of a need to visit the Street of Steel, but he had never recalled it being as loud as it was today.
‘It's like every fucker in King's Landing has turned to smithing,’ Bronn remarked, helping Tyrion to wend his way through the organised chaos by using his more imposing height and the longsword hanging at his side to cut a path through for them.
‘That was the plan,’ Tyrion replied, keeping his eyes peeled for the one man who would not be as coated in black soot and sweat as the rest of them. Goodman Ironbelly was the king of steel, if such a position existed, and he now commanded the second most important function in King’s Landing beyond that of the City Watch.
He finally spotted the man barking orders at a half dozen men half his age, sending them scurrying. In his full leather apron he towered over both Tyrion and Bronn, arms like legs of beef, capable of crushing a man with his fists alone, let alone a hammer. ‘Lord Hand,’ he said, offering as much courtesy as someone of lower birth could muster.
‘I've come to inspect our progress,’ Tyrion said, yelling to be heard over the deafening hammering of steel on steel and the hiss of water on hot metal.
‘Six hundred and twenty chain done, My Lord.’ Still a far cry from the thousand Tyrion had requested but perhaps more than he’d expected a legion of simple blacksmiths to have completed so far. They still had time by Tyrion’s calculations, if efforts remained constant. That in itself however was an assumption.
He moved towards one end of the enormous chain link that wound around between furnaces and anvils, spilling out onto the streets, like a behemoth serpent made of steel. Each link was nearly as wide as Tyrion was tall. It simply had to be if it was to have any hope of stretching all the way across the Blackwater and preventing a fleet of ships from escaping the bay. He stood before a single huge link, and began to visually inspect it, measuring it up against his exacting specifications.
It had appeared a strange request when he sent his servants in search of a tailor’s measuring tape. He could imagine the chatter amongst the serving staff filtering around the Red Keep that the temporary Hand of the King was showing signs of doddery madness. Nevermind, he had been brought what he wanted and he removed it from his pocket now, unravelling the thin, supple strip of hide, intricately pyrographed with markings for fine measurements of inches and half inches and quarter inches. He checked one chain, then three more. ‘An inch and a half short,’ he announced, turning to Ironbelly for an explanation.
The large smith simply shrugged. ‘Close enough.’
‘Not nearly.’
Ironbelly bristled and Bronn stepped between them, lowering himself to hiss loudly in Tyrion's ear. ‘There’s such a thing as too precise.’
‘Said no commander who ever went into battle and lived to tell of the victory.’ He pushed past Bronn and eyed the blacksmith. ‘You'll make sixty more to account for the inaccuracies.’
‘Sixty?’
‘Yes, sixty. A conservative contingency.’ He'd done the math in his head quicker than that blacksmith might have taken off his boots and counted his ten toes.
‘I’ve got saddlers needing bridle parts, farriers needing horseshoes, coopers needing hoops for barrels. Not to mention every hedge knight worth his mettle with a spare coin in his purse wanting armour. And that’s not counting your own City Watchmen. I haven’t the men to spare to make them new breastplates and helms as it is.’
‘And when any of them are paying you what the Crown is paying, please feel free to give them your custom. Twenty gold dragons for every link of steel is far more for the hours required than any hedge knight’s costume armour.’ Small matter that Robert had beggared the realm during his reign. Littlefinger was still finding coin whenever Cersei needed it. He could do the same for the Hand of the King. ‘Come to mention it, how are you faring in sourcing the requisite steel?’ He needed to know that the City Watch were abiding his orders to have every scrap of iron and steel in the city reclaimed for the purpose, and not simply doing the bidding of his sister, who was no more the King than he.
‘Harder to come by each day,’ came the honest reply.
‘If you see a horse past its days of pulling carts, I grant you permission to have the poor creature put out of its misery in a kindly manner and to compensate the owner for both his horse and metal. Likewise for any innkeeper with barrels he doesn’t need for ale, though what you do with the innkeeper himself I care not.’ Beasts of burden deserve a kind ending. Greed-filled innkeeps were a different matter.
‘The City Watch will have their effort redoubled. Any man seen carrying steel who does not immediately pledge his life to the King and the city’s defence shall be stripped of armour and arms and placed in stocks until he changes his mind.’ Stocks at least required no excess steel, unlike the cells within the Red Keep, where chains and bars were plentiful. Vagabonds and innocents both had flooded within the city walls, thinking it a refuge, rather than the locus for the battle to come.
Ironbelly seemed to think on this for a moment, perhaps doing his own calculations of just how much gold he could make from this one transaction before turning to the dozen smith's behind him. ‘Get those bellows going! Keep 'em hot! We've got work to do!’
‘I'm glad we're able to come to a mutually beneficial accord,’ Tyrion said. Further proof that it paid to be meticulous in making sure things got done. Perhaps more so now than ever before. His own life might depend on it.
‘It's like every fucker in King's Landing has turned to smithing,’ Bronn remarked, helping Tyrion to wend his way through the organised chaos by using his more imposing height and the longsword hanging at his side to cut a path through for them.
‘That was the plan,’ Tyrion replied, keeping his eyes peeled for the one man who would not be as coated in black soot and sweat as the rest of them. Goodman Ironbelly was the king of steel, if such a position existed, and he now commanded the second most important function in King’s Landing beyond that of the City Watch.
He finally spotted the man barking orders at a half dozen men half his age, sending them scurrying. In his full leather apron he towered over both Tyrion and Bronn, arms like legs of beef, capable of crushing a man with his fists alone, let alone a hammer. ‘Lord Hand,’ he said, offering as much courtesy as someone of lower birth could muster.
‘I've come to inspect our progress,’ Tyrion said, yelling to be heard over the deafening hammering of steel on steel and the hiss of water on hot metal.
‘Six hundred and twenty chain done, My Lord.’ Still a far cry from the thousand Tyrion had requested but perhaps more than he’d expected a legion of simple blacksmiths to have completed so far. They still had time by Tyrion’s calculations, if efforts remained constant. That in itself however was an assumption.
He moved towards one end of the enormous chain link that wound around between furnaces and anvils, spilling out onto the streets, like a behemoth serpent made of steel. Each link was nearly as wide as Tyrion was tall. It simply had to be if it was to have any hope of stretching all the way across the Blackwater and preventing a fleet of ships from escaping the bay. He stood before a single huge link, and began to visually inspect it, measuring it up against his exacting specifications.
It had appeared a strange request when he sent his servants in search of a tailor’s measuring tape. He could imagine the chatter amongst the serving staff filtering around the Red Keep that the temporary Hand of the King was showing signs of doddery madness. Nevermind, he had been brought what he wanted and he removed it from his pocket now, unravelling the thin, supple strip of hide, intricately pyrographed with markings for fine measurements of inches and half inches and quarter inches. He checked one chain, then three more. ‘An inch and a half short,’ he announced, turning to Ironbelly for an explanation.
The large smith simply shrugged. ‘Close enough.’
‘Not nearly.’
Ironbelly bristled and Bronn stepped between them, lowering himself to hiss loudly in Tyrion's ear. ‘There’s such a thing as too precise.’
‘Said no commander who ever went into battle and lived to tell of the victory.’ He pushed past Bronn and eyed the blacksmith. ‘You'll make sixty more to account for the inaccuracies.’
‘Sixty?’
‘Yes, sixty. A conservative contingency.’ He'd done the math in his head quicker than that blacksmith might have taken off his boots and counted his ten toes.
‘I’ve got saddlers needing bridle parts, farriers needing horseshoes, coopers needing hoops for barrels. Not to mention every hedge knight worth his mettle with a spare coin in his purse wanting armour. And that’s not counting your own City Watchmen. I haven’t the men to spare to make them new breastplates and helms as it is.’
‘And when any of them are paying you what the Crown is paying, please feel free to give them your custom. Twenty gold dragons for every link of steel is far more for the hours required than any hedge knight’s costume armour.’ Small matter that Robert had beggared the realm during his reign. Littlefinger was still finding coin whenever Cersei needed it. He could do the same for the Hand of the King. ‘Come to mention it, how are you faring in sourcing the requisite steel?’ He needed to know that the City Watch were abiding his orders to have every scrap of iron and steel in the city reclaimed for the purpose, and not simply doing the bidding of his sister, who was no more the King than he.
‘Harder to come by each day,’ came the honest reply.
‘If you see a horse past its days of pulling carts, I grant you permission to have the poor creature put out of its misery in a kindly manner and to compensate the owner for both his horse and metal. Likewise for any innkeeper with barrels he doesn’t need for ale, though what you do with the innkeeper himself I care not.’ Beasts of burden deserve a kind ending. Greed-filled innkeeps were a different matter.
‘The City Watch will have their effort redoubled. Any man seen carrying steel who does not immediately pledge his life to the King and the city’s defence shall be stripped of armour and arms and placed in stocks until he changes his mind.’ Stocks at least required no excess steel, unlike the cells within the Red Keep, where chains and bars were plentiful. Vagabonds and innocents both had flooded within the city walls, thinking it a refuge, rather than the locus for the battle to come.
Ironbelly seemed to think on this for a moment, perhaps doing his own calculations of just how much gold he could make from this one transaction before turning to the dozen smith's behind him. ‘Get those bellows going! Keep 'em hot! We've got work to do!’
‘I'm glad we're able to come to a mutually beneficial accord,’ Tyrion said. Further proof that it paid to be meticulous in making sure things got done. Perhaps more so now than ever before. His own life might depend on it.
