- 249 AC -
(3rd Person POV)
The seawater glittered under the light of spring as the boat bearing the image of a rose, the emblem of House Tyrell, cut through the waters toward Oldtown. Unlike other children brought to the Citadel in dreams of chains and links, the passenger within was not of age nor of ordinary birth. He was Roboute Tyrell, heir to Highgarden. He had seen two name days, and already, his presence and gaze felt heavy with purpose.
To look upon him was to feel unsettled. Physically had the innocence of a child - soft cheeks, short golden curls, a voice that had not yet hardened. But his eyes and facial muscles, gods, those were unsettling to most. They were not a child's. They belonged to something older and more regal, something far more observant than a human child. And the Maester awaiting the young Roboute in Oldtown knew it.
Maester Ballabar had felt the pressure that gaze brought with it before, during those strange and terrible weeks at Highgarden. Since the letters Roboute had intercepted, his slavery that had followed, and the day the boy had calmly outlined a plan that threatened the very foundation of the Citadel itself, Ballabar had not slept as soundly as he once did. He hadn't slept almost at all. Still, he was now compliant, bound by a mixture of a lot of fear, a small part of ambition, and that most dangerous of threads: curiosity.
Their ship arrived in Oldtown, and Roboute stepped off with a grace that was unnatural for his age. He might not look like it, but he was two... Two name days old! He did not run, skip, or gawk. He walked as though he already knew the place and expected it to rise and serve him. His eyes moved over everything he saw and placed it in its respective areas inside his limitless brain.
"Maester Ballabar," Roboute said, nodding his head lightly. "Good to see you here. Shall we begin?"
Ballabar blinked.
"We… shall."
And so, the time of learning for Roboute at the Citadel, the heart of knowledge in Westeros, began. All for his grand plan, the vision he had for the Reach and Westeros.
.
Roboute's presence in the Citadel was explained as an experiment—an allowance by House Tyrell, sanctioned under their right as liege to send a gifted child to observe. This notion was seconded and supported by Maester Billabar, of course, who had been told to do so. It was a novelty at first, but some of the older Maesters humoured the boy. Others found him unsettling and muttered of sorcery and blood rituals in hushed tones.
But Roboute did not behave like a child.
He did not cry, fidget, or demand attention. He sat quietly during lectures, his gaze fixed on the matters at hand, his face unchanging. He copied maps with otherworldly precision. When questioned to see whether he was even understanding a word that was being said, he replied perfectly and with precision, straight out of the books themselves. When not, he remained silent, and the silence itself became a pressure in the room, making the Maesters uncomfortable.
By the time the harvest waned that year, three Maesters had invited him to their private libraries. By the year's end, he was dining weekly with Archmaester Vaemund of History and Archmaester Ryone of the Goldlink.
It was Ryone who first asked him the question.
"You speak plainly and think dangerously. But tell me, young lord, what do you want?"
Roboute studied him a moment and, after he knew what he wanted to, answered without pause.
"I want to build something that will outlast all of us. Something beautiful. Something useful. I want to shape the minds of the next generation—and through them, reshape the realm."
Roboute had a plan on how to approach the Maesters of the Citadel to agree with his plans and to follow along with them. He was young, too young to make a difference yet. He understood himself to be special in all ways, but to truly take advantage of that special nature, he needed time to grow and unleash his full potential. So, subterfuge was necessary for now. A direct confrontation was not feasible, not at that point. Which is why he used honey to catch the flies.
"And you believe that begins… with us?" Ryone asked, amused.
"With you," Roboute replied, "and those like you—scholars who have power but no army. Influence, but no loyalty. I will give you the thing you never had, Archmaester. Authority."
Ryone said nothing. But the next morning, he sent Roboute six unopened tomes from Valyria's last libraries—under lock and key, for "his private study." It was no coincidence that Roboute chose to spend his time with Archmaester Ryone. He had singled out the most ambitious and malleable minds among the bunch. The reaction was to be expected.
.
While Roboute moved back and forth between Oldtown and Highgarden, his ideas were taking root elsewhere.
At Highgarden, under his exacting direction, field trials began. Roboute was present personally. He had read Essosi treatises on four-field crop rotation, ignored for decades by Maesters who believed Westerosi soil did not require such refinements. Roboute disagreed. He redesigned only Highgarden's western farmlands for now, insisting the peasants alternate wheat, legumes, turnips, and barley seasonally.
Roboute was there personally to convince the seasoned and older farmers who had been doing nothing else their entire lives to change what they knew and do something else. It took a lot of convincing, but Roboute's unnatural charisma, despite his unmoving facial muscles, was immense.
It took only one year to see a difference. By the next year, yields doubled. They doubled, proving Roboute and his incredible calculations correct and rewarding those farmers who decided to trust him. The granaries swelled. Food prices should have dropped, but the North was willing to buy more, while Roboute recommended that they dip the prices even lower to get into their good graces. Roboute was aware of the need for building materials, and the North had a plentiful supply of wood.
Lord Luthor, bemused and proud, signed off on whatever parchment his son presented him next. Olenna did not argue anymore, but her maids noticed her watching the horizon with narrowed eyes whenever ravens arrived from Oldtown. She couldn't have been more proud, and yet, that pride was overshadowed by the fear of what this meant for her precious son.
.
Back in the Citadel, Roboute's influence expanded furtively and slowly. He began to cultivate Maesters like a careful gardener. With some, he used praise. With others, subtle flattery. For the more ambitious, he dangled visions of something greater than the Citadel. A place where they could write, teach, command... unburdened by the Conclave's bureaucracy. A place for them to hold true power.
By now, six Maesters had joined what they called "The Circle," a minor assembly of Maesters who had pledged themselves to aid in Roboute's "future academic endeavour." Each was gifted something useful—a rare text, a schematic of sorts, or an anonymised report about one of their rivals. Roboute always knew just enough to keep them bound, yet never enough to seem threatening.
Roboute went at it strategically. He was smart. Every so often, he would gift the Maesters with expensive wine and get them to talk. He asked them, not about themselves, but about habits, likes, dislikes and other things about the other Maesters.
He used Ballabar as a proxy, though by now, the man was little more than a conduit. When one Maester grew suspicious, Roboute quietly presented him with copies of private letters written in lustful haste to a noblewoman in Lys. The Maester never mentioned his concerns again and asked to join the Circle the following week.
.
In 251 AC, Roboute returned to Highgarden briefly to oversee the final approval of Macragge. That was the official name Roboute chose. He had spent a lot of time together with his father, Lord Luthor, sending out ravens, brokering trade deals and gathering materials and funding for his project. His mind turned all of the tasks and requirements into an orderly list and then allowed his father and those he employed to do their respective parts. Not more and not less.
Roboute convened a small council, comprised of architects, craftsmen, builders, and two trusted Maesters. The project was not described as a "school," but a convergence centre: a space for martial training, tactical development, debate, agricultural innovation, and more. He spread misinformation, confusing everyone who wasn't on a strictly need-to-know basis.
He personally chose the site. The land was less fertile but accessible and slightly higher than the surrounding area, making it ideal for defence, should that ever be necessary. It sat between the world of peasants and lords, fields and towers.
The foundations were laid under Roboute's eyes, and his plans called for Lecture halls, a central atrium, three training fields: one for melee, one for formation strategy, and one for logistics simulation, garden classrooms where agriculture and economics could be taught amid the living systems they controlled and much more.
The blueprints were hand-sketched by Roboute himself, and Lord Luthor, though perplexed, signed off on everything. Olenna raised an eyebrow at everything.
"This better grows more than roses, child," she used to say.
"It will," Roboute would answer. "It will grow potential."
.
As the year 253 after Aegon's Conquest arrived, the first version of Macragge was about to be completed. Roboute left the Citadel and Oldtown and returned to Highgarden. He had learned all there was to know and was finished with it. One day, he knew, he would return and tear the Citadel down and relocate things to Macragge. But that vision was still very far into the future. Time was what he needed.
Word of Macragge did get around Westeros with many interested parties. But it was said that it was a place for the young men and women of the Reach to come together. Those who attended had to pay House Tyrell back somehow, and most would enter the military service. The prospect of having to attend a learning place together with the smallfolk was unthinkable for most Lords and Ladies of the realm, giving Macragge a natural veil of secrecy against anyone not from the Reach. Roboute didn't want anyone from the other kingdoms or even the royal family to attend. All of this was part of his design, which would be revealed in the future.
A month before Macragge's opening, Roboute sent out ravens throughout the Reach.
Each went to a prominent noble house of the Reach — Redwyne, Tarly, Rowan, Fossoway, Caswell, Hightower and more. He offered places not just for their firstborn heirs, but for second sons, clever daughters, and even favoured cousins. The message was clear: Send me the ones you want to shape into something greater. This was unprecedented. Especially to think that even young girls were accepted.
To every scroll, he attached Macragge's official seal.
The response to the invitation was not as overwhelming as it would have been had everyone truly understood what it meant. Still, dozens of Lords accepted and sent their heirs and other children to Macragge to be tutored. Within weeks, the Forum was flooded with fresh arrivals: bright-eyed youths from noble blood, riding in with chaperones, horses, and gifts. Many came expecting a castle school where they'd hone swordplay and impress their tutors. But they weren't the only ones. A few smallfolk children, boys and girls alike, were allowed to enter, all of whom were from Highgarden. The nobles naturally didn't like this, which was why they would be eased into it.
No matter what they expected, however, none of them expected to be challenged, broken, or rebuilt.