It seemed that a furious storm had quickly changed Westeros while he was gone. The destruction of King's Landing had played to their benefit, but now, without the Iron Throne... the Seven Kingdoms had not been so fractured since before the Conquest. The Ironborn were crushing all the naval strength of the Reach with ease. Robert Arryn was finally dead, but the Vale was still turtling up behind the Bloody Gate. Not to mention all the weird rumours coming from the North. Both Barrowton and White Harbour were rather clean and orderly so it was hard for a child orphan to survive in the cold streets alone. All the little birds that he sent there scarcely lasted more than a few moons, so he had long ago stopped trying to keep an eye on the North. After all, it was the most secluded of the kingdoms and he thought that nothing truly important ever happened there. But now, Varys was forced to rely on hearsay and rumours from merchants. Sadly, all of them seemed more ridiculous than the previous ones.