That worst of all self indulgences, the self insert. This will be my project for blowing off steam and procrastinating on other things I should be doing. I can, as always, be swayed by audience interest.

The self being inserted here is me before I went on my ASoIaF SI reading binge a few weeks ago, so "my" knowledge is a little spotty.

ooOoo

Say one thing about the Iron Bank of Braavos, say they know how to build a waiting room. Enormous, all done up in marble, subtly elevated thrones for the bankers and simple benches for the visitor. They didn't miss a trick. Say two things about the Iron Bank, say they aren't shy about making a man wait. It had been a good hour and a half since I'd been let into the room, and there was still no sign of our hosts.

I'd occupied the time by looking out the window and admiring the wonderful view over Fantasy Ancient Greece. Even from up here it was pretty obvious how much better they had their shit together compared to King's Landing. Sometimes I wondered if they had never conquered Westeros only because they weren't quite sure the dragons were really gone. I suppose their passion for the Greek national hobby of warring with their rival cities had kept them busy, too.

Hopefully there's no Fantasy Alexander coming down the pike in one of the books I never read. There's nothing like the random self-insert experience to make you regret putting your real work ahead of your fantasy reading.

Walder Frey was hovering by my elbow. Not that Walder Frey. One of the younger ones. He was the least cunty Frey I'd been able to find, as evidenced by his ability to follow directions and keep his fucking mouth shut while we were inside the Iron Bank. The Freys as a whole were kind of a mess, but they were also one of the most powerful of House Tully's vassals. If I could turn a Frey into a decent, functional adult, that would give my brother one less thing to bitch at me about. Not that he would feel the lack.

The Iron Bank's sense of showmanship extended to the dramatic entrance. The three bank representatives entered together. They almost marched in step to their designated thrones, and sat as if on a pre-arranged signal. The one in the middle seemed to be their spokesman.

"Welcome to the Iron Bank."

His command of Westerosi common was flawless, which was a relief. I had access to dim childhood memories of learning High Valyrian and I'd been doing my best to pick up the Low Valyrian that was the common language of Essos, but it was slow going. Useful as it could be to be thought of as an uncultured barbarian, I'd rather be able to communicate clearly. Besides, they probably thought I was a barbarian anyways.

I followed his directions and took a seat on the bench.

"Ser Brynden Tully. How can we help you?"

"Perhaps we can help each other," I said. "After the recent excitement, we've got a lot of young men out west with a taste of battle who don't want to settle down to the quiet life. And perhaps one or two old men as well."

I pulled a sheaf of papers from a pocket and set it down on the table. The unnecessarily large marble table. I slid it out until it was within reach of the spokesman before continuing.

"I figure I can raise a thousand men easily enough. Take some time getting them used to working as a unit, then start hiring on as sellswords. If things go well, we can expand later."

He took a moment to page through the papers I'd handed him. He had a pretty good poker face, but I could tell he was surprised. And well he should be. This was probably the only time on this planet that the ability to put together a decent financial pitch would be worth a damn, so I'd gone all out. Startup costs, projected revenues and expenses in baseline, optimistic, and pessimistic scenarios, all the assumptions spelled out and justified. I even had a market survey comparing the fees and services offered by other sellswords, along with the implied wage paid by those who went with the Unsullied for their defensive needs. It was a nice piece of work. It was a shame that my public image demanded that I not take credit for it.

"If this is accurate, I don't see why you need money from us at all."

"I know a few things about war, but business?" I said, shrugging. "Now, if the Iron Bank takes a look at my plans and opens their vaults, I'll know my idea's worth something."

It was true, too. Just because these guys had never heard of Black-Scholes didn't mean they were stupid. They were running a multi national banking empire without so much as a calculator. They had real practical knowledge about operating a business in Essos where I only had speculation.

Of course, having the Iron Bank invested in my success would be useful in other ways. Especially if I was going to be bidding on Braavosi government contracts. It was usually considered gauche to mention that kind of thing out loud, though.

He was nodding along, so I kept going. "And while I might think I've got enough gold to see me through, one thing I've learned over the years is that things seldom go exactly to plan. Having more gold on hand can't hurt."

That was just common sense.

"Still, I have to say," he replied, "in my experience those of the Sunset Kingdoms prefer to keep their lending in the family if at all possible. I know the Riverlands suffered in the recent fighting, but I did not think it was in truly dire straits."

However delicately put, he was questioning my family's solvency. This is where I could have really sold the barbarian sucker image by getting all pissy. By the time that thought even crossed my mind, though, I had already given in to my first instinct and thrown back my head and laughed out loud.

"My brother would give me that much money and more... just as soon as I married the girl of his choice," I said. "You can consider that a surety, if you want. I consider it a last resort."

They were taken aback by the laughter, but settled down at the explanation. The spokesman glanced at his colleagues, receiving a shallow nod from each, then turned back to me.

"We'll need to take some time to decide the particulars, but I don't see any reason we can't work together," he said. I felt the knot in my stomach loosen, and gave him a nod in reply. "There was one thing in your papers, a phrase I didn't recognize. What are 'naming rights'?"

"Well, I'm going to be creating one of the finest companies of sellswords in the land here," I said, smiling. "I haven't settled on a name yet... but I thought 'the Iron Men' had a nice ring to it."

ooOoo

When I woke up and saw the stars above me, the first thing that went through my mind was: I didn't think I was out camping last night. The second thought was: by the Seven, Edmure snores fit to wake the dead.

This was not followed by an extended bout of panicking largely, I think, due to my access to Brynden Tully's memories. I remembered riding south with the levies of the Riverlands. I remembered accepting Edmure as my squire. I remembered the Battle of the Trident. I remembered arriving at King's Landing to find it already taken by the Lannisters. I remembered riding back north, shedding levies along the way, until only the men of Riverrun itself were sleeping in the woods surrounding Edmund and me.

I also remembered reading the first few books in the song of ice and fire series several years ago, and always meaning to get around to watching the tv show. I remembered that somebody had put together a handy list of facts for time travelers to memorize, and thinking that it might be a good idea to take a look at it some time. I remembered that gunpowder exploded and probably had sulfur in it. My last hands-on engineering project was the raggedy chessboard I built in shop class that my mom had pretended to admire.

Well, nobody's perfect.

All this thinking did not lead to an existential crisis. Brynden Tully wasn't really the kind of guy who was susceptible to that kind of thing. For me, personally, the situation was so far beyond what I had ever considered possible that it was hard to get worked up about the metaphysics. Besides, there was plenty going on in the regular old physical world for me to worry about.

Westeros had just finished up a civil war. The end result had been to put Robert Baratheon on the throne. While Brynden remembered Robert as quite the inspiring badass on the battlefield, what he knew of his personality was perfectly consistent with my recollection of the guy who was almost, but not quite, the complete opposite of a good king. So in fifteen-shit, maybe eighteen, I remembered Robb was full grown when the fun started-anyways, in fifteen years or so we were due for a real humdinger of another civil war, possibly followed by a zombie invasion. Or dragons. Maybe both.

The question was whether I could do anything about it. I wanted to. I could feel a real familial tie to Catelyn and Lysa that went beyond the residual affection I felt for them as characters. I'd really like for them and their kids to get through everything unmurdered and unraped.

Wait, didn't Lysa do something really fucked up? Or was I just thinking that because all the named characters did fucked up stuff? It was hard to square with my memories of her as a sweet little girl who was so kind, even to nobodies like Petyr Baelish. Shit, there was something about him, too.

Well, anyways, there were severe limits on what I could do. As the younger brother of a Lord Paramount I was reasonably high up there, socially. I could even insult Tywin Lannister to his face and not die. Probably. But exerting outright influence on the public policy of the kingdom? On the basis of vague premonitions? That was beyond me.

I could go the covert intrigue route. I knew the plotters, and some of the plans. The problem was, Brynden had always been a straightforward kind of guy. I myself might know my way around office politics, but office politics never really involved putting your life on the line, at least in my experience. Even if I didn't remember the details, I did remember that the books featured plenty of plots, counter-plots, Xanatos gambits, murders, and rapes. I was safe from that last bit-probably-but I didn't at all like my odds as some kind of spymaster.

Honestly, if you wanted to play the game of thrones properly you needed an army.

ooOoo