Hugh Hammer (ASOIF/SI)

 "We should have disposed of him while we had the chance!"

 Ormund Hightower muttered, his face darkening with anger, and not

 a little from the wine he had drunk during their meal.

 They were dining in the Kings chambers in Maegor's Holdfast,

 appropriated by him, as they had been done by the previous Regent,

 Daemon Targaryen. If one was going to be the de facto King, one

 might as well surround oneself with the trappings of power no?

 "We very nearly did, Lord Strong only escaped by the slimmest of

 margins, and we remain on the lookout for him, a clubfooted man is

 not easy to hide after all."

 "He hid from you for nigh on two years!" Lord Ormund retorted, "he's,

 he's a bloody slippery one that Strong, and the longer he remains at

 large, the greater the threat he becomes to us! I warn you; he will be

 busy spying and plotting even now, we cannot afford to drop our

 guard!"

 "You fret to much my Lord Hand, it is nigh on a year since the end of

 the war, the realm is at peace, winter holds us in its icy grip, nobody

 has an appetite for resuming any sort of conflict. We, you and I rule,

 and we seek to bind up the wounds of the war."

 'And you plot incessantly against me' he left unsaid out loud. The

 Hightower Lord had been nothing but a thorn in his side ever since

 he had arrived in Kings Landing and had botched the killing of Lord

 Strong. Oh, Hightower rejected any blame for that fiasco, but it had

 been his arrogance and overconfidence that had allowed Lord

 Strong to slip away.

 Well, that was not absolutely accurate, unknown brigands had set

 upon the men sent to kill Lord Strong and the former Master of

 Whispers had disappeared as if into thin air. And nothing they had

done had brought them even a hint of his whereabouts, despite

 exhaustive efforts and substantial bounties being placed on Lord

 Strong's head.

 And despite the bleating's of Lord Hightower about the danger of

 Lord Strong, it had not stopped him immediately setting to work to

 undermine him as Regent, no doubt lusting after the title for himself.

 He had watched this with some amusement, his agents reporting on

 the moves and meetings the Hand was making, even some of the

 promises of places on the Small Council once he was elevated to

 Regent. He had to laugh, did this fool not realise that a war had just

 been fought, and that stuffing the Small Council with former Greens

 was a shockingly bad idea? Apparently not, this Hightower seemed

 to just as arrogant as his uncle Lord Otto had been.

 Just as well there were no more winsome Hightower daughters to be

 paraded at court and maybe even slipped into a King, or a Prince's

 bed?

 Well, maybe not the later, Ormund could barely stand the presence

 of Hugh, though he masked it well enough in Small Council meetings

 the Hightower Lord had no time for Hugh at all. He had found out

 that not only did the Hightower Lord have papers from the Starry

 Sept rejecting Hugh's elevation to Knighthood, but he also had a

 similar document from the Faith of the Seven annulling the bestowal

 of the Targaryen name on Prince Hugh.

 That he had acted on neither of these told him that both of these

 documents were part of a wider plot, and probably linked to his

 downfall and Ormund's elevation to the Regency. The dubious

 legality of both documents troubled him not one bit, but it was their

 potential usage to gain allies that troubled him most.

 The fall of Prince Hugh would cut off the best dragonrider available

 to the Iron Throne, and frankly the best tutor for the royal children,

 from both sides of the former conflict. Hugh was kind and attentive to

all of them, and all looked forwards eagerly to their lessons with

 Hugh in the Dragonpit.

 Which enraged Hightower, who, along with a few other Lords, verily

 frothed at the mouth at the thoughts of a bastard tutoring those of

 royal blood. Interestingly these same Lords seemed to have no

 problem with either Addam or Alys, who also were involved in the

 tutoring of the Royal children. The former aided Hugh in their training

 with the dragons, the later was wont to spar with the King and his

 younger brother.

 He smiled to himself, it was not just dragon lore and riding that Hugh

 was teaching either, his charges often came back from their sessions

 with outrageous concepts falling from their lips, like this so-called

 concept of 'the rule of law'. The utterly ridiculous notion that all men,

 no matter their birth, were equal before the laws. What utter tosh,

 and no wonder Hugh's presence was becoming increasingly an

 anathema to certain lords.

 Not to all of them mind you, and certainly not to those with maiden

 daughters looking for marriages. Prince Hugh was a prime target for

 these, and the lad was sticking religiously to his mourning period of

 one year and one month from the death of Rhaena. His anger boiled

 at this memory, for he knew, with terrible certainty that the cunt he

 was dining with, and Lord Strong, were responsible for the death of

 his granddaughter. His agents had finally uncovered the necessary

 evidence to show that they had planned for the death of his

 granddaughter during the 'Day of Fire and Blood'.

 Like Hightower he was hoarding this knowledge until just the right

 time to use it, but he knew he would get the jump on this oh so

 smug, oh so sly cunt. His agents were able to provide him with a

 very accurate flow of information on Hightower, which he had not yet

 acted on, so as not to spook Ormund, but soon, very soon he would

 act and crush this fucker.

 And he was not a forgiving man when it came to outrages against his

 blood like this, especially the way little Rhaena had died, oh no,

there would be a reckoning, of that he was sure. Though she had

 been his granddaughter, she had been married so the vengeance

 was Hugh's, he would give him that with pleasure, oh yes, with

 pleasure.

 Because Hugh was his weapon, the lad was unwittingly the

 guarantor of his position, and the instrument of his vengeance.

 Hightower and his ilk were so busy plotting to overthrow him that

 they appeared to have failed to realise the trap they were walking

 into. For despite seeming to agree to their terms shortly after the Day

 of Fire and Blood he had never truly accepted what they had wanted.

 Oh, he had gone along with the pretense of agreeing to their terms,

 even allowing Ormund here to not only keep his head but even serve

 as Hand of the King. He had forgone the vengeance that the Iron

 Throne should have imposed on the rebel Lords, the attainments,

 the bending of the knee or swearing the oaths of a Brother of the

 Nights Watch, the rewarding of lands to loyal Houses. And he had

 done this, even though it had stuck in his very gut, to enable as swift

 a return to peace as possible, but not just for that reason. No, he

 wanted his enemies lulled into a false sense of security, he wanted

 these cunts to think that they indeed had 'won', before he would let

 the long overdue justice be done for those who thought they could

 impugn the will of a King and murder without consequence.

 A part of him hoped Hugh would burn Ormund and Strong, another

 part of him wanted Hugh to impale them, if he was honest he would

 prefer impalement, he would like to see Ormund Hightower dying

 slowly on the stake, hopefully with Lord Strong alongside him.

 "Strong, Strong knows too much Corlys!" Burped Lord Hightower,

 waving his wineglass before him like some sort of a weapon, the

 priceless Yi-Ti made wineglass looking fragile and almost

 insubstantial in the candlelight.

 "He is in all likelihood dead dear Ormund, we have heard noting of

 him, not a single even potential sighting of him. He's dead, or fled to

 Essos, we need not concern ourselves with him." He was not so

sure of this, and he hoped that Strong was still around, if only to

 capture and kill him, though it was annoying in the extreme that he

 could not be found. These assertations of his in relation to the likely

 demise of Lord Strong were for Ormund Hightower's consumption

 and to ally his fears, though he cared not in truth if they did ally

 Hightower's fears.

 "When will that dammed savage return home to the North where he

 belongs!" Hightower blurted out, after taking another long gulp of his

 wine, anger once more flushing his face.

 Ah yes, another favorite topic of Hightower, the objectionable

 presence of Lord Stark, his wife, and the remaining Northern Army.

 Hightower and Stark had a by now almost pathological hatred for

 each other, stoked mainly by Hightower and his machinations and

 often less than subtle moves against the Warden of the North. He

 could not for the life of him understand why Hightower was choosing

 to make such an enemy of Lord Stark, the man would be returning to

 the North once his wife birthed their child, and Lord Stark's men had

 proven instrumental in both securing Kings Landing and keeping the

 peace in both the city itself and its immediate environs.

 He chuckled to himself; he had decided that as part of the fall of

 House Hightower he would take a leaf out of Prince Daemon's book

 and carry out some changes to how the boundaries of the various

 realms were drawn. He would do this anyway as part of his

 vengeance after Ormund was safely mounted atop the stake that

 awaited him.

 "My Lord Hand, your well know dislike for the Warden of the North

 needs to be curtailed, least it leads to trouble. Lord Starks Lady wife

 is near to birthing their first child, once this is done then Lord Stark

 will not delay more than a moon or two at most."

 "The sooner he is gone the better, his army is a dagger poised at our

 throats!"

"Lord Stark has shown no willingness to engage in the games of

 court," he replied, wondering if the wine had truly gone to Ormund's

 head, or if he was putting on a display of mummery.

 "Just as well, he could have been a problem….for us."

 "But he was not, and nor does he seem likely to be one. But if needs

 be we could always impose the necessary pressure to ensure he

 does not become a problem…"

 "That gobby cunt of a wife of his! Hardly a Lady at all, more of a

 wench if truth be told….could you get to her?"

 "If required," he lied, noticing delight dance in Lord Ormund's eyes at

 this, before he extinguished this telling sign.

 "Good, I have only had marginal success in that regard…."

 Interesting, and he wondered if it was true or not, he just picked up

 his own wine glass and took a sip, with a satisfied smile plastered on

 his face.