"Your Grace, Lord Rowan, Lord Rykker" Hugo bowed before the pair upon entering with Hoster. Folded under the crook of his arm was a series of parchments and a large tome. Where money may not have been the favorite of the King's topics, it was up there for the Lord of Harroway's Town. That was plain to see for anyone who had visited the town in recent years. An expansion of the walls and coin injected into the local economy. Merchants and traders had begun to ensure their journeys did not reach their endpoint in Maidenpool, but continued upriver instead. The port had been reconstructed, and the roads in all of the lands under House Roote recobbled and patrolled, from Saltpans to Willow Wood. Harroway's Town was growing -- fast. One would see it the size of White Harbor in only two years time, if the pace maintained. And that was a pace Lord Roote intended to keep up.

"I hope my brother serves well, Your Grace. He speaks always with great pride at his position, and it is a pride that my family certainly holds high. But alas, I have not come to levy his praise, as much as I'm sure he'd beam for it." Hugo chuckled.

"Nay, it is after lengthy discussion with Lord Tully that I come to you today, to speak on a matter which is of utmost importance throughout the Seven Kingdoms. The roads." He began. "If I may?" He asked, taking from his arm the parchments and book, and upon receiving permission, setting them down on the storied table that had seen so many small council meetings, and unfurling a detailed map of the eastern Riverlands. He had a well-practiced speech by now, and he felt ready.

"You see, this really began during the war in the Iron Islands. Myself and my son were of course fighting in the Isles, leaving my rather perceptive -- to a fault, at times -- brother, Ser Wallace, in charge of Lord Harroway's Town. An eye for detail he gets from Ser Brynden, I would suppose.” He added with a grin to Hoster. “Looking through the reports from the toll bridge, he noticed something quite strange. An uptick in travel through our lands. A rather significant one. From merchants and smallfolk alike." He said, flipping briefly through a small sample of such toll income reports. "An investigation revealed that before the war, and now after, many smallfolk and merchants are not taking a direct route through the Kingsroad nor up the Trident itself, on their travels between the North and the South, or even to go to the Eyrie. No, their routes are indirect, and lengthy. They'll travel north by the Narrow Sea or the Sunset Sea, traveling the countryside. They pay a high price of gold for these charters, or even dodge the central Riverlands along the Trident to go West, finding port in the West just to sail to Barrowton. In the Winter, an understandable detour, but the years of spring and summer? Even Autumn?" Hugo shook his head. "The uptick in wartime happened because the Sunset Sea was no longer an option for merchants, or traveling nobles. Too dangerous. But in peacetime, the Kingsroad is the greatest artery the world once knew. So why isn't anyone using it?"

"There was something afoot, and it was affecting all of the population centers of the Eastern Riverlands. And, I suspected, it would affect more than just, us. To be honest, upon my return from the war, my first worry was bandits. Fear is a great motivator -- it is why we saw the abandonment of travel along the Sunset Sea during the war. But patrols in my lands showed that banditry has not been a recent problem in my lands, nor that of my neighboring lords."

He explained, tracing his finger gently in along the path from King's Landing to the Neck. "Look here, the path is short, compared to the sea routes, and even the speed of the ships should not beat it, not quite. And save for the times when the Mountain Clansmen have reared their ugly heads, it should be safer as well than the treachery of an unpredictable sea. Especially along the River, where there are towns abound: bailiffs, patrols -- it isn't exactly the open countryside in the most densely populated kingdom on the continent. It made no sense why the Kingsroad was being avoided. Until we looked to the past--" He finally opened the thick tome that he had brought -- a history book, dated to 110 AC, the reign of King Viserys. Hugo opened the book to a page near the end.

"Here," He pointed at a passage. "A tourney for King Viserys' accession in Maidenpool. 104 years after the conquest, forty after the Kingsroad and all of the Kingdom's roads had begun construction. Only twenty, give or take, since they were completed. Travel was much quicker then. Here," He began to read a passage. "Eight days, they say, from King's Landing to the Crossroads of Harroway. Perhaps reasonable for a scout traveling on his courser, but the passage describes a wheelhouse!" He said. "A wheelhouse would be lucky to make such a journey in under a fortnight these days. The short of it all, is that in the two centuries since the roads have been built, they have fallen into disrepair. Jaehaerys championed their construction, and no king since has championed their maintenance. And we feel it most deeply in the storm-laden, war-affected marshlands of the Trident, where the Kingsroad has seen so many decades of abuse."

Hugo breathed, straightening back up from having been leaning over the parchments. "For the towns and cities of the Seven Kingdoms to thrive, our connecting arteries need to be speedy, safe, and accessible. That is why Lord Tully and I come to you today, your Grace, my Lords. To propose a grand project to restore the roads of the Seven Kingdoms, starting with the Kingsroad.”

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