First Meeting of the Athenaeum Club (6)

This time Lord Harlaw really felt pressured. Even though he was an iron born at heart he still valued the relationship with the nobles of Westeros and the opportunities this could bring, mostly for his own family and the island of Harlaw.

Being able to connect with so many different families and getting the support of House Di Natale might even make the Harlaw family strong enough to content with the Greyjoy family. He knew exactly how insane and power hungry the brothers of House Greyjoy really were, and this would definitely lead to many many problems for the Iron Islands in the future.

Being able to protect oneself already seemed like quite the luxury, but this newfound opportunity opened new choices for him. Of course, he wouldn't let this chance slip away from him just for some honor and pride.

"Thank you, Lord Di Natale, for including the Iron Islands into this private club and I assure you that House Harlaw will do anything necessary to respect the members and rules of the Athenaeum club.

I can't represent all the Iron Islands and House Greyjoy, but I will try everything in my power.

But please understand that while I am on Dustspear I can control my soldiers and I can protect any business related to the private club. However, this doesn't mean the Iron Islands will suddenly have no conflicts with Westeros nor with any of the members of the Iron Islands. Even if I promised something similar to this, neither Lord Mallister nor Lord Crakehall would ever believe this."

Victor could see and feel approval of those conditions among the Lords present. Honestly that was already more than he expected. Don't think you could bribe the Iron Islands with money and make them work for you. Even if he did that, they would probably betray him and the Athenaeum club as soon as they turned around with their payment.

Having a spokesperson like Lord Harlaw and his family was already the best that could have happened. Of course, Victor understood Rodrik Harlaw's desire to improve his own power to contest with House Greyjoy, but he not only didn't dislike this, but he would also even be highly supportive in the future. Having a certain balance of power is always a huge bargain for him to improve his network.

Only if there is a need for support can he slowly infiltrate a new location and make them rely on him and his business alliance. At this point many critical questions and highly provocative answers were already spoken out loud. Victor didn't want to make the meeting to emotional and only about negativity.

"I would suggest taking a small break for now and giving everybody the chance to calm their emotions. I have already prepared a large banquet for the first official meeting. Please follow the servants towards the banquet hall."

After clearing the first few major obstacles of the new private club Victor first decided to have an opening banquet together to lessen the tense environment and make everybody as comfortable as possible.

After dining on the finest delicacies and finest wines for a while, everybody left the banquet hall satisfied and returned to the meeting hall.

"Now that we cleared the most important questions at the start and got seemingly convincing and satisfactory answers. But they are still many questions left open, for sure.

But instead of letting you ask all your questions one after another I decided to first introduce you some simply things about the club and the future.

Let's first start with some simple rules and regulations. We will have one mandatory meeting on today's date every single year and maybe some special events, to which club members will receive invitations, but there is no problem if you do not appear. Pretty simple up to this point.

During every yearly meeting we will include up to three additional members. One member can be a single person or even a whole noble family, as well as a rich merchant or large institution, like the Iron Bank for example.

To include a member into the Athenaeum club he would need at least 50% of all the club members to support his joining and one special member that is taking responsibility for him. If a member you are responsible for makes a large mistake, you might even be excluded, depending on the severity of the situation. This means you should be very careful before you decide to pledge for a new member.

While on Dustspear any force is strictly prohibited. Anyone attacking a member of the Athenaeum club on Dustspear will be immediately excluded by the club and put on a blacklist. I don't think it is necessary to explain the aftermath in detail.

There is no regulation for any meeting outside of Dustspear though. But there is still one special regulation. Every member of the club will receive a special sign made of cloud steel which will represent your identity within the club. You don't have to make this sign public, but if you use this sign to close any form of contract with another club member that uses his sign as well, any betrayal on the contract is strictly forbidden and would lead to the same consequences as an attack on Dustspear.

Apart from these regulations there are no more rules. Everything is allowed if you do not conflict with the contract. Any contract formed between club members with their original seal can be left on Dustspear for safekeeping. The Di Natale family will make sure that there is no false judgement or any dispute due to a formed contract."

After finishing those set of rules Victor took a break for a while and let the information settle down. Many members had thoughtful expressions on their face, but nobody was against any of the mentioned rules, as they were not unfavorable for any member and didn't force them into anything they didn't like. 

Many people were thinking about how bad the consequences of a breach of contract would even be, but when they thought of the recent history of House Di Natale and their conquest of the Stepstones, they decided to rather not test the patience of this young leader of an influential family.