For all that it was surrounded by a pit of viscous, vile stink (and by that he meant most of the city), the Red Keep was a welcome respite from the smell below. A respite that Olyvar stopped for a moment to breath in.

Then the Prince shook his head, signaled to the score of his household guard he had brought up with him, and began the journey through the halls of the Targaryen holdfast.

He had not been within its walls since the feast had ended, a good two and a half moons ago, now.

And it was due to that timeframe that Olyvar had returned.

The ships he had purchased in good faith, from Lord Torrhen Manderly (which, in hindsight, might have earned him an enemy should Val Stark win her war), had yet to arrive, despite the fact that, by all rights, they should have. He’d always had a head for numbers, and the Prince had done the calculating of the sailing times himself.

By all rights, the ships should have arrived a good, long while ago.

Yet, they had not.

The morning after he had made the arrangement, he had sent word back to Dorne, to his castellan, informing him to expect the shipment, and to inform him the moment the promised warships made port in Sunspear. Yet, Olyvar had received no confirmation from his castellan.

Instead, the raven that arrived bore the message that “The ships have not come.”

Olyvar was… unsure, as to how he should feel about it.

Angry? Mayhaps, if he had been swindled by the old northerner-- but, both Olyvar and the Prince within had not sensed any sort of deceit coming from the Manderly when it had been done.

Confusion? That, he had in abundance. If Torrhen had indeed not made off like a cattle-thief in the night with his gold, then what had happened?

Frustration? Oh, that he felt very keenly. He needed those ships, Dorne needed those ships-- yet, they were denied to him. Why?

Why, why why? Always why. Why did mother and father die? Why did Lorzea leave him alone? Why did it have to be him?

Because it has fallen to you, the Prince within answered. Dorne demands it. Dorne, Dorne, Dorne. Always for Dorne.

Everything for Dorne.

Olyvar steeled himself, and emerged from his inner conversation to find that he had arrived. The hallway where the Master of Coin’s quarters resided seemed plain-- or, perhaps that was because Olyvar could only focus on the sigil of House Manderly decorating the door to Lord Torrhen’s solar, which, of course, was guarded.

Signaling his own guards to stay a ways away (he had come to talk, and nothing else), Olyvar approached the Manderly men with a confident look he in no way felt, and a stride that felt foreign.

“I am Prince Olyvar Nymeros Martell, of Dorne,” he introduced. “I have come to see the Master of Coin.”